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Re: 4 cycle Flash Steam Engine - 5 years ago

Way to go. There is so much negativity in the world; "Do something positive and productive instead" is my motto. For me, that means making steam power useful and fun.

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: 4 cycle Flash Steam Engine - 5 years ago

d00d, you rock!! ,thanks for those links!

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Vintage LSR vehicles - 5 years ago

Whoa, is that Austin Powers and Mrs.Kensington dancing in the audience at 02.11? LOL Gerry & The Pacemakers - Ferry Cross The Mersey (1965); Top Of The Pops, in case the YouTube link changes in the future....

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Vintage LSR vehicles - 5 years ago

The thing that really bugs me about the "record-sanctioning authorities" banning storage boilers is the idea that they could look at a recirculatiing/water-tube boiler with small drums, which generates virtually all the power used during the run, and "disqualify" it because there is some use of "stored energy". So an LSR EV running on 100% pre-stored energy would be

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Vintage LSR vehicles - 5 years ago

Hi Jeremy and Ron, I only say things like that because of racing/record sanctioning bodies which require "non-storage type" boilers when storage type boilers are well proven, over 100 years of steam car use, to not blow up. Lots of pushed-too-hard IC racers/record cars have blown off cylinder heads and had other explosions; do they get banned? No. Yet zero steam cars with "sto

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Vintage LSR vehicles - 5 years ago

I have to apologize. i don't know what I was thinking, posting pro-steam-car comments on a website called "Steamautomobile.com". Obviously the purpose of a website with such a name is to disprove, discredit, and discourage steam automobile ideas.

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Vintage LSR vehicles - 5 years ago

The important thing here is: do NOT question the "storage boiler" steam LSR rule. Ever. Never, ever, ever. Ever.

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Vintage LSR vehicles - 5 years ago

Yeah, extension-cord LSR EV's are viable, Sure they are, Just fit a pair of wheels to the mile-long extension cord every 10 feet or so. Sure. It makes perfect sense...

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Vintage LSR vehicles - 5 years ago

Hi Chuk, Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that your LSR approach was full fire, full water feed, vent all excess steam, and go for it. I am generally accused of thinking that if the Stanley Bros didn't do it, then it won't work, but actually for LSR purposes, I think that full fire/water/dump-excess is the way to go With a monotube boiler, forced-air/fan burner, and all the rest. IE, R

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Steam Propelled Spacecraft - 5 years ago

Butt seriously... oh stop it... density of hydrogen & helium in upper atmosphere and beyond. Not a joke about the other kind of gas... Fusion-powered space ramjets have been proposed to use gases in interstellar space as reaction mass; my idea is to use the much greater density of gases within our solar system as reaction mass.

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Vintage LSR vehicles - 5 years ago

My current "M2017" boiler concept is kinda like the Blackstaff... horizontal drums rather than central/vertical like Ofeldt. Serpentine tubes rather than coils, though. The only tricky bit is the tube spacing. Might need about 2x the gas flowpath area of a Stanley boiler for a given output, with a Stanley-like burner. Mini test boiler, with one tube, is planned to find out...

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Steam Propelled Spacecraft - 5 years ago

Jamison and all, OK, you guys went there, so here, with no additional comment, is, well, here it is. I just saw this on "Svengoolie" the other night... supposedly a "family friendly" TV show... blame Sven... https://www.uranusgeneralstore.com/ Why go to the outer solar system, when you can just drive to Missouri to get to... OK, I am just NOT "going there"

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Cleaning out the vaporizer - 5 years ago

Bogged down for a while with the crucial control box, but then the usual "where'd that come from?!" out-of-the-blue design breakthrough. All the details all at once. Not as compact as I'd like, but looks "buildable and workable". Low loads, speeds, relatively rarely used; hard to avoid grossly over-designing it. Next thing, more boring blueprinting before the build. Haven'

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Cleaning out the vaporizer - 5 years ago

So, sounds possibly workable? Maybe less exciting/fun than an old-time burner that needs an hour of cleanout work at frequent intervals, but still... boringly perhaps... workable? I'm not hearing any specific technical criticism of this idea from anybody; hope that interpreting this as a go-ahead/"build/test and find out" is not delusional... the microwave coffee comparison is not en

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Stanley Steam Automatic - 5 years ago

Neat stuff, Ron and Jeremy! Hijack threads at will; I don't mind. It's those pesky Forum Admins you gotta look out for. One "start a new thread" from Authority Figures, and I'm "siryessir!" Somehow I seem to fit in this outfit, maybe kinda like "Oddball" in the weirdly anachronistic war/heist flick "Kelly's Heroes". Is it 1944 or 1969? Or 2000... w

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Cleaning out the vaporizer - 5 years ago

