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Quiet

Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2014 4:33 pm
by TahoeSteam
SO VERY QUIET.......

Hopefully it's because most are out playing about in their boats...

Re: Quiet

Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2014 4:53 pm
by Lopez Mike
Not so quiet out on the water around here! I used up a half a gallon of water last week just with the whistle!

Question for all:

Stack blower orifice size.
Eight inch stack, six feet high. VFT-30 boiler burning wood. I was going to start with a single 1/16" hole. This is just for getting steam up and/or recovering from general doltishness resulting in letting the pressure get too low while thinking about other things. Or for an occasional burst of speed to get the hell out of the way of a ferry boat.

Too big?

Thoughts please.

Mike

Re: Quiet

Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2014 1:41 am
by steamdon-jr
we had small holes in Adelaide maybe 3 or four holes and they we I believe 3/64, they tended to get blocked with soot. we have since used a 1/4' plug with a 1/8" hole that is tapered and countersunk. your needle valve will control the flow just fine....you can crack it for some added flow or open it wide open and it does a nice job of sucking stuff out the tubes including lots of soot and sparks. we used this on Adelaide for 13 years and Phoebe Snow now for 2 without ever clogging.

Re: Quiet

Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2014 2:20 am
by Lopez Mike
How large are the boilers on those two boats?

I just drilled a single #60 hole (.040", approx. 1 mm) for starters. We'll see.

Thanks,

Mike

Re: Quiet

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 1:47 am
by steamdon-jr
Adelaide had a very small WT boiler at 1.2 sq. ft. of grate area and 12 sq. ft. of heating surface (Carter Mann Boiler),
Phoebe Snow has a code VFT boiler and burns Wood/coal, Pressure: 150 psi, Grate area: 1.75 sq. ft. , Heating area: 26.48 sq. ft. , Output: 211.85 lbs/hr, 22" diameter X 39" high Steel barrel. 61 X 1-1/4" diameter steel tubes.

Re: Quiet

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 5:03 am
by Lopez Mike
Sounds like Phoebe Snow has a boiler fairly close in size to mine. I'll go ahead and steam this coming weekend with the small hole and see how it goes. Fortunately enlarging holes is easy!

Mike

Re: Quiet

Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 2:22 am
by artemis
Lopez Mike wrote:Sounds like Phoebe Snow has a boiler fairly close in size to mine. I'll go ahead and steam this coming weekend with the small hole and see how it goes. Fortunately enlarging holes is easy!

Mike
I had a similar setup on Artemis and used a 0.125" hole drilled in a 1/4" NPT plug that was screwed into a 90 deg. elbow pointing straight up the stck just above the damper. The hole was tapered 7 degrees from vertical. Worked great. Since I had a steam atomizing burner, I used a pressure reducing valve that was set at about 18psi - everything was copper, bronze or SS from the boiler shutoff on so that there were no metalic particulates (rust, etc.) to clog burner or stack blower orifices