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Unidentifiable Live Steam Engine


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Hi, just a quick update, yes their is a solid fuel Burner under the boiler.

This afternoon, after it stoped raining, I took it in to the garden.

I had some Mamod solid fuel blocks, but unfortunatly they are old and would not light.

So I resorted on the old cotton wool and Metholated Spirits.

Not shore what gauge of tube the boiler is made from, but it took a eternity for it to get up to temperature.

I got it to whistle, but I did not have enough fuel to get it to run and I ran out of time.

 

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Further update on the Bizzare Engine.

After leaving it to cool down, I had another look at it.

On removing the Pistons from the cylinders, I noticed that they are not solid Brass.

It would appear that their is a Solid Brass Conecting Rod, but the Conecting Rod goes in to a thin Brass Tube and it is held in the Tube with some sort of Resin, all most like Fiberglass Resin.

 

I understand how the person who made it, was planning on it working.

But I am struggling to work out why they went about it, in the way they have done.

Solder appears to be Hard Solder, wheels are Solid Machined Brass, so they had some Engineering knolege/Ability, but why make a Piston out of Resin.

 

I am thinking that I am going to blank off the 2 outlets from the Boiler.

I can remove the wisle and replace it with controle valve, feeding the cylinders.

That way I would have some controle.

 

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20 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Running will be fun; it’ll probably have enough friction to overcome that it’ll have 2 speeds, stop and escape velocity.  My prediction is that it’ll only manage a short distance before the combination of the rigid chassis and oscillating cylinders will bounce it off whatever it’s running on, turning into an unguided missile full of boiling water and steam under pressure, with lit fuel to add to the mix, and the outcome, depending on what it hits, will be somewhere within the range of hysterical laughter, personal injury, or something that results in emergency service attendance. 

 

I’d give it a lot of room and stand well back!

I imagine this is pretty much the reaction when someone announced they had invented the space rocket.

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14 hours ago, Andrew Edwards said:

 

I am thinking that I am going to blank off the 2 outlets from the Boiler.

I can remove the wisle and replace it with controle valve, feeding the cylinders.

That way I would have some controle.

 

 

Do not do this. It is a very dangerous idea. Unless you also fit a separate safety valve directly to the boiler, then you WILL have a boiler explosion. With no safety valve you MUST have the boiler directly connected to the cylinders without a throttle or anything else that could restrict the flow.

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I thought ‘early teenage project’ when I saw it, on the basis that I built something not hugely different, and equally unsound, when I was about 12 or 13.

 

Ignorance, incompetence, and lots of enthusiasm were what went into it, and I did learn a few things along the way.

 

 

Edited by Nearholmer
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On 23/04/2019 at 09:37, smokebox said:

I wouldn't be surprised if the boiler had been soft soldered.

The Late Jack Wheldon once hydraulically pressure tested a soft soldered Mamod boiler.

 

At 200psi, the boiler was visibly bulged but was still water tight.

 

i believe that today's various steam toys (Mamod, Wilesco etc) are still constructed thus.

 

They run at around 15 -20 psi.

 

Above that you are into the realms of the silver soldered copper boiler, where the higher pressures are used to make the locomotive a useful machine capable of pulling more the skin off a rice pudding and sustaining that work for a considerable time.

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23 minutes ago, Titan said:

The limiting factor on a soft soldered boiler is the solder itself. The boiler may well withstand 200psi cold, but the solder will melt  before it gets to 200psi on steam.

 

I'd need my steam tables to confirm that, my gut instinct is that steam at 200psi is still well below the melting point of soft solder.

 

And this tinpot boiler isn't going to get anywhere near that

 

I doubt it has a seamed tube, seamless is easier to find, so the next calculation would be the shear strength of the solder based on the joint dimensions and the area of the boiler ends. 

 

Richard

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5 minutes ago, Titan said:

Well the boiling point at 200psi is around 200 degerees centigrade. I thought that most soft solder melted at lower temperatures than that.

 

 

 

Told you I needed my steam tables (last seen in 1982)

 

Yes, you are right!

 

Richard

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