Battleship Texas, Getting The Most Out Of Filthy Fuel! 

Thank you very much, that is very high praise!

the Titanic was also equipped with triple expansion engines similar to those on Texas

I was one too..

@@Vigilance108 They were both vertical, four cylinder, triple expansion engines, but that's about it.

Tom is great, but also a shout-out for Ryan of USS NJ and Paul from USS Cod because they also make time for the nitty-gritty on their ships. However, as a WW1 era ship, Texas is a special breed and these video's are greatly appreciated.

@@Tuning3434 I like Ryan because he is cool and educational but his videographer/editor seems to like to shoot videos where only Ryan's whole body is in the video. His videographer doesn't let him do first person videos in the belly of the beast like Tom does in all of his videos. Tom's videos are incredibly technical, which is great for ship aficionados and especially USS Texas fans.

@@Tuning3434 Ryan is a strong second behind Tom imho

Cool.

Thank you, that is very high praise!

Thank you, that is a very kind compliment!

In from '37 but it took til late '44 to "make chief" and he stayed in til '57? So he made "Chief Machinist Mate"? A chief is a Chief Boatswain Mate regardless of "rating". By '57 he should have been a Master Chief at least.

@@deeremeyer1749 there was no senior chief or master chief _until_ the year he retired, 1957. He was a push-button senior chief if he had stayed 2 more years. They used to call me AT1 when I was in the Navy and "A chief is a Chief Boatswain Mate regardless of 'rating'." makes no sense to me. Are you American?

@@deeremeyer1749 Before June 1 1958 the ranks of E 8 [SC ] and E 9 [ MC ] didn't exist .

Thank you! Working as a stoker in order to better appreciate your job is like eating a live frog every morning. You won't have to face anything worse the rest of the day!

I am very happy that I never had to do that! Of course, you were either working with 600 or 1200 lb. boilers, so I imagine that you more easily risked spalling from heating it too fast. I suspect you could also have erosion from burner flame impinging on the brick. Both were fairly easy to avoid on the old 300 lb. systems.

when my dad got to Norfolk in spring of 51 as an unassigned Seaman deuce, he was assigned to the fire rooms on his DE and he and another apprentice spent 7 weeks hauling brick and cement up and over the rail. he then became a BT3 and ran #1 fire room on an APD and just before getting out in jan 55, he ran all the fire rooms on the AGC (command and control ship) he was assigned to. he had a 2nd class that was pretty useless i guess hence why the Chief put him in charge...

Some insane demonstrations used to go down at the World’s Fair. Can you imagine being a regular citizen and seeing such a display for the first time?!?!

@@cruisinguy6024 That was the fair where most people saw electric light for the first time. Westinghouse alone set up like 15 engines generating electricity from all the steam. An artist created an illustration of the 2,000 h.p. Allis-Corliss engine with tandem belts driving two Tesla-Westinghouse two-phase generators. It was quite the show.

@@rtqiiI just can't even imagine what it must have been like to attend one from the later 1800s up to 1940 or so. The technology introduced was unheard of and these events lasted *half a year* to showcase truly groundbreaking human development. I just can't imagine what it must have been like to experience electricity for the first time, for example.

@@cruisinguy6024 Tesla had his own exhibit at the fair, and a switchboard with 500 h.p. two-phase alternating current on tap. He demonstrated a device called "Tesla's Egg of Columbus" which caused wireless motor armatures: discs, cylinders, and egg geometries to spin anywhere in the hall. I find records of similar devices, but none that were ever demonstrated at that power level, or reported those type effects.

Steam power is fascinating. Not many people realize that most power generation still operates on steam. Fuel sources vary but it all involves generating steam to spin turbines.

my dad was a BT3 and he had water tenders on his DE and APD 51-55. i guess at that time, it was a separate rating

Go to Google Books and enter "Pointers on Boiler Operation". The top hit should be a 1944 U.S. Navy steam manual. It was Not easy! It didn't take much to destroy boiler tubes and make it a trip to a shipyard for very expensive repairs.

OUCH!!!

RU-vid video: Picard Facepalm

Thanks! He was certainly part of a great company!

Don’t fret it, you were one hell of a third base man!

Thanks 👍

Спасибо!

The designs were not fixed upon whether they are coal or oil fired. As shown in the video, both coal and oil fired boilers used on Texas were small water tube designs. Small, water filled tube designs started coming into common use as they matured in the late 1890's and almost all were coal fired. The design only became associated with oil once it became available in needed quantities world wide in the 1910's. That led to an incorrect appearance that oil was used with small tube, and coal with fire fire tube boilers. There are applications where oil fire tube designs have significant advantages over small water tubes, but I didn't discuss them because they lay outside of power for warships. They continued to be used where the goal is to provide a constant level of steam using less than perfect water, and that didn't normally see sudden changes in demand, like steam boilers for cruise ships, and heating buildings or providing power for industrial plants.

