Advice please

[Southern SailorParticipant @southernsailor76583]

Good day all you clever people,

I have some questions and wonder if anyone can help.

 

1. How do you bend small diameter (say 4-6mm) copper tube?

2. Graham Industries (TVR1A) and Steamech (twin cylinder) suggest using a steam valve for throtle (speed) control on these steam engines.  Anyone any details of a steam valve for me, or know where I can find them?

3.  I want to put a twin oscillating steam engine (by Stuart) into the African Queen kit by Bilings (740 LOA).  It has a plastic hull.  Any comments?

 

Thanks and happy sailing (steaming?)!

 

Brian

Edited By Brian Adley on 15/08/2009 09:53:43

[Southern SailorParticipant @southernsailor76583]

[neil hpParticipant @neilhp]

You can buy external tube benders for small diameter piping like that from a model engineers……try Maidstone Engineers ( google them),

 

or if you don’t want to go to that expense( about £7.50 a set of 5 diameter springs),

 

you can bung up one end with a little wooden stopper, and pour fine casting sand down the pipe..Don’t bung up the other end, though as it’ll go off like a cannon when you anheel the pipe with a torch( needed in both methods)

 

once anhelled, you can bend the pipe with ease without causing a flat spot, or crimping.

[KiwimodellerParticipant @kiwimodeller]

A very small and tidy steam throttle valve for 1/8″ and 5/32 copper pipe is available from Bruce Engineering which is part of Polly Model Engineering. I am sure a Google search will find them. From memory  the cost was about 17pounds.. Cheers, Ian.

[Southern SailorParticipant @southernsailor76583]

Thanks Guys,

Modellers are helpful as always.

Brian

[Eric Moffat 1Participant @ericmoffat1]

You’ll want some pretty effective insulation around your steam plant in a plastic hull. What type of heating do you plan to use to create steam?

[Southern SailorParticipant @southernsailor76583]

Hi Eric,

I was thinking of gas.  I will have to make a separate gas tank as the boat would be too small to fit a commercial gas tank.

[HS93Participant @hs9317166]

there is no problem at all in putting steam in a plastic hull, Cheddar sold one and it worked fine, also Krick did one for a Cheddar steam plant,  If you go on the Kingston site you will see some used above the boiler without any problems. Just mount any metals that may get warm on wood bearers so you dont transfer the heat

 

Peter

[Southern SailorParticipant @southernsailor76583]

Thanks Peter.  Wood bearers is that answer.  Possibly also line the inside of the hull near the boiler with something a bit more heat resistant.  Fibre glass?  The African Queen is an open boat, which make the disipation of heat somewhat easier.

 

Brian

[neil hpParticipant @neilhp]

sorry brian, but i wouldn’t call grp a heat resistant material.

on the contrary, it stores heat in a semi combustable way if in direct contact with a heat scource.i’ve seen many a reliant robin and scimitar burn truly well, lol.

i am not an alarmist in any way, and last year completed a grp model with two steam engines fitted myself, as have many others ,

but all that is needed in a plastic or grp hull, are, as have been said, wooden barers and fress air………..great idea is to put in small computor power box cooling fans.small, in obtrusive and punch out a lot of cool air.

 

[Southern SailorParticipant @southernsailor76583]

Hi Neil,

Point taken.  Wooden bearers it is.  I suppose there is a balance between keeping the heat at the boiler and engine, and cooling the rest of the boat down.  When the steam plant is in an enclosed engine room, I guess the trick is to keep the ventilation flow open so that the heat does not build up where it is not wanted.  Personally I would want the engine as visible as possible and will opt for a model (after African Queen) where the hatches can be left open to allow as much visibility as possible.  A tug perhaps.

Brian

[Phil ButtonParticipant @philbutton47234]

I have a scratch-built steam plant in a plastic-hulled paddle tug (based on the Graupner ‘Glasgow’). It has a wooden tray to hold the boiler/engine mounting plate and I fitted some ceramic boiler lagging material between the plate and the wood just to be on the safe side. Instead of ceramic insulation, a plumbers heat mat (available from most DIY stores) would work just as well. I have had no problems with the plastic hull, but have scorched the inside of the wooden superstructure when I turned the gas up too far!

 

Lining the superstructure with thin aluminium sheet (litho plate in my case) helps, as does as much ventilation as possible.

 

Phil

[JC Uknz 1Participant @jcuknz1]

Glynn Guest used kitchen foil to line the insides of Sabina that he designed foir Model Boats a few years ago.  This is a model of an American river/pleasure  boat with deck house closing in the steam engine.  It was built out of balsa wood like many of his semi-scale designs.  It is fired with solid burners.    My ‘worktop’ firing tests using gas has a considerable heat build-up back towards the plastic tube bringing the gas from the tank.  The burner is a tube about 3″ long with four jets [cuts in the tube] and the plastic is only about two inches behind that … I’m thinking I may have to re-design things with at least a part metal gas feed pipe.

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