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

Well gentlemen thank you for your comments here. For Downunder Bob, now were talking about one of the old "plumbers torch" what I refered to them as a "blow torch". I just happen to have three of those antiques sitting on a shelf in my shop. I'll get one out and see how much trouble it would be to remove the burner and extend it away from the tank and pump. That would be a slick set up, cheap to use and small and would fit into the "trunk" of this little car. I'll work on that idea too and post pictures.

No gr8legs, I won't be making the big Brooks show this year. But that would be fun place to show it as they have a nice parade of all the tractors and steam equipment. On the video, Yes I have to do that too. The few times I have driven the car I always thought how cool it would be to get a video. But I'm always driving the car and can't film myself. But then next time I have it out I'll take a video of it steamed up, the fire going and the engine turning. I'll post a youtube link for that but that is a great idea.

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Here is a picture of the boiler with a fire in it but I know you want to hear the whistle and see the smoke and steam. Next time I get the car out and fire it up I promise video.

Thanks again for the suggestions and tomorrow I will get that blow torch out and see what I can do with that. Very interesting idea.

Best regards,
Lisa
 
mslisaj said:
Well gentlemen thank you for your comments here. For Downunder Bob, now were talking about one of the old "plumbers torch" what I refered to them as a "blow torch". I just happen to have three of those antiques sitting on a shelf in my shop. I'll get one out and see how much trouble it would be to remove the burner and extend it away from the tank and pump. That would be a slick set up, cheap to use and small and would fit into the "trunk" of this little car. I'll work on that idea too and post pictures.

No gr8legs, I won't be making the big Brooks show this year. But that would be fun place to show it as they have a nice parade of all the tractors and steam equipment. On the video, Yes I have to do that too. The few times I have driven the car I always thought how cool it would be to get a video. But I'm always driving the car and can't film myself. But then next time I have it out I'll take a video of it steamed up, the fire going and the engine turning. I'll post a youtube link for that but that is a great idea.

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Here is a picture of the boiler with a fire in it but I know you want to hear the whistle and see the smoke and steam. Next time I get the car out and fire it up I promise video.

Thanks again for the suggestions and tomorrow I will get that blow torch out and see what I can do with that. Very interesting idea.

Best regards,
Lisa
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Yes plumbers blow torch, tank filled with kerosene or similar, pump it up with little hand pump. put some metho in little tray under burner and light, can use a bit of rag soaked with kero if no metho available. Pump it up and open the small regulating valve, and soon you've got a serious burner going. I'm sure they will also work on diesel. But how to get that flame into you boiler furnace?

In the above pic where the fire can be seen, is that a little door that can be opened, can you open that door and poke the blowtorch nose in through there, steam it up, remove blowtorch, close door, and light up main burner.

Can I say Lisa, it takes a brave and hardy lady to work in the engine room of a ship. The work is hard and everything is heavy, It's hot and dirty. and most of the guys that do it reckon it's not the place for a woman. I'm inclined to agree with them, although I try not to be judgemental. I always say If it floats your boat go for it.

I've only ever had one woman work on any of the ships I've been on, in the engine room that is. Had plenty in catering, even on the navigation deck and as radio operators, no problem with any of those. She was one tough cookie, great worker, swore like a trooper, but never in a nasty way, she was always friendly. always willing to do any task, was keen to learn. She was signed on as I.R. which in Australia means Integrated Rating, qualified to work on deck as AB or in engine room as engineers mate, the lifting and carrying, not the thinking.

The first day she came on board she came into the engine room to report for duty. she walked up to me. stuck her hand out and said G'day I'm Gus. I took her hand shook it and said welcome to my engine room gus. I said what are you good at, like what jobs do you prefer? She replied you mean I get to choose. I said no. But if I know what you like and what your good at, sometimes it might work out that you get a job you like, She replied I like you I think we'll get on fine, and you'll soon learn what I'm good at. Turned out she was pretty good at just about anything. I guess she felt she had to prove herself.

Some years later I bumped into her at a pub, I was studying in the local university and was there for dinner and a few drinks, she was there to meet up with friends for the evening. She came up to me and said g'day Bob. I looked at her thinking I don't know this chick, but wished I did, she realised I didn't recognise her, and started laughing, and said, It's me, Gus, you could have knocked me over with a feather, she was very cute. I had only ever seen her in torn dirty work clothes grease on her face. We laughed, had a drink together, I told her that I had enjoyed having her in my engine room , she replied it was one of the jobs she remembers best. then she joined her friends. That was about 30 years ago.
 
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Yes, in that picture of the boiler with a fire in it that is the little door into the fire box. I go through there with a torch to light the boiler and service the burner. It's about a 4" by 8" opening and I can easily use a makeshift burner through that opening. Great ideas with the metho and other means to put a small fire in there to get it started.

My maritime story is rather long but I was encouraged to get a plain "seaman" certificate and I got hired. I signed on with an advance set of mechanical skills and was quickly moved to the engineering department as more of a "mechanics helper". I could do anything I was asked to do and enjoyed it. I was encouraged to train for a "FWT/Oiler" certification and that is what I did. I didn't have much trouble as I was there to do a job and did it well. Soon I was the lead FWT of the watch and had folks working for me. It was a fun part of my life and I only did it for six years. I truly enjoyed the work and there was nothing I could not do so that made me easily accepted. It was a hot and dirty job but paid well at the time and when I left I went for a better paycheck on land and never looked back.

