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Re: Stanley Feedwater Automatic Questions - 4 years ago

Micro-progress report/Post-Script: Last night I completed the shop drawings for the Feed Water Automatic By-Pass , Low Water Automatic Safety Fuel Shut-Off , and Steam Automatic . Parts count is 33, 29, and 28, respectively; 90 total. That's a lot of parts to design and draw up in 5 days; lots of "midnight oil burning". Whew. Technically the Steam Automatic drawings are "semi-r

Re: Stanley Feedwater Automatic Questions - 4 years ago

Wonderful Mountain Wagon, Pat! Sadly, despite having visited Loveland CO, where they earned their name, I have yet to see one in person. One of these days... Thank you for the information on the Feed Water Automatic Bypass & Low Water Automatic Fuel Shutoff; much appreciated. I hope to put this information to good use. I thought that the Feed Water Automatic Bypass _might_ have been sta

Re: Stanley Feedwater Automatic Questions - 4 years ago

Thanks Pat! Are those numbers for a 20hp Stanley? Wow, 9" thermal-expansion tube on the Low Water Automatic -- the drawing I found/posted shows something like 20"! I trust your numbers, not the old drawing. The 20-inch tube would work, but it doesn't need to be that long. Peter

Re: Stanley Feedwater Automatic Questions - 4 years ago

Here is an illustration of the Stanley Low Water Automatic, with some details, but alas no info on the diaphragm seal. It is the drawing at the top of the sheet. The illustration at the bottom of the sheet shows a different device which seems to use an expansion tube to turn on/off an electrical switch depending on boiler water level. I think it also has a control input from a pressure-sensi

Re: Stanley Feedwater Automatic Questions - 4 years ago

Hi Rolly, The Stanley Low Water Automatic Shut-Off looks very similar to the Feed Water Automatic; brass expansion tube flanked by steel rods. An interesting difference is that the fuel valve stem, if we can call it that, passes through a sealed flexible diaphragm instead of a stuffing box. That eliminates a potential leak point for high-pressure fuel; good design feature. I am going to chec

Re: Stanley Feedwater Automatic Questions - 4 years ago

Thanks, Rolly! No problems; I was thinking maybe somebody was working on one recently, and might happen to have the numbers fresh in mind,to give me an "R&D starting point". . After recent blueprinting work and research, I think the ball/port/expansion-tube sizes are decently easy to change, test & tune. My target vehicle, and modern driving conditions, are different from

Re: Stanley Feedwater Automatic Questions - 4 years ago

Hi Ron, Many years ago, David Nergaard said that the Stanley feed water automatic was pretty fast-reacting, like full open/shut in a couple seconds. I have read about and seen photos of many steam cars with ofeldt, bolsover, and other light water tube boilers, equipped with Stanley or ofeldt style expansion tube feed water controllers. Hi Rolly, Thanks for the information on how the bo

Re: Stanley Feedwater Automatic Questions - 4 years ago

Re: Stanley Feedwater Automatic Questions - 4 years ago

15.25" long red brass expansion tube, 1/4" nominal Schedule 40, 1/2" valve ball on 0.348" port , gives same flow restriction through bypass valve as through Stanley feed water pump check valves. Tube wall psi loading in 1/4" nominal brass pipe [0.540" OD x 0.0.364" ID; 0.088" wall thickness] at 500psig boiler pressure is extremely low; no need for Schedule

Stanley Feedwater Automatic Questions - 4 years ago

I found a jpeg of what looks like an old Light Steam Power drawing/plan of a Stanley Feed Water Automatic. Ron posted it here under the "Resonant Circuit" thread, and I also found a version of it at steamcar.net, but both scans are fuzzy/grainy, with some of the dimensions almost impossible to read. It looks like the brass expansion tube is marked 1/2" OD x 16 gauge wall x 15.25

Re: Steam powered go kart update - 4 years ago

Excellent, Jamison! That should make boiler burnouts much less likely than with manual feed water control. I like the way you built the Feed Water Automatic; looks solid and simple. I will be starting a new thread on those things in a minute. Another possibility to practically eliminate any chance of a scorched boiler is to build another expansion tube, located closer to the bottom of the dr

Re: Stanley fusible plug - 4 years ago

On his page at stanleymotorcarriage.com, Robert E. Wilhelm states that the success of the expansion-tube Low Water Automatic that led the Stanley Brothers to adopt the expansion-tube Feed Water Automatic.

Re: Doble Boiler - 4 years ago

I think [?] the Model E was a Woolf compound; don't know about the model D.

Re: Doble Boiler - 4 years ago

Hi Rick, There's lots of Kryptonite holes in my "super powers". LOL. But you never know what's in the old memory banks... sometimes I don't know what I know either until I think about it, then it's "whoa, I can't believe I remembered all that!" Other times, it's "I can't believe I _don't_ remember that!" -- note the Stanley Fusible Plug thread. On your list,

Re: Stanley fusible plug - 4 years ago

Thanks Pat. For "explaining power", it's hard to beat the names of the 3 automatics given in the Stanley Model 740 booklet "Pointed Questions And Direct Answers Covering The Stanley Steam Car". In the propulsion system diagram in that booklet, the Steam Automatic is called the "Steam Pressure Regulator", the Feed Water Automatic is called the "Boiler Water Le

Re: Steam powered go kart update - 4 years ago

Steel melts at 2500 degrees F.

