The Steamboating Forum

Is it fair to generallize that a tree that grows faster should burn faster producing less BTU's? We have lots of fruitless mullberry trees in our area mostly because landscapers know they grow very fast. It's easy to get a 12" diameter trunk in seven or eight years. I don't have a background in...

Generally, in my VFT boiler I burn a blend of whatever I pull off my wood pile. This is a combination of whatever the neighbors happen to cutting down and I get there in time to haul it home. The past few years this has been eucalyptus, mullberry, cherry, acatia, hackberry and a few I don't know the...

Although I haven't placed an appropriate pyrometer on my boiler yet, a couple friends with Robert's style boilers, burning wood with various oil product backup, show over 800 degrees F in their funnels.

Anytime working around fire of any sort, I wouldn't leave the dock without a can of Bag Balm in my tool box. Plus it passed as "first aid kit" on my safety inspection this past June. In regard to tools, I use lots of socket head cap screws on my boat so Allen wrenches, both ball end and so...

Regardless of where you mount it, the primary thing I've learned from my two (so far) boardings for C.G. inspections is the light(s) must be visible from 1/2 mile. This said, current LED lights are easily visible from that range and can run for days on a couple D cells...or less. Although I haven't ...

The bilge pump I use was purchased at Harbor Freight for under $40 (H.F. Item #94639) and has been good now for three years and I expect it to keep pumping for another 10 years. I run it off a 12 volt, 10 amp hour sealed lead acid battery. This I recharge after a weekend's boating with a 5 watt sola...

1) The steam lance is a 1/4"+/- metal tube bent at a 90 degree angle in which steam can be blown through the boiler flues (fire tube) or on the water tubes to dis-lodge soot which has accumulated which slows the heat transfer. This is primarily necessary on wood burners but oil burners can gene...

The folks I run with would shutter at anything less than hard, schedule 80 steel for steam lines. It's a pain to work with, especially when bending, but combined with good quality stainless valves ensures you'll be steaming safely a long time. In regard to your quest for a simple drawing showing fee...

At last year's NWSS annual meet at Cathlamet, right down the river from Portland, a fella arrived with his beautiful "new" boat ready for a weekend of fun. After the mandatory hydro showed several of his flues leaking the weekend became a real challenge between the NWSS board of directors ...

The flue sheets on either end of the Semple flues have machined recesses allowing the weld bead to lay almost flat on the sheet. Removing a flue involves first grinding off as much weld as reasonable on both sheets, then making a cutter which aligns inside the bad flue(s) to actually cut 3/16"+...