That is high praise, I am glad you liked it. I have also produced a video on the Dyson oil fired boilers that replaced these units. If you are interested, you can go to it here. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DhmUHQ_wcvE.html

The Dyson boilers installed on Texas in 1925 burned residual oil, with one distinction. Except for a handful of emergency tanks in the inner bottom, none of her 92 tanks were heated. For that reason, she and most U.S. ships burned Navy Special Fuel Oil that was Bunker C diluted with a distillate (usually diesel) to improve viscosity. From what I read, that was the fuel of choice until the 1970's.

@@tomscotttheolderone364 Fuel oil tanks on Liberty ships were heated and I believe there were two sets of inline heaters on the engine room oil lines. If I remember correctly, the BunkerC fuel they were designed to burn had to be heated to about 110 degrees F to flow through the lines, filters and pumps and 180 degrees F to atomize properly in the burners. Steam atomizers were not used. I was an engine room volunteer on the operating museum ship, the Liberty ship SS JOHN W BROWN. Early in the ship’s reactivation, the ship’s fuel oil tanks in the double bottom had been cleaned by hand (which must have been a truly horrible job) and filled with water and rust inhibitor. The ship’s fuel was now ucarried in what had originally been a cargo oil tank in no. 4 hold. To avoid having to heat the fuel, we used no.2 fuel oil (home heating oil).

They played continuously while coaling to help keep up the morale of those doing this backbreaking and despised but required task.

IF you ever spent a day shoveling out a barn you would understand. Or all day shoveling snow, gravel,dirt ect.

Thanks, I am aware of the difference between scuttles and scuppers; that is one of my more embarrassing screw ups. Even though I didn't mention it, I am aware of the benefits of forced draft. Both the coal fired and oil fired boilers used on Texas were designed to take advantage of it. varying the blower speed, thus the pressure in the room, was how they fine tuned fuel:air ratio with the later Dyson boilers.

​@@tomscotttheolderone364titanic also used forced air to pressure the boiler room thus increasing air flow and making the working conditions less dusty.

@@rdallas81 I suspect that 99.9% of the reason for forced draft was to increase boiler firing rate.

Not that I am aware of.

I figured someone would be upset about my criticism of coal, but I hoped they would realize that it is limited to its use in ships prior to the introduction of fuel oil. Oh, well. I am reasonably aware of what can be done with coal these days, including fluidized beds, etc. However, that has nothing to do with this video, which is limited to early 20th century marine coal fired boilers. Everything I said was true within that context and I felt no obligation to explain 100 years of evolution that has occurred since their use. The fact is that back then, coal was filthy, and difficult to handle and burn in a ship. Until fuel oil came along that was a clearly superior marine fuel in every way, they simply had no other choice. I also apparently failed to get across to you that the video is practically a love letter to the terrific Babcock and Wilcox design that was efficient, reliable and got the most out of what was a very dirty and highly variable source of energy.

Steam pressure remained the same. First, US. Navy boilers produced a maximum pressure of 300psi due to the limits of riveted construction. It wasn't until they approved welding for pressure vessels in the 1930's that pressure increased to 600psi. Even if they could have gone higher, engines, auxiliary equipment and pipes were all designed for 295lb. steam, so that also created a limit. However, the change to oil was still very desirable. There were not only the obvious things like a cleaner ship, fast refueling, more storage and smaller boiler room crew sizes, there were other major dividends. The ship's range practically doubled, and the six oil fired boilers that took the place of fourteen coal fired units produced more steam. That not only reduced fluctuations as big loads were added or subtracted, it provided a safety marge if a boiler was lost or a major steam line ruptured. The placement of fuel oil tanks along the inside of the ship's hull also greatly increased torpedo protection.

That's better answered by a locomotive person. My best estimate is that at the least, fire tube boilers are much more forgiving. As you said, they can tolerate dirty water better. While they don't respond well to sudden, large changes in load, I don't think that is usually an issue with trains. Its large mass of heated water will likely hold up better to over an under fueling it. I suspect it would also be easier to open up the smoke box at the front of the locomotive, and brush and blow out the fire tubes than it would be to clean the outside of tubes in a water tube boiler. So, while fire tube boilers weren't the answer for warships where weight and ability to respond to sudden, large changes in load, they worked well for trains.

I believe two main reasons: first, a condenser is impractical on a locomotive, so the water is used once then discarded. Thus the quantities of water needed are huge and it inevitably has dissolved solids, so even with additives scale accumulation is rapid due to the smaller evaporative area and lack of a place from which sludge could be "blown down". Also the shape of a water-tube boiler can't be effectively morphed into a long, narrow horizontal design. There were likely others...

I believe it had a lot to do with the ability to use the water in the boiler as a “battery”. Water tube boilers don’t have very much water in them, so they work best in applications where they will spend a lot of time operating in steady-state conditions. Trains do a lot of stopping and starting and have constantly changing demand for steam. The large mass of water in a fire-tube boiler helped smooth out those transitions and avoid significant changes in water level in the boiler.

@@kc4cvh... and that's the difference between someone who has specific knowledge and me, who was tossing out guesses!

That is true, then something better came along and it was time to change.

You know what, YOU ARE RIGHT!!! I know better and simply screwed up!

