What atomizing gas to use for a diesel fired boiler light off?

Even though you don't have a dive shop in your area, check your local fire department. They have to have a compressor (or some place to take them) to fill their Scott Air pacs These are basically the same as a SCUBA tank. You can get small "spare air" SCUBA tanks that hold 6 to 20 CuFt. and probably close to the 2500 lb psi of the nitrogen.
 
Sure looks like a winner. The propane is definitely capable. I use propane and air for my forge. Homemade burner sounds like a jet. Have it regulated around 10 psi. A regular 20 lb tank last at least 10 or so melts a hour from start to finishes.
 
Some great idea's here continue to come out of this forum. The more I work with the boiler and the steam car the better I understand it and the more confident with the systems I become. I am pleased to report that the boiler stays hot and holds pressure for a couple of hours. So if I inadvertantly extinguished the fire I still have steam for atomization and I just need a torch for the flame. So I don't have to worry about starting the fire again once the boiler is hot and has steam pressure. So I have narrowed the issue down to the true cold initial start up. Propane still seems like a very viable and cheap fuel. My next attempt at firing the boiler cold will be with propane. I do have a 30 pound bottle in case the one pounder goes away too fast but again, I'm still trying to figure out what the original intention of the little ring that is in the back of the car that holds the one pound of propane perfectly.

The "emergency scuba tank" idea is a good one and also checking with the local fire department or sheriff's dive squadron to see if they could refill my bottle. Now there may be liability issues with filling a "scuba dive" bottle being I'm not a diver but if I repainted the little nitrogen bottle "blue" that I have they may fill that as it would be too heavy to dive with and obviously be used for another purpose. That tank with 2000 pounds of air will certainly do a cold start or two. So in reality this is the fun part of experimentation with projects like this.

Thank you all for reading my forum thread and for your comments. You truly are part of solving this "mystery".

Lisa
 
What is actually happening here, is the steam released from the boiler and mixed with the diesel to push it through the nozzle? Sounds like a weird setup. Surprised he didn't do a setup like a home oil furnace burner, with a pump to push the fuel through an orifice, and a blower to supply combustion air. Unless he was copying some old design?

To compare, 1# of liquid propane will expand to 8.6 cubic feet of gas. A typical scuba tank holds 80 CF, almost ten times as much. Of course the scuba tank is a lot larger and heavier.
 
What is actually happening here, is the steam released from the boiler and mixed with the diesel to push it through the nozzle? Sounds like a weird setup. Surprised he didn't do a setup like a home oil furnace burner, with a pump to push the fuel through an orifice, and a blower to supply combustion air. Unless he was copying some old design?

Well, old railroad locomotives for years and years used steam "atomizers" to spray the steam into the firebox. The system worked well. This car has no electrical system at all thus a "home oil furnace burner" with an electric blower setup would not work and just add to the complication of the system. Again, the system works really well as it's designed with steam, I'm just trying to come up with a simple, small way to fire the boiler at a remote location when it is cold.

Thanks for your comments "FanMan".
 
Luxfer sells SCUBA tanks from 6.1 cu.ft. (3.2" dia. 11.1" tall 3000psi) to 98.8 cu.ft (8" dia 26.2" tall 3300 psi) with 8 more sizes in between these. I know a full 63 cu. ft. tank use to fire a LOT of water balloons from the 2 liter bottle water balloon launchers we use to build. :grin big:
 
Yes, propane would work, and may be the best way except when at home and compressed air is available, it could be that the propane option was for start ups when away from home.
All this was not an issue with steam cars that were commercially made back in the day; so far as I know all the small ones and even the large Stanley cars used a burner similar to what savarin suggests above:

"What about a primus burner, an alcohol flame heating some pipework then a hand pressurised kero or maybe the diesal tank that passes through the heated pipes and converted to a gas thats ignited to heat the boiler."

All that I have ever seen have used that type of burner, a pressure fed fuel supply, a vaporizer and a grid type burner plate; The small steam cars had limited tankage for water, and using it for a steam atomizing burner would have been wasteful.
The later steam cars, the Doble for instance used a gun type burner, pressure atomizing with a blower for draft, but they were worlds away in terms of size and sophistication and complexity.
 
Just spit balling here, but what about a small secondary boiler (maybe holding 1-2 quarts of water) heated by MAPP or propane to provide the initial atomizing steam?
 
Just spit balling here, but what about a small secondary boiler (maybe holding 1-2 quarts of water) heated by MAPP or propane to provide the initial atomizing steam?

This is a good idea with a small "donky boiler" but again the idea is something very small and very portable that could go with the car alone. But your idea is a good one.
I did finally find a small propane torch valve and I put one of my air couplings on it so it will connect to the car. When I get the car out again I will try the propane and see how it works. This may do it out of the unatomized burner and it's worth a try. I'll be sure to report back on how it works with pictures.

Thanks all for the continuing idea's. I do apprecate it.
 
If I recall correctly, the old Stanley steamers had a hand pump on them to pump up fuel pressure for cold starts, similar to pumping up the pressure on a Coleman camp stove. Maybe a pressurized fuel tank could be set up to provide enough pressure to push the fuel through the nozzle and atomize it at least until steam pressure is built up.
 
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