The Steamboating Forum

We finally did it! A new steam boat enters the world! The boat is registered, I got everything I needed, and the engine is ready. Note the 70 year old 2stroke outboard in the background that already left me stranded in the water, it's days are numbered. IMG_2140.jpg First thing's first, I did the ne...

I did some things. I've been working on a bigger lamont boiler but I had to pause to do family summer stuff and during the break I got the itch for boating again. So I've been working on the little boiler and the outboard. I want to make a small modification to it, which is automatic water level mai...

Step 2: Draw the rest of the owl. It ended up being much simpler than I thought it would once I made some design compromises. The engine will be mounted with the crankshaft vertical, and connected using a chain. Also I decided it wasn't worth trying to seal the vertical tube, so I added another mech...

After all the work making a nice propeller and all the jazz, I've decided to go in the outboard direction. I don't want to have to cut a bunch of holes in my boat to install the propeller and mount the engine. Plus my propeller feels a bit fragile. Over the winter I ordered a few sets of angle grind...

Slow going on any work that must be done outside, so I made some work that I could do inside. First, it took entirely too long, but I am almost done with restoring the 14ft aluminum v-hull. IMG_1613 Copy.jpg It looks really nice. I'm going to spend the winter figuring out how to install the engine a...

When I was writing my thesis on steam engines, my professor found a valve passage size equation in an old engineering book. It's on a tab in my big steam engine spreadsheet that I posted elsewhere here, but here it is: Recommended Minimum passage area (in^2) = Piston area (in^2) * Mean Piston Speed ...

Yes, the cylinder is off the shelf (chinese) pneumatic cylinder from amazon. I work with these cylinders every day, they usually have viton o-rings and either stainless steel or chromed piston rods. The only thing the look out for is that the ports are often BSP instead of NPT. The steel parts are l...

Little progress. Mostly waiting for parts to arrive and budget for parts. I was finally able to place my order for stainless steel bolts to actually finish putting the boat together. The lack of progress plus the impending cold temperatures are causing my attention to wander. Since my engine no long...

My hand pump is very crude looking, but very cheap and easy. It's literally an industrial pneumatic cylinder, and a couple pneumatic check valves. Most industrial air cylinders are good to 150-200psi, and are aluminum and stainless steel. They can be had for a pittance on Amazon or wherever. Just pa...

I hated that propeller hub so I made a smaller one. Also I have everything together now, except for a longer stainless steel shaft which should be arriving today. Other than that it's time to get all the stainless steel bolts and such for putting the seats and such on the boat. IMG_1536.jpg Unlike t...