New Plywood Sidewheeler Building

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Re: New Plywood Sidewheeler Building

Post by artemis » Mon Oct 11, 2010 4:38 pm

Nice build. Hope you'll consider doing an article (or a series) for Steamboating Magazine now that you've met the Lake Nockamixon deadline. Drop me a line if you're interested. :)
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Re: New Plywood Sidewheeler Building

Post by mcandrew1894 » Tue Oct 12, 2010 1:13 am

Congratulations Fred!

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Re: New Plywood Sidewheeler Building

Post by fredrosse » Tue Oct 12, 2010 1:37 pm

A couple of crude still pictures from Katharine's Blackberry. She also has some good film clips, but we don't yet know how to get them off of her device.
10-10-10 was a perfect day, excellent temperature, and about a dozen steamers on the lake, two of which were just built.
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IMG00137-20101010-1537.jpg
Sidewheeler parked for lunch. Nice to have shallow draft, no worries about grass and weeds fouling the prop.
IMG00137-20101010-1537.jpg (76.32 KiB) Viewed 12431 times
IMG00141-20101010-1554.jpg
Sidewheeler underway, with about 50 psi steam pressure only, too much splashing of water with higher steam pressure.
IMG00141-20101010-1554.jpg (111.02 KiB) Viewed 12431 times
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Re: New Plywood Sidewheeler Building

Post by PeteThePen1 » Fri Oct 15, 2010 9:58 pm

Well done! I am very impressed to see that you went from nothing in the hull to afloat and steaming in four days. I presume that you must have tested the boiler and all its plumbing "on the bench" at some earlier time.

Look forward to seeing the next batch of pictures.

Best wishes

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Re: New Plywood Sidewheeler Building

Post by mcandrew1894 » Sun Oct 17, 2010 11:25 pm

Congrats Fred!

What do you think of the size and diameter of the wheels?......I'm curious as I know little of floats and wheels......

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Re: New Plywood Sidewheeler Building

Post by fredrosse » Mon Oct 18, 2010 4:58 am

As shown on an earlier post, the boiler was steamed the week before the meet, with its water column, try cocks, sight glass and pressure gauge. A propane tank and a big weed burner supplies the heat.

All of the piping in the boat was put together two days before the meet, no plans were available, as I like to work up a good arrangement when I can see what things are going to look like, how crowded the piping will be, etc. I really had a very simple arrangement for the first trial.

I bought a 15 gallon horizontal tank at Central Tractor (made as an auxiliary fuel tank for trucks, about 12 inches in diameter and forty inches long, seemed like it was perfect as a reserve feed water tank. It came with a large fill cap, 1/2 inch ball valve, and 10 feet of gasoline hose. That was simply connected to the manual feed pump suction barb. The feed pump discharge was 1/2 inch OD copper tubing, made up with compression fittings, leading to a ball valve and check valve on a boiler connection. So much for getting water into the boiler.

The steam side was also quite simple, all 1/ 2 inch steel piping. A short run to the safety valve, kept away from the hot gasses exiting the firetubes. Coming off the boiler top is a union, and main steam stop valve, leading to the separator tank. The separator tank is 3 inch pipe, about 12 inches high, with a horizontal tangential inlet steam connection. Steam to the engine comes off the top of the tank, and a Sarco thermodynamic steam trap is connected to the bottom. If the boiler primes or gives a slug of water, this tank will eliminate the water, and protect the engine from water ingestion. The trap discharge is piped overboard.

Two stainless braided metal flex connections and 1/ 2 inch steel pipe lead to the engine throttle valve, a 150 PSI rated ball valve, then into the engine connection. At the low point just before the throttle valve there is a bottom tapping with a 1/ 4 inch tubing needle valve, to get rid of condensate during warm-up.

Finally there is a one inch copper exhaust steam manifold, connected to the engine with ordinary automotive radiator hose, that discharges upward, pointed away from the boat occupants.

Simple arrangement, yet it took me about 20 hours to put it all together.

The final arrangement will have a surface condenser, two feed water heaters, automatic boiler water level control, an economizer, and of course a whistle and teapot.
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Re: New Plywood Sidewheeler Building

Post by fredrosse » Mon Oct 18, 2010 5:20 am

Paddlewheels for a sidewheeler come in two designs. The simple fixed paddle floats are used here, and there is not much technical data available. From what I could find, with about 150% of the thrust area of a conventional propeller, slip will be similar to what is attained with a properly sized screw propeller, in the vicinity of 25-35% slip. Efficiency is about 10 to 20 percent lower than a properly sized screw propeller. The wheel has to be large enough that the floats enter the water at less than about 30 degrees from vertical.

Most of the later sidewheelers used articulated floats, that have a mechanism that lets the floats enter and exit the lake water with an almost vertical orientation. These are more efficient, smaller in diameter, and run at higher RPM. For a small launch, the complication of the mechanism, and its vunerability to damage when running aground were though to be strong reasons to stay with the simple non-articulated wheels.
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Re: New Plywood Sidewheeler Building

Post by fredrosse » Wed Nov 17, 2010 6:29 pm

Got the paddleboxes on for another outing, but it was rather cold on the lake.
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Re: New Plywood Sidewheeler Building

Post by artemis » Thu Nov 18, 2010 4:30 am

I, too, am impressed. And since that boiler will keep you warm on the coldest day, you don't have to shut down 'til the lake freezes.
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Re: New Plywood Sidewheeler Building

Post by fredrosse » Sat Nov 27, 2010 12:47 am



A short video of the sidewheeler underway on an unusually warm day in November. Only running at about half speed (46 RPM), the propane fuel tank was iced over, and low on gas pressure, so the fire was limited. Boat is now back into the workshop, to complete as much fitting out as possible before the spring steaming season.
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