The Steamboating Forum

barts wrote:

87gn@tahoe wrote:Bart,

What about a main engine-mounted compressor to air atomize waste motor oil? Or a disel injection pump for common rail disels (no pulses, just a solid flow of 1000's of psi) to pressure atomize the oil?

Well, the compressor would suck a lot of power, so I'll skip that... we don't need thousands of psi for direct oil spraying; a few hundred is more than enough from what I got talking to the guys on the Jeremiah O'Brien. The nozzle is tricky, and requires close tolerances to get a nice spray pattern; if one uses waste oil they get beat up more quickly. A steam operated pump is what most ships use for that service, but a small gear pump would work well here. Oil burner pumps work in this service.

One of the advantages of using a steam atomizing burner is that they create a substantial draft.

=- Bart

You could regulate the pressure, though I would think that the higher the pressure, the better the atomization. Hence why disels use such high pressures.

If the waste oil is thoroughly cleaned (my centrifuge can clean it down to 2 microns or less depending on feed rate) nozzle erosion would be no more than regular disel, and probably significantly less than the bunker C that the boys on the Jeremiah would have used during WWII.

Draft would be a plus, but draft from a source that doesn't waste water or HP would be better... hint hint

Six of one, half a dozen of another

"Y'know, those hills used to be covered with trees before those steam launch people showed up and cut them all down."

Bart, do you have an F key on your computer that produces the phrase, "smelly long-chain hydrocarbon"?

What have I started!

Mike

If you type in disel (intentionally misspelled) the site's curse word filter changes it to that phrase.

Lopez Mike wrote:"Y'know, those hills used to be covered with trees before those steam launch people showed up and cut them all down."

Bart, do you have an F key on your computer that produces the phrase, "smelly long-chain hydrocarbon"?

What have I started!

Mike

A long meandering conversation about burning drift wood?

Overall the distances are pretty large - but it's not the Arctic , and there are places to refuel. A maximum range of 350 miles would be ideal from what I've read for conventional boats in terms of marinas, etc., and would provide sufficient range for looking around.

- Bart

Ahhhhhhh, the voice of experience now is heard.

When I owned Artemis I initially used wood for firing the replacement boiler and filled most of the boat interior with wood for one day's steaming - Fire Canoe was a war surplus USCG motor surf rescue boat, 26' LOA 8' beam and replica hulls in fiberglass are currently sold by Mosquito Enterprises http://www.mosquitoenterprises.com (visit the website for more details of the hull). Tommy did not usually "stuff" the hull full of wood, but did carry lots of building materials to the family summer home on McConnell Island; perhaps you confused the purpose of the wood being carried. After several months I ADDED oil firing (there isn't much drifwood on the Columbia River in the Portland, OR area) and utilized a steam atomizing burner AND stack blower with a pressure reducing valve set at 18psi (described somewhere(s) in these pages). After getting the system settled down, I took the time to measure the quantity of makeup water used with wood burning and with oil firing. With a 3" + 5" x 4.5" compound in reasonably good condition and consuming about 200 pounds of steam per hour, I used approximately (with no whistle blowing) about 2# of steam per hour, i.e. 1%. Using steam atomizing oil burning with stack blower the makeup water increased to slightly over 4#/hr or 2% of total hourly steam consumption. I used a steam atomizing burner that came with Artemis when I bought her and a quality, small volume, commercial pressure reducing valve (this has also be described elsewhere(s) in this forum).

I missed the smell of wood smoke but did not have to tow a "wood barge" behind me, nor increase the capacity of my water tanks.

Talk with other NWSS steamboaters in your area like: Russ Hibler, Stephanie Hylton, Keith Sternberg, Gordon Sullivan, John Campbell, Jack Thompson (Tommy's brother), etc.

Finally got a smog pump apart today. It is off a British sports car (Lucas. Hmmm.) It's fairly small compared to the one off of my big V8.

It has two carbon vanes that are controlled such that they don't quite contact the outer walls of the eccentric chamber. So it cannot produce any significant pressure unless it is really spinning up. But it can work as a blower and produce a fair volume. If I were to use a decent sized duct (5/8" I.D. minimum) and not restrict it very much at the nozzle end, I think it would do fine as a stack blower. I would arrange it such that I engaged it by swinging it to tighten the drive belt so I could dis-engage it when backing.

The bearings are all full of hardened grease and who knows what else so I will set it aside for now. I'm in love with the removable propane weed burner as well. Too many ideas and not enough time.

Mike

Going back to the orignal question ... To burn drift wood which is usually damp you need to have something like a Dutch oven There was a steam powered saw mill near here that used all off-cuts to fire the boiler. They used a similar setup (on a much larger scale). Essentially the wood was burned separately and the hot combustion gases passed over to the boiler.

The above illustration is out of Steamboats & MSL Jan-Feb 61 pg 24. The extra combustion space allows the wood to dry.

Oil seems easier

Cheers

Paul

You are probably right on all counts. But, as I've heard politicians say, "You gotta dance with them as brung you." I'm dealing with the boiler I have now.

I will probably get by with dry wood. I may build a propane burner that I can fit on a moment's notice and haul along a 20 pound bottle. I've even seen setups where they dribble any old oil on the wood fire to extend the range.

The blower/induced draft idea is just a plot to try to extend my cruising range using what ever I find along the way, some of which my have some moisture or not have wonderful heating properties (understatement!).

Bart is planning on solving the range issue by building a bigger boat. I'm thinking of ways to sort of 'live off of the land' so to speak. I'm sure even nuttier ideas will surface. (I hope).

But I do love to get input. It just may not be easy for me to use it.

Mike

Hey! Are you talking about a "hybrid" type of set up that can burn anything? Re-cycled motor oil, used fast-food joint grease, heavey oil, lite oil etc...it seems with an injector + heat set up this would be workable. And I've always wondered, would an old natural gas residential water heater valve and burner set up work? Most are about 30,000 BTUs, and can easily be re-brassed for bottle gas. Would 30,000 be enough to fire the boiler proper? I think the gas burner set up could be easily fashioned so as to be removable/installable on the fly, sort of a spare tire thing. The cylinder may fit in under-seat storage. Do you "temper" the wet stuff when you use it? Addin one piece here and again to a good fire, as opposed to running through all the dry, then going to all wet stuff? Lots of options here, you really opened a can of worms! It's all good though!

Oops- sorry my bad- found the recent thread with all this stuff in it, about three minutes after I posted- looks like 35 k burner would come up a bit short.