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already did and I have a Come and Save It flag on my wall

Well, not really. The U.S. and Great Britain, to name two countries, worked hard on oil as a means of improving ship power and more importantly, solve several major problems associated with transporting coal and refueling. There is plenty of documentation from the 1890's and later that show the Navy was working hard at research and development of oil fired boilers, and creating an oil infrastructure, including their own oil leases. For Great Britain, they knew that oil was the future and the need for it to fuel their army and navy was a major motivating force behind their cooperation with the Dutch and the creation of Shell Oil.

Actually, the gasoline was the waste product, which is why autos used it. There was no other use for it and it was a good fit for the more primitive Otto cycle used by automobiles, which is incapable of using more stable fuels. The residual oils are a pretty useful fuel and their low flashpoint makes them much safer than volatile stuff like gasoline. They’re not called residuals because they were a leftovers waste product, they’re called residuals because they’re what remains after the volatiles have been distilled out of the crude oil.

The same Mk. XIV, Mod. 1 firing lock was used on both the 14" and 5" guns on Texas, and was a combination percussion and electric firing lock. You can find some good illustrations and description of its operation by using Google Books and looking for "Naval Ordnance and Gunnery 1944". You can also use the following link where I give a description of its operation along with color graphics of the lock and how the components move: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-odM1htLyDoM.html

@@tomscotttheolderone364 thank you sir. But I was hoping to chat with you about a project I am working on that you may have insight on

I am currently working on a 1940s 8" mark 12 test asset and was looking for insight on operations and maintenance procedures

@@voodochild5 I assume that you are referring to the 8"/55cal., Mk 12 gun. I can only tell you that while they share the same primer and firing lock, they have nothing else in common with the guns on Texas. What I know regarding operations and maintenance simply doesn't apply to your gun. I don't know what level of research you have attempted, but I suggest starting at the NAVWEAPS website that has a good description of the gun and also a bibliography at the end of the listing that would serve as a good start for searches.

@@tomscotttheolderone364 yes sir, I have done some preliminary research on navweaps, was just hoping to bounce some ideas on maintenance of this welin breech with you as we have done an initial teardown and lube, but plan to utilize this gun for a good long while for test firing.

I understand what you are saying. However, I have some experience with these things also, plus the ability to review analytics for the videos. I concluded a while back that what I am doing seems to provide the best balance.

That's an issue for someone else to address.

There is an artisan group made up of skilled metalworkers who are creating knives and other custom collectables that will be sold at auction.

Whoa, slow down, big boy! I didn't need to mention what you feel is the most important part in this video because I have already produced one that discusses it in detail. You can find it by using the link at the bottom of this reply. It describes how the steam system on Battleship Texas was configured for battle and damage control measures used if it was damaged. By the way, it is fortunate that "single cracks" in a boiler or steam system pretty much never results in an explosion or few steam driven ships would live their intended life expectancy. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Isw7eyDW_T0.html

Believe it or not, they provided entertainment!

Who needs Spotify when you have a Iive concert?

Don't be upset. Preheating the water was simple and didn't cost them anything energy wise to do it. Boiler feed water was produced in the engine room main condensers that took waste steam from the engines and other equipment and turned it back into water. The output water was pumped through heaters, that used exhaust steam on its way from the engines to the condensers, to heat the water. So, the act of preheating the water with waste steam actually helped system efficiency by recovering some of the heat that would otherwise be lost in the condenser and putting it back into the system. As I said in the video, it not only lessened the amount of work for the boilers, it also reduced the stress of cold water hitting very hot metal boiler components as it was pumped into the boilers.

@@tomscotttheolderone364 I do appreciate that this vid was only supposed to be about the guts of the main boilers themselves, not their subsidiary connected components in the overall system. And I hope you don't mind my attempt at a bit of gentle snark, which is meant more as self-deprecation of my own ignorance of these systems, than any real critique of your presentation (let alone the validity of the original design!). If I had thought about it some more (or, God forbid, studied up a bit on marine steam-propulsion generally! I mean, FFS! I did a stint assisting with the "driving" of a "steam-powered" capital warship myself, once upon a time...) I'd have been more than halfway there on figuring out that efficient pre-heating of some intake water could be done nearby, without needing to be built directly onto the body of the boiler itself. But in any case, thank you kindly for this particular explanation, and more generally for the deep-dive education you're doing here, which I have only just today discovered. As such, I have only just now subscribed.

I didn't mention it due to trying to keep video length manageable, but cleaning up after coaling could take as long or longer than the actual refueling process. While I have never seen a description of what was done to limit coal dust intrusion below deck on Texas, I imagine they went to some pretty serious effort to keep it out. Btw, I have always liked the amusing and ironic name of "field day" for the cleaning process

Certain liberties were taken. It is very difficult to find 100+ year old photos of specific actions.

I do not know the details on how boiler tubes were fabricated, but a 1919 book on boiler construction said there were three types commonly used. The most popular was lap welded steel, due to low cost. There was also hot rolled seamless steel and cold drawn seamless steel. You can find the book in the following link. books.google.com/books?id=1U0iAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Steam+Boilers+1919&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjBmoqHsb2GAxUn48kDHbezBDwQ6AF6BAgFEAI#v=onepage&q=Steam%20Boilers%201919&f=false

Band probably played music for the crew shoveling the coal