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Steam related discussions.
Re: Force circulation steam generator design - 1 year ago
Hmmmmm… Rick, are you going to condense all this into simple, user-friendly Excel spreadsheets which can be posted on the Forum? Kenby frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Chicagoland / SACA Fall Meet - 1 year ago
Hi Jamison, If perfectly balanced, the single cylinder engine will still have a rotating primary unbalance force. It will also have a smaller secondary force that propagates along the cylinder bore twice per revolution, versus once for the primary. These can be eliminated with balance shafts or dummy pistons. Honestly, the only two ways I know to get ideal balance is to either disassembleby frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Force circulation steam generator design - 1 year ago
Hi Rick, Yeah, as much as people hate jargon, it is often necessary to avoid misunderstanding. I know of one designer who renamed so many components to suit his own fancy that people started to lose track of what was being attempted. Usually there is no problem finding a time to speak, sometimes we have to draft people to give short talks. Of course, there were the three years I prepared taby frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Force circulation steam generator design - 1 year ago
HA! I hate to think of how many times I've said that a monotube has no circulation, only to be told that I'm being too literal --- you would think the term "once-through boiler" would settle the point. I'm glad to hear someone else making the same point!by frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Chicagoland / SACA Fall Meet - 1 year ago
Hi Rick, I'll be coming in Wednesday night, following Gary Hadden's truck. He's got a few issues with the truck and would like an emergency backup ride. Anyhow, it will be interesting to see his carriage in operation again ... not a lot of poppet valve, uniflow engines on horseless carriages. Anyhow, I wanted to be there Thursday morning to meet with the LSR team since I wasn't able to makeby frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: REAL V4 Steam Engine - 1 year ago
It looks like a nice homebuilt engine. I wouldn't dare guess on a suggested price because it's a homebuilt. When dealing with production engines that were built in some number you can look at previous sales and take into account rarity and condition. When it's a one-off, there is no firm precedent. I don't think your $2,500 sounds too far off. If you want to sell via E-bay, I'd suggest setby frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Balancing an old steam engine - 1 year ago
Hey Jamison, There's a trick old machinist's used, long ago, when they had no balancing equipment and operating speeds were low. Mount the engine in such a way that it has a little give and then spin the engine up with a nice, round flywheel affixed. Carefully advance a piece of chalk towards the rim of the wheel ... feel free to use a holder and a rest. Only move the chalk in enough so thby frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Balancing an old steam engine - 1 year ago
Hi Jamison, I balance all the prototype and preproduction engines for General Motors as well as most of the dyno hardware. Some of the unbalance can't be removed without balance shafts, because it's a single cylinder engine. The BEST way to do this would be to take the engine apart, weigh the components, make up a balance bobweight from that data, and then balance on a set of level ways. Thiby frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Steam Rocket - 1 year ago
Hi Jamison, He actually built this thing originally to duplicate Evel's Snake River jump, but to do it successfully. He failed at that, got injured,swore off and tried to sell the rocket and ... apparently ... decided he needed the bucks enough to try again. A professional stunt man, with the help of Robert Truax's son (builder of Evel's machine) built as an exact a duplicate of the originalby frustrated - SteamStuff
National Steam Automobile Day - 1 year ago
I've decided that maybe SACA should apply for to have a National Steam Automobile Day here in the U.S. This seems reasonable given many of the other days that are recognized. Sometimes a national day even gets the occasional odd mention on morning driveby radio or newspaper trivia pages. The dates I've come up with, so far, are: ...…….EVENT...…………… DATE.................................OTHEby frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Doble Book - 1 year ago
Hi Andy, There's now a lot of publishers out there. I found one company doing print on demand that will go as low as single copies, and the price still is reasonable. Better yet, they will ship directly to third parties. Another firm will market through Amazon, ship to customers directly and send the profits to your account. Heaven knows how long this will last, give it another decade or soby frustrated - SteamStuff
Steam Rocket - 1 year ago
Las Vegas limo driver and amateur stuntman "Mad Mike" Hughes is at it again. Tomorrow, the Flat Earther is out to launch himself to 5,000 feet in a steam powered rocket. Hopefully this works better than his last flight. Unsurprisingly, this is done at the behest of a new show called Homemade Astronauts on The Science Channel. You can positively not make this stuff up.... Kenby frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Rectangle steam cycle - 1 year ago
Well, it was real hardware and had a better than 20 percent improvement in efficiency over a standard locomotive, so it's a bit hard to judge if anything was insufficient. The patents show that they did a lot of design and development work. By all accounts, they muffed the blower; it's hard to figure out how they pulled that off. As it is, the blower difficulties were mechanical and not inherentby frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Rectangle steam cycle - 1 year ago
