The Steamboating Forum

As a measure of how much attention I've been paying, it just dawned on me that the boat in question is non-condensing. Something that I seldom encounter since the vast majority of my steaming is in salt water. Mea Culpa. A word to the wise about Oilsorb pads/sheets. I recently had a problem with res...

We now have five steam boats on an island with a little over 3000 year round residents. 3156 people as of the 2020 census. Steam boats were not on the census questionaire! Unfair!

Mike

I agree with Bart on this one. Keep it simple. After all, how many times a day or even week does one need to blow down. I'm assuming that your system is condensing. I choose not to put lake or stream water in my rather expensive system! I use common 3/4 turn 1/2" water valves just about everywh...

My take would be to just use an ordinary bronze through hull and not worry about the temperature. By the time the steam and spray get to the hull, the temps (and pressure) will have dropped enormously. Also, fiberglass can take a lot of heat. I'm assuming that the blow down valve is at the boiler en...

Thanks to all for your advice and help. As too the problems I was having with the search engine, Simon has most graciously changed the search engine parameters such that it will accept pretty much anything! As to the hot well subject, I find that the various methods seem to converge. And for no part...

I've been struggling with the search function to no avail so I'll just open up a topic. I'm going to build a new hot well (or hotwell if you like). With my failure to be able to search the forum, I'll put it out for discussion. The only consideration that comes to mind for sizing said well would be ...

Great use of existing stuff. I'm impressed!

I've had very good service out of those in-line check valves. I didn't know that they were intended for pneumatic service.

Mike

Dead on. As usual. A consideration, which Fred touched on, is how much attention do you want to pay to your power plant? At first, it seems like that's all steaming is about. On the work bench it's great fun to turn a valve and have this interesting and sometimes complicated mess of machinery react....

There are all sort of technical considerations as to the different designs. Most are valid. For me, my choice was determined by the appearance on the market of a junk hull with essentially new machinery. Cheap. And that included a VFT boiler. In other words, historical reasons. I've had good service...

So Wes. With Lee Mills being about 40 degrees of longitude away from us, did it cause problems? Like all of the water running over to the East side of the lake?

Mike