Re: How would I build my boiler - 4 years ago

Hi Ron, "I've read that quite a few times about the Ofeldt having too much open space and letting gas through etc. However, shooting the exhaust gas temperatures which are close to the steam temperature, there is nothing else to be had. " Right on! Peter

Re: Stanley fusible plug - 4 years ago

Hi Pat, I have long followed the terminology in the 1918 Stanley booklet "A Complete Description Of The Stanley Steam Car". Page 22: "The Stanley Car is fitted with three automatic regulators... the feed-water automatic bypass, the low-water automatic shut-off, and the steam automatic..." I simplify those to "Feed Water Automatic, Low Water Automatic, and Steam

Re: Stanley fusible plug - 4 years ago

Thanks Rolly and Pat! Fascinating detailed information, and great photos. Before reading your replies, I did not fully understand how the Stanley fusible plugs were plumbed, or precisely how they worked, or why they were later replaced with the expansion-tube Low Water Automatic. Now I do. Stanley cars had no lack of ingenuity. Changing fusible plugs every 2-3 weeks, hmm. Well, I guess tha

Re: Stanley fusible plug - 4 years ago

Interesting that the temperature of the steam output from a Stanley boiler seems to vary with the water level... at least below a certain level... 467F being the temperature of saturated steam at 500psi, but the lead fusible plug doesn't melt until 621F, which apparently is the temperature of steam from the firetube section when water level there drops to 3". Normal water level in a 14&qu

Re: Stanley fusible plug - 4 years ago

Judging by information in my files, it seems that the drilled plug design was a non-standard aftermarket design, and that the standard Stanley fusible plug was just a small pipe nipple filled with lead. The 1906 Stanley Instruction Manual gives the melting point of lead as 618 degrees Fahrenheit; Machinery's Handbook says 621F. A 1/8" nominal pipe nipple would be 0.269" ID for Schedule

Stanley fusible plug - 4 years ago

I can't find my drawing of the Stanley fusible plug. I may have to redraw it. It was based on a description by a Stanley owner who made his own. I seem to recall that it is a solid pipe plug drilled through with a 1/4 inch drill bit, then taper reamed with a taper pin reamer from the steam side, then filled with lead something like 1/2 inch thick. He said that his was located such that

Re: Doble Boiler - 4 years ago

Sweet test bench setup! Very professional. Window to see the fire, good to have. What are you using for the window? My guess is borosilicate/"Pyrex"? In the way old days they used clear mica fire windows -- still available from McMaster...

Re: Cleaning out the vaporizer - 4 years ago

Micro progress report: blueprinting on my "Easy-Clean" semi-automatic vaporizing burner steam-clean system is going well; design is now worked out, now detail/component drawings. Just named & numbered all the major parts in drawing index; self-imposed tedious paperwork/bureaucracy; only a few off the shelf fasteners left to name/number. If this system works as well as I think it will

Re: How would I build my boiler - 4 years ago

Hi Rick, Some time back George Nutz noted that supercritical boilers, or boilers running close to "SC", cannot use natural circulation because the density of the vapor is too close to that of the liquid! Actually, when you are right at the supercritical point, I think the vapor and liquid have the same density... by definition? I don't know what happens above the SC point; I think j

Re: How would I build my boiler - 4 years ago

Hi Rick, Yeah, you dropped the bait and float, like fishin' for croppie or bluegill, and I "bit", then I kicked myself for biting. Reel me in, man. Am I a man, or a fish? Who's fishing who here? The fisherman's dilemma. Anyone who's fished the wily croppie or bluegill knows whereof I speak. Anyone hip to 1980s music will spot the ref to "are we not men? We are DEVO!&qu

Re: How would I build my boiler - 4 years ago

15" circulation head for previous boiler setup, plus 60 flowpaths. All gibberish until you do the math. Look up the Bryan boiler to get an idea; my design is closely based on that.

Re: How would I build my boiler - 4 years ago

But seriously folks, Hiram Maxim beat all the steam car guys in lbs/hr/steam/sqft & lbs/hr/weight/boiler-cost steam generation. With shorter/more-numerous recirculation flowpaths than he used, it could easily be done without the jet-booster circulation he used, just natural circulation and very small drums to take up the "boiler swell". 3/8" OD x 0.020 wall copper tubes; 6 fo

Re: How would I build my boiler - 4 years ago

Hi Rick, Beat my record of "most words per post"? I don't think so! I can beat your attempt. And here I go. I... uh... wait, what were we talking about? Were we talking about something? LOL Peter

Re: Vintage LSR vehicles - 4 years ago

Hi Don, I don't take sides on this issue, or most other controversies lately, but I wanted to mention that I have seen arguments in both directions on that topic. It has been said that with the right boiler/burner designs, a car with a no-storage or minimal-storage steam generator could beat a steam car running mostly or entirely on stored energy, even in relatively short speed-record runs. I