Thanks for the info Steve,
The drip feed on the logging loco was smoky--except when the builder fired
it-he had it down to a fine art!
Geoff.
Thanks SteveSusan, Geoff, Walt and the List:
>
>My sailboat had a gimbled, single-burner Primus kerosene stove that was
>often in use under way. I always considered kerosene a safe fuel, because
>to extinguish the stove one opened a vent valve in the fuel tank to
>depressurize it, and the vent valve was adjacent to the burner. This is not
>something that a gasoline or alcohol stove would allow.
>
>The Primus burner is preheated by a small open alcohol flame. After it burns
>a minute or so the fuel tank is pumped to deliver liquid kerosene to the
>burner. The kerosene vaporizes, burns above a jet, and plays on the
>vaporizing portion of the burner to keep it hot. The fuel tank is sealed.
>Heat conducts from the burner down the supply tube to the tank and
>pressurizes the air above the kerosene, which pushes it up the supply line
>to the burner. There was no flame regulation on my stove except to release
>pressure in the tank as required.
>
>There is essentially no vaporized kerosene in the Primus fuel tank. If one
>pumps the fuel before the burner is hot enough to vaporize it then the
>burner floods, but no flare up occurs. Kerosene needs to be hot to really
>burn.
>
>I had a second primus stove in my shop that ran on paint thinner that had
>been used to clean paint brushes. The paint and varnish solids in the
>thinner were allowed to settle before decanting the clear liquid off the
>top. I do not recommend paint thinner as a fuel and only mention it because
>it worked, and the paint thinner seemed to have a lot fewer BTU's than
>kerosene.
>
>Aladdin in the UK used to make small kerosene space heaters for use in
>yachts. Maybe their burner design, which uses a wick, could be adapted to
>small steam locomotive use. Sears used to sell kerosene space heaters that
>had a drip-feed burner similar to what Geoff described on his logging loco.
>They required a stovepipe connection to a chimney so they must have smoked a
>lot. I had one in a drafty old house North Carolina, but I never took it
>apart to see how it worked because it was my only source of heat.
>
>I have have experimented with an Aladdin lamp burner, and fiddled with other
>small kerosene lamps, and I have concluded that there are some real subtle
>aspects to wick-type kerosene burner design. Without a chimney a kerosene
>lamp will be very smokey and have an orange flame because of incomplete
>combustion. My guess is that the chimney holds the heat around the wick and
>burner which helps to vaporize the kerosene and improve combustion. With the
>chimney in place and a correctly-trimmed wick a kerosene lamp burns hot and
>brightly.
>
>Steve
>
