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