Burning Liquid Fuels

[Lopez Mike]

Hmm. Try keeping a bag of coal or charcoal around the house for a while. The damned dust gets out and goes everywhere. Not to mention anything that makes it up the stack. I heated my machine shop with an automatic stoker heater for some years. The dust sized clinkers and black gunk went everywhere.

At least the ashes from my wood fuel just depart with a whisk broom and a dusting rag.

[JonRiley56]

Point well made Mike .... I will stick with wood

Jon

[Cyruscosmo]

Hey Fred

I have been looking for picture examples of boats using liquid fuel and ran across a puzzling picture on Rainer Radows steamboat registry. http://www.steamboating.de/steamboat/st ... ol-ann.php

This boiler clearly has a wood-burning firebox but also has what appears to be a tangentially introduced burner of the steam atomized oil variety and is that also an air amplifier plumbed through a valve from the top?

There is an orange hose coming up through the floorboards connected to the nozzle through a needle valve. I believe that is the oil feed line? Am I correct?

This is what I would like to setup for my own boat, as this area has no end to a wood supply. And also the place I work has no end to a waste oil supply so I would like to make use of both.

Any idea what the specs are on the engine? I am finding conflicting information.

Cyruscosmo

[fredrosse]

It looks to me that the tangential burner may be propane fired? That would match the setup I originally had before putting in the silent home heating burners on the Margaret S. Just conjecture on my part here, perhaps you could contact the owner?

[Cyruscosmo]

Hey Fred

I have been unable at this point to locate a method of contacting the owner of Carol Ann. I will keep looking but in the mean time I found another picture.

This one shows the unit with a valve for the air amplifier and a line to the T of the atomizer that looks remakably like the one Bart has on Ottar.

It looks as though the steam is coming from a "superheater" of it's own. Either that or it has a direct line to the boiler with no valve. But I am going to guess that the tube you see next to it which goes into the fire chamber is the same one coming back out again and it has a valve just before it goes in.

Cyruscosmo

[fredrosse]

Yes, clearly an oilburner with the superheated steam line to the burner. I was thrown off by the first pictures, as the orange fuel line is the same color as the propane lines I originally had from Harbor Freight. Looks like a good way to superfire the boiler for racing.

[farmerden]

Just got back from McConnel Is. Steamed over on contaminated deezal and waited two and a half hours at Roche Harbour to clear customs. Luckily I had swiched to wood and was able to maintain pressure and manouver with those fancy tupaware boats [you know -the ones with bow thrusters, stern thrusters, radar] we did just fine! The customs officer loved the smell of wood smoke and even let us "water up " before we cleared customs -so technically we were still aliens! Another idea for atomizing burners is to run an air compressor to generate pressure on the atomizer til enough steam pressure is built up. This eliminates the need to carry wood at all!!

[Cyruscosmo]

Hello Steam Queen

I am toying around with a fire box that can use either wood or whatever stinky oil I can find as fuel. This place is crawling with wood so I would be a bit dumb to make a boiler that can not use it. The company across the street from where I work trashes 5 to 10 non deposit pallets a day. These pallets are made for one time use and are poorly built and untreated. But they are hardwood and can be cut and bundled into tight stacks.

I am curently piecing together a hand driven air pump. Think of the old hand driven bench grinders with a vane pump instead of a grinding wheel. The atomizing burner I use for shop heat only requires 4 psi which should be easy to keep up with. I changed out the high pressure pump on a home heating unit for an air pump out of a bullet heater. Then changed the high pressure tip for a low pressure air atomizing tip. The unit works good so far on waste oil. I still have some tweeking to do though.

If I run out of propane I can use the hand pump. If I run out of matches I can rub two sticks together. If I run out of waste oil I can use wood. If I run out of wood then I have definatly drifted too far out to sea...

What I definatly want to avoid is any kind of relience on an electrical system. Mechanical is fine by me.

Cyruscosmo

[artemis]

For those interested in different types of fuels, the best advice (after 45 years in this hobby) is to go to a meet where there will be several steamboats. My experience (at least on the west coast of the USA) is that you'll find boats that burn wood; wood with oil; wood started by oil, or propane, or actylene; propane; charcoal ...
.
The best way to experience each is to look at the various boats and, when available, go for a ride. The Northwest Steam Society meet in August is being held this year in Cathlamet, OR, ( http://www.northweststeamsociety.org ) select the "2015 meet" button from the navigation area for more info on dates, etc. Also the B & W (marina) - Sacramento Delta Meet is held the last weekend in September near Isleton, CA. You can contact Jerry Blaine at steamit@oldtimetech.com for more info.