Nelson Model Engineer International Steam Convention

Recently I went unto the Nelson Model Engineer International Steam Convention(http://www.nelsonmodellers.org.nz/convention.php). With a large amount of engines and traction engines it was truly exciting for someone interested. Little can be said of my sister's excitement as she was told where she was going. Oh well.I saw a lot of engines that I recognized from the Australian Model Engineer Magazine; small world (well small pacific islands if you can say that about Australia. I know you can about New Zealand). I met a member of the Unofficial Mamod Forum totally by chance who gave me some very useful tips for my traction engine. I also met a 13 year old boy who was making a gauge 1, single cylinder, single acting, oscillating steam locomotive. Very inspiring.
I took far to many photos but here's some of them.

meths burner 2

At last I have something that possibly, might, maybe work. It worked, well, didn't explode into a ball of flames so yes, it did work.
After making a distress call on the The Unofficial Mamod and Other Steam Forum I had several replies of all useful nature;
Sterno-solid fuel, cheap
trioxane-camping fuel
hexamine-I think the same as trioxane
a make your own solid alcohol fuel. Check at the bottom of this website. Does anyone think its possible?
http://zenstoves.net/Sterno.htm

And (the one that I did) a new meths burner. What they said was that some of the meths turns into vapor and comes out of the hole (for injecting meths into). My meths burner had the hole inside the firebox so the vapor came out and caught alight causing the whole firebox to, you know, explode into flames. This is a burner that 2 people(tmuir and xlchainsaw) suggested.
.22 shells drilled to fit a 1/8 (inside diameter) tube. (get that right. I had the misfortune of finding my 1/8 tube was actually 2.1 mm inside diameter once. You don't want to no the words that came out i my mouth then)
The tube was cut with a hacksaw, as shown in the photo, then the burr scraped out. The canister was of copper tube 14mm high. My calculations said I could get 8ml of meths in it.
the running was very easy maintenance ways but the hole for the vapor caught alight a few times so I am going to solder a tube from the hole to somewhere further away. Is this sensible and how long can I make the tube?
it went for as long as there was meths and when I showed my admiring family the kind words were, "Does it always take this long to boil?" and," Did you get the cherrys I'd asked you to get this morning" and, " How long will this take I have to go and do the dinner."
kind, understanding family.


note at the end of the film you can see the hole for the vapor alight.

steam burner

For my steam engine I soldered up the meths (methylated spirits) canister and tried it with 1/6 water + 5/6 meths. It did about what the unsoldered one did (look down at an older post for my other tests) which meant it could not produce enough steam to power the engine and the flame was on the verge of getting out of control.


So I have just tried wood. This wood is a dense wood that we cut into little twigs.


I dunked one in meths and stuck it in the firebox with a few not methed sticks on top. I lit the methed one. When at last the others lit the engine went at quite a reasonable speed; I think it needs to be run in for it to go at a high speed. It ran for quite a while but I couldn't keep it going as, when the sticks had burnt out, there was no time to put more sticks in. It took quite a while to get the non methed sticks lit but when they were alight they perfect. The methed sticks only were alight for the time that they still had meths on them meaning they did not catch themselves alight. Nothing unsoldered which is a change of the normal routine.

Notice at the end of the film the bits of charcoal that came out of the fire box. This is what I mean when I say "when the sticks had burnt out there was no time to put more sticks in"

(If you notice that some bits of the film don't fit together right that's because I had to cut out the bits where I was blocking the camera so blame it on the camera. If you don't notice that, I will take credit for the skilled (yeah right) editing.)

steam traction engine burners

After a very long time I eventually finished making a double acting oscillating traction engine. I will(yeah right) write up how I made it later.



When I was making it I thought of having a meths heater so I made an extremely bad job of one.
It is made out of a eclipse mints tin cut off at the bottom and soldered. The wicks are .17 bullet shells pushed in by hand. The dimensions are 40 by 18 mm


Then Dad suggested using dry roasted peanuts which were duly bought and tried. I made 2 trays one 90mm long and the second one 120mm long. I abandoned this idea as I spent all my bloody time sticking peanuts on needles, lighting them then trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to jam them in the firebox.








After this I decided maybe, just maybe, meths might be a better solution. A canister was soldered up and 12 hole drilled in. The .17 idea was used again. 28mm by 88mm


I fired it up and, lo and behold, the boiler was covered in flames 2 feet high. It was so hot it untempered the spring and unsoldered (bugger) the cylinder. Not the best picture but oh well.The engine was then 'left on the shelf'' (stood on my workbench and getting in the way just like that old steel wool. Oh and that broken hack saw blade that would make a really good mini knife and that sardine tin tray of old bits that I might need again, but then also might not. You get my gist)
When I did decided to try again I silver soldered the cylinder back onto the block and put only 3 wicks into the above burner. It worked all right but all the other holes kept on lighting so I made another burner.
The new one had 3 holes + a meths hole. 80mm by 26mm. The flame still crept up over the boiler so I looked on the fantastic blog "The Unofficial Mamod and Other Steam Forum" (http://modelsteam.myfreeforum.org/index.php) and looked at old posts. One person had exactly the same problem as me and some people sugested adding 1(to 2)/10 water to meths. I did and the flame was no longer as huge. I don't think I could put less water in otherwise we would have the same problem as before.
I have tried it a few times and I cannot make enough steam with the burner to keep the engine continuously running. I think I might have to lower the firebox but I have no idea. Any one?





Note the hole for meths at this end. It kept on lighting itself
so I stuck an old spoke in it and that stopped it.








This shows how close the wick is to the boiler

how to make a simple man post 1

this is how you make a simple
man.
first get a .22 another .22 and a .17 and a hack saw.














then put the .17 inside the .22 like this.



















put it in a vice so the ends of each bullet shell are touching a vice jaw.















then squeeze the vice a small bit so you see a bulged bit on the .22




















you do not want to squeeze hard otherwise you get this. this is useless.






















then insert the other .22 into the bulged one. like this.



















then put it in the vice like you did the first time and squeeze. this time you go all the way.

















you should end up with this.





















then stick it in the vice again and hacksaw a little slit ('helmet') about 4mm down from the top.
there a simple man.












That man can have extras soldered on and I'll tell you about that in another post.
Also this end product minus the slit is used alot for other things like wheels. So for other posts i will call it a 'wheel'

trench art

On this blog I'm going to put stuff that I've made (or other people if they are interesting).
this morning we did a photo session on all our brass toys. they are mostly made out of old bullet shells and solder. If i can be bothered (which i should be) I'll write out how to make some of them on this blog. we(dad and moi) have made loads and here is a photo of them all.


this is a side on view of them all. the lineup on the left are all people. The furthest away are some cars. the back right corner has a train. then in the middle there are some animals.
the bottom picture shows the most important men.they are made from .22. As you can see the eyes are mostly slits(medieval helmets) because that is the easiest to make.
from the left, a silver man, Victoria cross man, field Marshall, andreas(don't know how to spell. From alistar mcclean's guns of navarone) and a major. tell you all about them later.