For a temporary setup, you spared no effort: Three feed pumps with a feed water heater, all installed with neat, tidy piping and shiny brass dials with lovely matte silvered gauge sheets inside. Brilliant!
I am so glad that is appreciated. Unless its purely an experiment or screwing around for fun, I dont believe in doing something unless its done right. This setup was used to test a lot of engines and equipment over an entire week and will probably be used again in future.
The shrink/swell demonstration with a whistle reminds me of a slow day at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard power plant when we calculated the fuel cost of blowing the 11:30AM lunch break whistle on top of the Power Plant.
This is the type of boiler I trained on in in 1978 , I hand fired until 1983 , then we went to oil , didn't get gas until 1991. A hand fired boiler is a live animal that must be constantly managed., and hope you can rely on your fireman and shifts. God Bless the Black Gang !!
Hmmm... I wonder who chalked it for the New Haven... Thanks for sharing this stuff, Alex. I always learn at least one new thing from you, but often quite a few things. I would kill to learn all that you know.
If they had not destroyed the Cos Cob power plant that used to juice up the New Haven I could have shown you a lot more. Still, come out some time there are always things to do and learn!
I love these videos, you pack them so full of interesting and useful information that I haven't seen anywhere else. What's most interesting is the parallels I keep drawing as an electrical engineer to my own knowledge. The snubber on the gauge was one of those things I didn't know about but when shown, makes a lot of sense and we even have those in the realm of electronics for not exactly the same but similar reasons. The shrink and swell make a lot of sense when you mention it as well. I assume that's due to the pressure drop from the load causing entrained bubbles in the water to expand? Also wasn't expecting In Xanadu to make an appearance but I am utterly delighted to see it again! Thank you for making these!
It's beautiful. I've always found the modern combustion engines to be fascinating and have worked on them for long times, but never dug into steam engines, and it is amazing how complex these machines are. They are beautiful works of art and the machining was done so well and you can tell the engineers put their hearts and souls into them. I wish everything was built like that. Thank you for sharing your knowledge about these things.
I've been obsessed with ships all my life, especially warships of the 1860-1920 period, and watching this I realize how very little I know about the operation of them.
It's good your mind has been opened, and this is a very simple boiler that came out of a lobster boat. If I had a Yarrow or Thornycroft Navy boiler with water-tube grates and forced draft fans turned by steam engines and the whole nine yards I would gladly show you that. Those boilers will raise steam in half an hour and can produce hundreds of times the amount of steam per hour as this old kettle, and are only about 10 years younger in design.
Good Video. So nice to see the progress all the way to steaming. Glad that a few things such as feed water, worked better than expected. The whistles were nice sounding, though the last off speech. If the airship comes to fruition I want in.
you videos have opened my eyes to the complexities of the supporting systems form steam boilers and equipment. once I was given a tour of my local city's government power house, an amazing building in the downtown core that supplied heating and cooling for the government buildings in the city. it was just full of amazing pieces of equipment old and new. my guide who i am very thank full took the time to show me the power house wanted to gloss over all the extra ancillary equipment. but i was always asking him questions about all the oil feed pumps and condensate return pumps. there a very cool old boiler (i think he said 1920s or so) that was still in use in the summer months to provide hot water to the buildings. it was amazing to be allowed to have a close look at this amazing piece of equipment. i only wish that i remembered more about the equipment in that place. one thing that blew my mined (and this may not be so much your thing) was the Chiller plant. i had never seen pumps and heat exchangers so missive.
Hi mate, great work. Thought you might be interested or already know, I was talking to an engineer on a paddle steamer in Mildura Australia and he said in the old days when there was still plenty of them they used Shea Oak in the boiler and it would burn hot with near zero ash left over. FYI. Regards Ken
Absolutely amazing work... LOVE watching these beautiful machines... and to see the care taken to get them working. Does anyone know the name of the airship video he showed? I know the song of course... but I have never seen that cool steam powered airship video. Thanks.
JOLLY GOOD SHOW! At first I thought the Hydro-whatever was B.S., but since Scotch boilers are scarce on traction engines, I just might believe you! Nice video of the Zepplin & Macci airboat!
Well not for nothing I did show you a diagram and it is easy to look up. Hydrokineters are just one of tens of thousands of types of fittings and appliances that the average steam hobbyist is now unfamiliar with and this is not good. I've met people who do not believe me when I tell them about exhaust steam injectors or one-cylinder compound engines.
How many apprentices have you trained, or are training So that your knowledge can be kept going well into the future. As one never knows what is in one's future, and especially in the craft you're in. Due to the nature of the massive power that is the driving force behind even greater power. Things happen unexpectedly, and can instantly bring to a halt what one may have thought was unstoppable. Yet in a blink of an eye, many things can change altering the future forever. Thus it's always imperative that one pass on one's knowledge to other's that share the same compassion for the things that means the most to yourself. So that it's not lost forever inside your mind, and where no one has access, except you share it freely with those who have the ability to carry forward into the future, where they too pass it down to the next generation, and hopefully the cycle never ends
Anticipating loads is huge I’m learning. So if your humming along at a constant steam rate and you have a huge load get put on, steam demand obviously goes up, your water level will INCREASE? And conversely when a large load goes away, steam demand drops, your water level will DROP? This seems counter-intuitive to me…but like I said I’m in training currently. Is this due to feed water getting pumped in more or due to pressure changes? Forgive my naivety.
I can see how it would be counter-intuitive, but think of the last time you opened a seltzer bottle or soda can rapidly, and your question is answered as this is the exact same phenomenon. Formation of bubbles due to a pressure differential between the gas and fluid underneath in the boiler is one cause, but unlike the seltzer bottle there is an energy source continually putting heat into the working fluid. The more vigorous the activity in the boiler, as in both formation of steam bubbles which displaces water and also circulation of water from cold to hot areas of the boiler and back again will cause churning. The higher the steam demand, the faster the boiler will evaporate water into steam and the faster these processes will occur and thusly the more water will be displaced. Rapidly opening the seltzer bottle, which indicates one level and then instantly jumps to priming water out the cap is you giving the boiler sudden steam demand.
Bonjour Alexander, Great instructive video indeed, many thanks at first. Please go on on like that 😍 I like very much your double donkey pump (petit cheval) and wonder if it is more effective than the rotative one, is it ? And I have also one : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ECWJJIMAVeg.html 😉 Furthermore, I don't see or you don't evoke bypass valves ? Is it because ther are not needed as you are close to the pumps to manage them ? And how do you prime the pumps ? About whistles, they are my prefered accessories, almost most of my boats have one : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GA-D4mQ3I9g.html not as loud as yours, sorry And I even have a siren (made in China unfortunately) : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nQu2ZeIaUrs.html Amicalement, Raphaël
There is a bypass valve! You will see it as the valve leading to the red hose on the discharge line leading up to the cold end of the feedwater heater, it stands up straight like a standpipe, thats how we prime the pumps or run them in circulation instead of feed if desired.
