Revision 3 on the oil burner. An original 1960s Cliff Blackstaffe oil burner for this boiler was acquired (astounding!), plus the original needle valve and pressure regulated atomizer controller, and I finished the installation yesterday, except for the insulation on the two new atomizer lines to th...

I'm with Mike.
I'm also in favor of the simplicity of a VFT for "hobby" steaming, despite the improved efficiency offered by that more complex design.
I see the need for at least 8 different bending jigs to make that boiler design.
Not so much a Home Shop operation.
RussN

Mike:
I also live in the northwest USA.
And I don't use coal in any of my steam machines.
((-;
RussN

Sil-Phos brazing rod wets easily and brazes copper nicely. However...
It is not useable in sulphur environments, i.e. for coal burning, because it disassociates and becomes porous.
Many a sil-phos brazed copper boiler ended life early because of sil-phos alloy.
Food for thought.
RussN

My commercially (USA) made locomotive boiler (8" diameter) is all welded except for the copper tubes which are silver brazed to the steel front and firebox tube sheets. It is not an ASME certified boiler. It is certified by Washington State, USA, for operating pressures up to 150 psi, and initially ...

To answer a question I received, I'll post a picture below of the old Blackstaffe steam atomized oil burner that I will return to Clauran's new boiler. It is a simple burner using steam flow to "suck" oil through a 0.057" diameter hole into the firebox. No heating coils, no electrical power required...

Progress Report toward getting Clauran in the waters for operation: After the third steam test at home yesterday, I am not happy with the oil burner system. Simply not very controllable. But I can easily get steam up to 100 psi in 10 minutes or less. So I contacted the person who purchased my old Ma...

The Javelin looks like a nice dinghy for steam conversion. At 14 feet long it would make a nifty "pocket" steamer. The fiberglass seats provide built-in flotation, a good safety feature. Hulls were constructed until the end of the 1980s. The Thistle design came from the smaller International 14 sail...

Oil burner atomizer control improvement: The needle valve I installed for the atomizer control (orange handle visible in the photo in my previous post) is not sensitive enough and makes it difficult to maintain a small "spot" fire. So I serviced/restored the old pressure controller from the original...

No skeg has been added. The visible stainless steel aft support for the cutlass bearing has two bars extending down to provide some impact protection for the prop. The welded parallel bars make a very stiff structure. This is actually a Bill Paulsoulich improvement over the original support which wa...