"Cable-operated valve" blueprinting has now been finished. Design work started around 12-10-2018; blueprints finished 1-4-2019. Last design/blueprint job is the "linear-cam control box" for the 10 valves. Pull handle back, hold for a couple seconds, then push forward. Pilot/main vaporizers and jets spotless clean, carbon gone; all blown out by boiler steam; the "steam

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Stanley Steam Automatic - 5 years ago

Hi Rick, One last bit. Thanks for the compliment on the handcrafted drawings. CAD is great, but I agree that hand drawing is more conducive to creativity, at least in my personal experience so far. When I tried learning that early CAD program, I found that I was more focused on the mechanics of the drawing process than on what I was trying to design/draw. On the other hand, maybe that was b

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Doble Boiler - 5 years ago

Hi Don, For ignition, maybe a diesel glow plug, or a Model T buzz coil? https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=ngk+y110 https://www.macsautoparts.com/ford_model_t/model-t-ford-coil-unit-new-wood-case-k-w-original-style-with-points.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=paid_search&utm_campaign=paid_search_google_pla&adpos=1o2&scid=sc

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Stanley Steam Automatic - 5 years ago

Hi Ron, CAD/CAM is great! About 10 years ago, I bought a drawing program but was too impatient to finish the designs I was working on, to put in the hours needed to get good with it. In 2005 I got to see first-hand the CADCAM setup at ModelWorks in England, very impressive. I think the drawing program was by SolidWorks. Change one thing, and the program would modify nearby details as needed

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Stanley Steam Automatic - 5 years ago

6-foot lengths of 1/4-inch-diameter/28 thread per inch Grade 8 threaded rod are McMaster p/n 90322a668, US$17.27. 150,000 psi minimum tensile strength, "stressproof" alloy. Load/unload, flex to and fro, no problem. 4140 is often used in dune buggy frames, which fly off of 40 foot tall sand dunes & hills and slam into the ground endlessly, with no breaks. It's kind of durable.

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Stanley Steam Automatic - 5 years ago

Here are the rest of the shop drawings for my version of the Stanley Steam Automatic. Note: not built or tested yet, experimental drawings, scheduled for modification/improvements, caveat emptor, your results may vary, kids don't try this at home, do not take this medicine if you are allergic to this medicine, etc.. That last one is my current favorite "caveat", often used in patent-me

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Stanley Steam Automatic - 5 years ago

Ammected, LOL! A buddy of mine had a name for an athlete who's taken a few too many hits over the years. Dane. Dane Bramage. A piston pressure sensor could be much smaller diameter, and with lighter spring, than a diaphragm. It is only opening/closing a tiny poppet fuel valve against maybe 140psi fuel. Maybe fill the piston cylinder with oil, connected to an oil-filled flex bulb inside

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Stanley Steam Automatic - 5 years ago

Oops, no, that's my version. OK, try again. Stanley steam automatic drawings:

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Stanley Steam Automatic - 5 years ago

Steam automatic drawings:

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Doble Boiler - 5 years ago

Ditto Serge on a blue flame burner. Smoggy hi-radiant yellow flame burners were OK in the 1930s, but "not so much" today. Even Stanley had clean blue flame burners decades earlier. I think that forced-air blue flame burners, with boiler/steam-generator tube stacks to match, are very possible with today's technology.

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Stanley Steam Automatic - 5 years ago

Another "Toxic Alert" I have received from several experienced builders is _zinc_, from galvanized steel. Heat that beyond a certain point, via welding, brazing, or even soldering of zinc-plated components/materials, and it emits toxic zinc vapors which, if inhaled, even in small quantities, can send you straight to the Emergency Room at your local hospital with serious poisoning. Sa

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Resonant circuit - 5 years ago

Hi Ron, "There is no teacher or lesson to be had like experience. Build your idea and it will answer several questions definitively and reveal things that were never even thought of." No argument there! Exactly what I plan to do. Actually, my build has already started. Even the build process is answering questions and revealing things. Peter

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Doble Boiler - 5 years ago

Sweet! Ken has been talking about something like that for years...

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Stanley Steam Automatic - 5 years ago

Dang it, the valve body isn't up to my current standards. Needs redesign. Rats.

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff

Re: Stanley Steam Automatic - 5 years ago

Ah, my Steam Automatic blueprints folder just turned up. Dated 7-30-2009. Prints might have been posted on this forum around that time. Diaphragm 0.025" thick 510 phosphor bronze. Annotated "or buy standard Stanley Steam automatic diaphragm from Alan Kelso, etc". Bolt hole pattern, 12 bolts, 1/4" diameter, on 2.75" circle. Spring: mcmaster #1841k14, or MSC p/n 0766375

by Peter Brow - SteamStuff