This is what's fun about this steam car. The principals are the same and i get to use that skill set that I learned many years ago. Folks that know me were not surprised that I had this car fired up and building steam in two day. Simple stuff that I didn't have to climb a ladder to turn a valve. Gotta love that.

Thanks again for the great idea's and I can't wait to try some of them. At the moment I have some other projects that have moved forward but that is the problem with retirement - way too much to do now.
 
mslisaj said:
Yes, in that picture of the boiler with a fire in it that is the little door into the fire box. I go through there with a torch to light the boiler and service the burner. It's about a 4" by 8" opening and I can easily use a makeshift burner through that opening. Great ideas with the metho and other means to put a small fire in there to get it started.

My maritime story is rather long but I was encouraged to get a plain "seaman" certificate and I got hired. I signed on with an advance set of mechanical skills and was quickly moved to the engineering department as more of a "mechanics helper". I could do anything I was asked to do and enjoyed it. I was encouraged to train for a "FWT/Oiler" certification and that is what I did. I didn't have much trouble as I was there to do a job and did it well. Soon I was the lead FWT of the watch and had folks working for me. It was a fun part of my life and I only did it for six years. I truly enjoyed the work and there was nothing I could not do so that made me easily accepted. It was a hot and dirty job but paid well at the time and when I left I went for a better paycheck on land and never looked back.

This is what's fun about this steam car. The principals are the same and i get to use that skill set that I learned many years ago. Folks that know me were not surprised that I had this car fired up and building steam in two day. Simple stuff that I didn't have to climb a ladder to turn a valve. Gotta love that.

Thanks again for the great idea's and I can't wait to try some of them. At the moment I have some other projects that have moved forward but that is the problem with retirement - way too much to do now.
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Exactly don't know how I ever did anything before I retired, I still don't have enough time to do half what I want. trouble is also getting older and slower. I know what you mean by Oiler, we call it greaser but that has been surpassed by IR, but not familiar with FWT?
 
Downunder Bob said:
Exactly don't know how I ever did anything before I retired, I still don't have enough time to do half what I want. trouble is also getting older and slower. I know what you mean by Oiler, we call it greaser but that has been surpassed by IR, but not familiar with FWT?
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FWT = Fireman/Water Tender.

On being busy in retirement, well I aquired the steam car about a month ago. I played with it for about two weeks but I have other projects going so I had to put the steam car away for now, get back to the other projects (that now I'm behind on) I have going too and finish them off. Then the steam car will work it's way back to the top of the pile. But I am going to get a "plumbers torch" off the shelf and play with it too. Never in need of something to do around here. :D
 
I believe the "plumbers torch" primus concept is more in keeping with the philosophy of the steam car even though propane would probably be easier so I hope your experiments are successful.
 
Well I thought I had three of these torches but I only have two and the larger of the two is missing the pump assembly. So I will be working with the smaller torch but looking at it I would think it needs an overhaul too. So another project on my bench to rework and clean out the smaller torch. But I have them on the bench and it appears there are no interchangable parts so the smaller torch will be the one I use.
I'll keep you up on progress. I think I'll use Coleman fuel to start with.

Wish me luck.

Lisaimage.jpegimage.jpeg
 
savarin said:
I believe the "plumbers torch" primus concept is more in keeping with the philosophy of the steam car even though propane would probably be easier so I hope your experiments are successful.
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My thoughts exactly Savarin, When talking about historic type steam engines the historic concept is more important than convenience.
 
I started my first boat's fire that way (using a propane torch bottle to supply atomizing gas to the steam atomizing burner) once as a test, it took about 20 minutes to raise steam for the atomizing burner to work on, the test was successful, but I changed to the gas engine driven compressor as being more practical.
 
Well Gentlemen I finally figured out the puzzle in the last two days. I put the car away in May of 2018 as I just didn't have time to experiment with it any more as I had too man older projects going. Then the long freezing winters of the North West here so playing with water doesn't work. But I got the car out and yesterday I tried the propane alone going though the original burner. I got a real nice flame but not a lot of "real" heat. As back in the discussions on this thread the point was made there was more BTU's in oil then propane. So here is what I did and I think I unraveled the puzzle the original builder set out for me. I let the propane go for 30 minutes and the boiler was hot to the touch but I wasn't boiling water yet. I was about to throw in the towel on this idea when I thought for the heck of it to just turn on the gravity fed diesel supply. Well this caught fire right away and added a lot more fire in the fire box. I had 15 pounds of steam pressure on the gauge in 10 minutes and successfully switched to steam atomized diesel and got the boiler going. So this worked but of course I had put 30 minutes of propane only heat into getting everything warmed up.

Well I secured the boiler for the night and let it get completely cold again. This morning I got everything set and again started the propane fire and then I started the trickle of diesel into the firebox to make a big fire. In 15 minutes I had 10 pounds of steam pressure and could switch over to steam atomization. This solved the puzzle! This is obviously what the builder was doing to fire this boiler from cold. By the way, the propane bottle still has lots of gas in it. I'll bet I could get five to eight starts or more out of that single propane bottle and I could carry a second one easily in the "trunk".

I want to thank you gentlemen for weighing in here. It was the original propane suggestion that got me looking at the mid sized propane bottles and they fit the holder built into the car. It was the experimentation yesterday and today that allowed me to figure out the puzzle. So I want to sincerely thank everyone here that came up with all the suggestions you put forth here. They were all appreciated and lead to a great discussion that eventually lead to the final answer. WE ALL SOLVED THIS PROBLEM TOGETHER AND I THANK YOU ALL FOR THAT.

Best regards,

Lisa
 
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