Walt wrote: > Plug it in, turn on the control, and in a short time the gallon of > distilled water will be nice and warm - maybe even hot.
Along the same lines I've been using my 55 cup party percolator for that same job for 3 years now. I thoroughly scrubbed the interior and now it is the distilled water dispenser year around. In the summer we don't plug it in but now it's cooler so we power up for our monthly runs. I use a 1 quart Pyrex measuring cup to transfer water from the hot percolator to engines or tenders. I first learned about doing this while visiting Pete Comley up in the Seattle area. He was using his 30 cup unit for the same purpose. As Walt says, it does cut down on the steam up time considerably and saves fuel too. I'll bet everyone out there has a party percolator sitting on the shelf or in a storage closet waiting for the next party. Get it out and put it into service. It can still be used for coffee when needed. Clark, who lives in sunny Las Vegas. :) Happy Turkey Day all. PS One caution. Don't add hot water to an engine where the butane tank is in the tender while it is lit. I personally observed a person add hot water to an operating engine that has the butane tank in the tender. The fuel pressure suddenly rose when the hot water hit the tank. This burst the black neoprene line that carries the gas from the tender to the burner. Now we had a fan of flames shooting out between the tender and the rear of the cab. The operator was able to reach in and cut off the fuel flow and it was all over in 10 seconds. (This was a Aster K-4) Which brings up another safety item. Inspect and if needed replace those fuel line annually. The event I described above made a believer out of me. Sure enough my K-4 had old rotten and cracked black tubing between the tender and engine. Yes it worked okay in the summer with just regular water in the tender. BUT I'm sure if I had put HOT (160 degrees +) water in the tender I would have suffered the same result. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. PAY ATTENTION AND TOSS THE TUBING ANNUALLY. _______________________________________________ SSLiveSteam mailing list Send messages: [email protected] Cancel subscription: http://postfix.45mm.com/mailman/listinfo/sslivesteam Rules: http://www.45mm.com/sslivesteam_guide.html
