The early Mississippi steamboats had such low pressure the boilers had a standpipe that went all the way up above the top deck, OPEN, the weight of the water was enough to keep the steam IN, that's where they added feed water. Watt did NOT approve of "strong" steam! . Indeed. Watt's big invention w...

The introduction to this section is rather disparaging about sails, but there is a long and entirely honourable history of sailing ships and boats with auxillary steam plants, and indeed steam vessels with a few sails to save fuel when the wind was favourable. Anybody ever use sails on a steamboat? ...

Flushing/refilling trailer wheel bearings after salt water exposure?

I think I could wind those tubes without problem, and probably weld them to the centre drum as well. I've always had a question about Ofeldt boilers though: if one of those tube welds starts leaking after a period in service, is there any way you could get to it to replace the tube or even just rewe...

Looking at that got me thinking. Did anyone produce a compound engine with two highs feeding a large low? I think one (or more) of the Webb compound locomotives on the LNWR may have been arranged that way. There's only room for one low pressure cylinder between the frames, an HP was put both sides ...

Use of mechaical indicators was still part of my Engineering degree course (1970 -73) and they work on any slow piston engine with a bit of fiddling about, single or multi cylinder, steam or i.c. The slow speed limitation was perhaps the biggest reason for switching to computer based systems doing e...

Mike, as a sheep breeder as well as a steam-engine builder, several of my friends have seriously damaged backs from shearing and generally looking after the wooly brutes. Several of them have adapted hydraulic lifts intended for working on motor cycles as a way of bringing 100kg of sheep up to a sui...

"I wonder if wildly overheating a Teflon frying pan would do this" Of course the safety implications here with very common cookware applications, and certianly many hundreds of incidences of neglectful cooking are obvious. Once I heated up some pizza in my oven, intending to eat it right away, but ...

I have used PTFE for seals of all sorts on things other than steam engines over the years, and a few comments might be useful. 1. You CAN machine it like a metal as long as you cool it down. Dry ice gets cold enough, but I've had liquid nitrogen available, and you can machine for 10 minutes or so be...

Bart, I am full of admiration for your project - no ifs or buts. In 1969 I did my RN Officers' boat handling training, in 30' i.c. engined launches using Kitchen rudders. Frankly, they were complete bastards to manouvre compared with civilian craft I was already well used to, with ordinary rudders a...