The Steamboating Forum

Is it ok to sandblast the water tubes on my boiler? Or is it not nescesary.

http://s1117.beta.photobucket.com/user/ ... 8.jpg.html

Sandblasting your tubes would not be recommended. It will clean off all the deposits, but leave a surface that is prone to gain new deposits much more quickly than the original tube surface. In addition, sandblasting removes metal, and eventually could wear away thin tube walls.

In power plant practice, Walnut shell blasting is popular to clean deposits from some oil fired boiler tube surfaces, and more recently CO2 blasting has been used. Either of these methods clean the tubes without harming them. There is also another method, using "elbow grease", but that is rather expensive stuff these days.

When I used a wood fired boiler, with 5/8 OD tubes carying hot water, creosote would build up on the tube surfaces over the winter. There was a compound that I bought to spread on the burning wood, and this stuff made the creosote deposits become like frailable ash, easy to brush off after the fire was off. Wood stove supply stores sell this stuff, unless the EPA has outlawed it since the 1990's.

Thanks Fred,

Sounds like less work for me!

Fred,
What sort the wood were you burning that left creosote deposits? The mostly fir I'm using now isn't the greatest some of the time for BTU output but so far there is nothing but soft soot in my tubes.
Mike

Whatever wood that could be had in the forest of eastern Pennsylvania was collected and burned, I would usually spend about 6 hours out in the woods with tractor, trailer, and chain saw cutting up deadwood for a week's heating supplies. I would also often burn "slab wood" from the local sawmill, the trimmings left over from turning logs into lumber. This wood was usually Poplar or Red Oak, and had high moisture. At the time I was burning about a cord of wood every two weeks, and the creosote deposits were fairly well attached and relatively hard when building up on the tube surfaces. They could be scraped off with metal or a stiff steel wire brush, but rather difficult within the tube bundle. This level of deposits corresponds to burning about 6 cords of wood (about 20,000 pounds of fuel) between annual cleanings.

O.K., troops. Fred burned 20 cords of wood in his boat!!! He must have done an Atlantic crossing!

I suspect I am misunderstanding all of this. This for heating your house, right?

I have burned perhaps two or three hundred pounds of mostly fir in Folly this last season. I have yet to need to remove any ashes from the pan and the flues look black but there doesn't seem to be any buildup. I will run a brush down there before I steam in the Spring. Maybe not so much heat in fir but it sure burns clean.

Mike

Lopez Mike wrote:O.K., troops. Fred burned 20 cords of wood in his boat!!! He must have done an Atlantic crossing!

On patrol with the Atlantic Fleet.

I wish for an Atlantic crossing, maybe a trip down the Mississippi where I can buy fuel along the way, as I only, at best, can go about 60 miles between fueling on the Margaret S. But on the Mississippi there is some flowing current, maybe if I go downstream...?.

Yes, the experience I quoted above is for heating a big old leaky stone farmhouse in rural PA. , much much more than we burn in the steamboats, and of course much much more creosote deposits.

Fred,
You (and everyone who likes paddle wheelers) should see the film The Triplets of Belleville.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Triplets_of_Belleville
The foot powered paddle boat crossing of the Atlantic by the grandmother is classic.

Mike