Steve, We missed seeing you at Dan's today. I had hoped to get a look at your dry firebox boiler setup. It sounds like a great idea.
I hope all is well. Take care, Mike -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Steve Shyvers Sent: Monday, April 23, 2007 7:23 AM To: Small-scale live steam discussions Subject: [SSLiveSteam] Alcohol Firing a Standard Roundhouse Butane Boiler Succeeded yesterday with a successful experiment to alcohol-fire a Roundhouse single-flue butane boiler. It was a bench test using a simple add-on firebox and a two-wick burner. No fancy calculations involved. Most dimensions guesstimated. This first test with little more than a mock-up of an external firebox blew the safety after not too many minutes and simply amazed me. My last two loco projects were not brilliant in the firing department until after a lot of experimentation and rebuilding. The firebox was fabricated from olive oil can sheet metal and silver-brazed. It fits under the aft 50mm of the boiler, and an extension wraps up around the back of the boiler to connect the firebox to the existing single flue. The wicks are positioned below the boiler's aft end, which makes the boiler a C-type. Right now the boiler wrapper is holding the firebox onto the boiler by means of flanges along the upper edges of the firebox that are slipped under the wrapper before it's cinched tight. Properly it should have a more secure method of mounting, and there should be some sort of sealant to prevent leaks that might interfere with the draft. The burner's two wick holders are each 11mm inside dia and 20mm deep inside (fabricated from std copper pipe and pipe caps.) The wick holders are spaced 20mm apart. I did a proper job and silver-brazed the burner and fuel sump assemblies. The idea was that if the experiment were a success, then these parts would be good for the final version and not need to be made again. Otherwise they could be re-used in some other project. To create a draft for the fire I rigged a blast nozzle in the smokebox (standard Roundhouse) and fed it with an air jet from a garden sprayer that's been setup as a low-pressure compressed air supply. The blast nozzle was positioned below the narrowest part of the stack a distance equal to the three times the stack's narrowest inside diameter. The nozzle height is adjustable, and some experimentation must be done for the optimal blast nozzle oriface size and position. Blast nozzle (a piece of K&S 1/8 inch brass tubing) oriface was 3/32 inch for the test. Probably bigger than necessary. In a few days I will try to post a photo or two of the bench test setup, the burner assembly, and the firebox. Steve Duke of Spam -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://postfix.45mm.com/pipermail/sslivesteam/attachments/20070423/0d70843a/ attachment.html _______________________________________________ SSLiveSteam mailing list Send messages: [email protected] Cancel subscription: http://postfix.45mm.com/mailman/listinfo/sslivesteam Rules: http://www.45mm.com/sslivesteam_guide.html _______________________________________________ SSLiveSteam mailing list Send messages: [email protected] Cancel subscription: http://postfix.45mm.com/mailman/listinfo/sslivesteam Rules: http://www.45mm.com/sslivesteam_guide.html