Sounds reminiscent of the Anderson-McCallum vapor recompression locomotives. The patents can be found at: Forum Link The Museum of Retro Tech (an interesting website well worth the visit) also has an article: Anderson Loco Kenby frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Rectangle steam cycle - 1 year ago
Hi Rolly, I think he's proposing a non-expansive cycle, one with about 100% cutoff. The exhaust heat is mostly rejected in a heat exchanger and then goes to a condenser, but is only partly condensed. The condenser then exhausts to the feed pump back into the other side of the heat exchanger where the partial condensate is reheated by cooling off the exhaust steam. From there it goes to theby frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Doble Book - 1 year ago
I haven't heard anything for a month or so. When you talk about "the publisher", I suspect you're making a few incorrect assumptions. It's a complicated story and, even if time permitted, I wouldn't go into great detail since some of the information is possibly confidential. Jim Crank spent a lot of years, and money, gathering materials for the book ... sometimes pulling Doble docby frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Uniflow engine for solar power - 1 year ago
Terrajoule is long gone, you can see their engine at Tom Kimmel's shop during the SACA fall meet. At the moment, I have no idea where you would find an efficient uniflow engine "off the shelf". Tom also purchased the patterns to make Gary Hadden's two cylinder, double acting uniflow but there's no machined engines sitting around ready for sale … at the moment.by frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Barn Find (FS) - 1 year ago
Wow, that's amazing. I'd never heard of this machine before. What's almost as astounding is reading that the licensing fees were only $17, I miss those days....by frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Force circulation steam generator design - 1 year ago
Hmmmm...1859? Hmmmmm…..this all sounds familiar. I wrote a series on "Early Forced Recirculation" which appeared in the SACA Bulletin over 4 issues -- from the July/August 2016 issue through the January/February 2017 title. The first forced recirculation boiler I found was built by Abel Shawk and Alexander Latta for one of the earliest steam powered fire engines. Latta patentedby frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Solid fueled monotube controls. - 1 year ago
Hi Mike, The coils in the upper section certainly look like a Doble fire box...he usually had a large, empty volume surrounded by a single layer of tubes. If it isn't burning gasses up top, then I guess the flame itself is poking through the central helical coil. Eh, maybe I'm wrong again, but Abner usually tried a lot of variations on the same theme and took fresh starts only infrequently.by frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Solid fueled monotube controls. - 1 year ago
Attached find the patent for a solid fueled, monotube boiler designed by Abner Doble for the Sentinel Waggon Works in England. One worthwhile feature was the use of induced draft … the burner fan took a suction on the boiler housing rather than blowing air in. This was done on ships and stationary power plants so that you could open the door to add more fuel without having the flame blown into yby frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Solid fueled monotube controls. - 1 year ago
The Richard Smith design is really the "compensator" designed by Warren Doble but built out of hardware fittings instead of castings. Basically, it uses the principles behind the Newcomb (copied by White) flowmotor. The compensator is used with feed pumps directly driven by the steam car's engine...you won't see it on pumps driven by auxiliary engines or electric motors. It hasby frustrated - SteamStuff
Chicagoland / SACA Fall Meet - 1 year ago
Invitation to the 2019 SACA Annual Meet September 13, 14, 15, 2019 From: Leo Weibel To: SACA Club Members, The Steam Automobile Club of America (SACA) and the SACA Chicagoland Chapter invite you to attend the annual SACA meet to be held September 13 thru 15, 2019 in Berrien Springs, Michigan. This year the Meet will be held at the Fairgrounds, 9122 U.S. 139, Berrien Springs, Michiganby frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Steam Outboard - 1 year ago
Hi Mike, Yeah, I'd love to build it. I also get a kick out of the connecting rod driving the screw directly instead of via bevel gears, just a bit outrageous. The Yuba outboard did the same thing, but they installed the engine directly to the prop and encapsulated it beneath the water line. That's probably more practical but doesn't have the same artistic flair.by frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Steam Outboard - 1 year ago
I always wished I could find this one, it was about 3 years before Evinrude built his first outboard motor.by frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Steam turbine driven turbojet - 1 year ago
Possibly the most practical pieces of steam aviation technology that I've seen are the designs developed by Nathan C. Price. He started out as a Doble engineer, moved to Lockheed where he worked on various aviation steam systems and then eventually designed America's first turbojet ... which sort of fizzled out as the US discontinued funding early. Kelly Johnson designed a fighter for the engineby frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Steam turbine driven turbojet - 1 year ago
OK, I get a little queasy thinking about a million horsepower --- aircraft carriers only develop a bit over a quarter of that! The reduction gears are going to be monsters in and of themselves. I may be missing something, can't really figure out why they want such high pressures in the turbojet steam generator. You need a nozzle to deliver the steam to a turbine (and at these pressure drops iby frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: SPREADSHEETS - 1 year ago
Hi Andy, Long time no see! Glad you're still with us. Hope to see you hanging around for a while!by frustrated - SteamStuff
Re: Compound uniflow steam engine - 1 year ago
Finally managed to split the file, the first two programs made the splits larger than the original.by frustrated - SteamStuff