steel cylinder?

A special section just for steam engines and boilers, as without these you may as well fit a sail.
steamboatjack
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Re: steel cylinder?

Post by steamboatjack » Sat Oct 08, 2011 7:59 am

I believe some castings used in auto & aero engineering are made without the use of further machining, but this is high cost, high volume, high tech stuff not what we are talking about. Sintered iron would probably be suitable,this is powdered metal heat bonded in a mould made to accurate dimensions, but the sintering people generally look at volumes of 1,000,000 off before they would considerer making the tooling required. Stick to good old sand cast grey cast iron or machine from solid mehanite bar.
regards Jack
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DetroiTug
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Re: steel cylinder?

Post by DetroiTug » Tue Oct 11, 2011 9:26 pm

Scott,

Sorry for the slow reply on your inquiry about a casting set. I have not talked to him since the day I posted the pics. I've been urging him to get the kit ready as I'm sure he'd sell some of them. We talk one time about machining the cam from a solid model in a 4th axis CNC setup, then the next time I talk to him he's designing a rotary panagraph/copier to produce the cams. I think he's really more concerned about proving it out before bringing it to market, and he needs a suitable boiler before that can happen - in his car set up.

He doesn't use the internet much, so I'll try to keep everyone posted when he has his design proven out, especially the marine version.

-Ron
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Re: steel cylinder?

Post by SL Ethel » Wed Oct 12, 2011 1:45 am

Ron,

No worries. I bought my hull in 2004 and am still not finished getting the first engine and boiler running to my satisfaction (or sometimes at all). So there is certainly no hurry.

Not sure if this would be of interest to your friend looking for a car boiler, but I was quoted $450 last week to have a coil made up similar to a hot water pressure washer (1/2" pipe, sch 80). In hot water pressure washer guise, it would absorb something like 250,000 btu/hr, but I think that could be increased a good deal for steam use. It seems like an interesting idea to use one of these coils as a safe, inexpensive flash boiler. If you (or anyone else) is interested, I believe it was Benson Mfg. in Knoxville, TN that was willing to quote the coil alone, and also do a certain amount of adjustment to the design at little or no extra cost.

Cheers,
Scott
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barts
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Re: steel cylinder?

Post by barts » Wed Oct 12, 2011 3:18 am

SL Ethel wrote: In hot water pressure washer guise, it would absorb something like 250,000 btu/hr, but I think that could be increased a good deal for steam use.
Given the example of the Lamont boiler, my feeling is pumped circulation usage such as a hot water pressure heater is probably optimum for BTU/sq. ft....

- Bart
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Bart Smaalders http://smaalders.net/barts Lopez Island, WA
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