This will prob. work just fine. Keep in mind that for trailerable boats, the most difficult environment may well be traveling over rutted roads rather than steaming around. I once tried lightweight firebrick - great insulator, but could not deal with shock loads from our admittedly rough roads. Otte...

I used 1" thick FiberFrax blanket. Fiberglas would also work where it doesn't get too hot. Firebox is made from castable refractory on the inside, plus Fiberfrax.

Some pictures pre-castable refractory here: http://www.smaalders.net/bart/boiler.html

- Bart

I used stainless sheet (thin - 22 gauge or so) for the inner sheet. The firebox itself gets insulated w/ something serious like castable refractory if has fire hitting it directly. I used an inner and outer frame to fasten the inner and outer casings; no real problem w/ heat transfer. Again, if the ...

Anybody have a Semple V marine steam engine for sale ? I would be interested in a non finished, or finished one , even plans; to fit into for my whale boat hull. What happen to Semple ? I've stuck a dead end. Thank Bill Fred Semple died in 1998 apparently, and I've not seen any new engines for a lo...

My current idea is to fit a fibreglass tube to the hull with epoxy / fillets / cloth, fit top and bottom bushes made from Acetal and support the tube with a few vertical ply webs. There is a shelf already fitted above the waterline at the back of the boat, so if I run through that as well, that the...

Yes, upstream is what I meant. The previous owner had used inline check valves, but my experience with them is poor - if something gets in, once gets to disassemble the plumbing to fix it, whereas with the lift checks, all I need to do is shut off the boiler stop valve, and pull the top of the valve...

Well, it really depends on how much you like to go swimming. I've had to dive in to remove a giant ball of Hydrilla from Otter's prop... but Rainbow's prop sticks out far enough, being a double-ender, that I could reach the crab pot line that wound itself around the prop shaft with a boat hook. In a...

Hi folks - I'm replumbing Rainbow's steam line & boiler feed as they are literally underfoot and make two spots in the cabin suitable only for really small people. The previous owner used two separate boiler checks, one for the injector and one for the engine driven Hypro pump (there's no hand pump,...

skinner.png Caprotti valve gear is more complex. Skinner valve gear is pretty simple to understand the two cams in the center have their motion effectively averaged by the followers, so one cam controls admission and the other cut-off. The max cut-off possible is when both cams are aligned. - Bart

Catching up on an older thread... As Lopez Mike mentioned, I've been heads down w/ a new job this year. However, I'm on Lopez for a month, working half time (4 day weekends are great!), so I'm catching up, doing some badly needed replumbing on our new to us steamboat (Rainbow) and will be talking w/...