Nyitra I

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cyberbadger
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Nyitra I

Post by cyberbadger » Thu Nov 20, 2014 3:41 am

Let's first start with the name for my first steam launch.

These pictures attached are from my family photo albums of some of my ancestors, taken somewhere between 1900-1914 in the Austro Hungarian Empire in what is now in Gyor, Hungary.

The pictures of sugar beet hauling in a canal in Gyor. It's unclear if any of my family owned the actual steamboat or hired it seasonally. They did have a large plantation and grew sugar beets that much is clear.

It's a good name as any to me and something to connect to my ancestors.

So Nyitra I is my name for my first launch....

Pronounced something like Knee + tra. (If you can trill your R's a little bit of that on the tra)

-CB
Attachments
nyitra1.png
With this boat they towed the sugar beet harvest to Acs. In 1914 this boat was commandeered by the military for war service. The boats name was Nyitra.
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nyitra2.png
Sugar beet loading onto the barge at Gyor in Hungary.
nyitra2.png (104.53 KiB) Viewed 20407 times
nyitra3.png
Men putting the sugar beet harvest onto a barge that the Nyitra steam launch pulled.
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cyberbadger
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Hull

Post by cyberbadger » Thu Nov 20, 2014 4:33 am

I've had the name for quite some time. I never had ANY intention of replicating the Nyitra canal steamboat - just the name.

My goal is to make a non traditional steam launch in my own way.

This week I bought the hull. A 24ft aluminum pontoon boat. It's very well used, almost junk - But that's not what I care about. The pontoons are sound, and the underlying structure seems sound.

-CB
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Hull - 24ft pontoon boat
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cyberbadger
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Prop

Post by cyberbadger » Thu Nov 20, 2014 6:36 am

First Prop 18x24 3 blade. 18" diameter x 24" pitch.

-CB
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18" Diameter x 24" Pitch
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cyberbadger
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Candidate Engines

Post by cyberbadger » Thu Nov 20, 2014 6:54 am

1 cylinder 2.75 inch bore by 3 inch stroke, slip eccentric reversing running gear. (English Engine made by J Winn in Abingdon England. Originally used in an 18ft steam launch in England.)

2 cylinder simple 3 inch bore x 4 inch Stroke - 1902 Toledo Steam Car Engine with stephenson linkage and piston Valves. (Sold as a 6HP)

The boiler in these videos is NOT what I'm going to use on my launch. The videos are mine and I'm in the videos.

"English Engine"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWo-hCeuy4w

"1902 Toledo Engine"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT8Hnqo3TOU

-CB
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Re: Nyitra I

Post by DetroiTug » Fri Nov 21, 2014 3:23 pm

That is a great family history and interesting pics.

Your plan is similar to a boat here in Michigan. It's a pontoon as well with a VFT boiler and I think a 3 X 3 1/2 Olds steam engine. It is a paddle wheeler, Moves along nice, lots of room. One of the unique features on the boat is the engine mount is actually a tank or the hotwell, he has a float in there with an arm that comes out the side near the flywheel with a small bell on it. There is a pin in the flywheel - when the water level gets low in the hotwell it rings the bell. Also he has no engine or steam driven pumps (or didn't when I was aboard). Rather a large manual pump that he uses about every 3 or 4 minutes to maintain boiler water level.

If I'm not mistaken, he added one short pontoon in the center mostly forward to carry the extra weight of the boiler. It's a great boat, moves easily, trailers well etc.



Image

Image

Image

-Ron
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cyberbadger
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Water Sources for Boiler

Post by cyberbadger » Sat Nov 22, 2014 1:41 am

I hate hand pumps. :-P

Feed Water Sources:

1) 1/2" NPT Penberthy High Pressure Steam Injector AA-328 which should be able to operate up to 200 PSI (The MAWP for my boiler)
penberthy.png
Penberthy 1/2" High Pressure Steam Injector
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2) 1/2" NPT Chicago Steam Injector - It unknown if it will function up to 200PSI/my MAWP. But it's not going to burst, it'll just dump everything out the overflow if It can't work up to 200PSI. They were used on Traction Engines, so I'd image it will work up to at least 150PSI or 175PSI.

I can find no documentation on Chicago Injectors - if anyone can point me to any I would be very interested. The main body reads Chicago PAT APR 15 02. It also has a 1 in a raised circle - but I think that's just the casting part sub assembly number.
chicago.png
Chicago 1/2" Steam Injector
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3) Marsh Simplex Steam Pump. I've been restoring it. I think the brown is aweful so I'm painting it blue(for water). I'm cleaning, making new gaskets/packing, and fabricated a replacement shaft(with help from a friend because it had some cuts in it. It's almost complete.
marsh.png
Marsh Simplex Steam Pump
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I haven't tried any of these 3 under steam because I haven't received the new boiler for the Nyitra yet.

I have learned to operate a 3/4" and a 3/8" Penberthy Injector on my current smaller boiler. So I'm familiar enough with injectors.

The Marsh I have tried under compressed air and it did pump water before I started restoring it.
I'm also not unfamiliar with Steam pumps - I have a 3x2x3 Worthington Duplex that I tested under steam on my current smaller boiler - and I love the movement of a Duplex steam pump. But it weighs 200lbs in weight - I just can't justify that much weight for the Nitra. (That's heavier then either of my candidate engines!!!)

Another potential option if I use the English J Winn engine - it has a pump on the crank shaft - I've never tried it myself.

-CB
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Lopez Mike
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Re: Nyitra I

Post by Lopez Mike » Sun Nov 23, 2014 12:41 am

Keep in mind that steam driven feedwater pumps are generally steam hogs. Great to watch and fine to add water when you are stopped. I'd be sure and have a good engine driven pump and a hotwell float otherwise you will spending all of your time fussing with the power plant instead of navigating.
If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.
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cyberbadger
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Re: Nyitra I

Post by cyberbadger » Sun Nov 23, 2014 1:04 am

Lopez Mike wrote:Keep in mind that steam driven feedwater pumps are generally steam hogs. Great to watch and fine to add water when you are stopped. I'd be sure and have a good engine driven pump and a hotwell float otherwise you will spending all of your time fussing with the power plant instead of navigating.
I will be running non condensing. I'm not going to have a hotwell - injectors don't like hot water, and the two injectors are my primary feedwater sources. The steam pump is there because I like steam pumps - I know it's a steam hog - but I wanted a different technology then just two injectors. Injectors work great for non condensing, but if there is anything they don't like they can become grumpy/finicky or just fail to operate. Steam pumps although steam hogs are generally more reliable. So the marsh steam pump is a back up to the backup injector(chicago) which is a backup to the primary injector(penberthy).

-CB
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Re: Nyitra I

Post by barts » Sun Nov 23, 2014 7:06 pm

In the 24 years Otter has been steaming, I've used lots of different plumbing configurations, manual pumps, engine driven pumps, etc. By far the easiest to run has been a condenser + hotwell, since I don't need to fiddle w/ a bypass. About the only thing I should change is to make the water fill valve (adds water to the boiler) spring loaded; every so often I forget/get distracted and put too much water in the boiler.

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

Post by DetroiTug » Sun Nov 23, 2014 8:17 pm

Lopez Mike wrote:Keep in mind that steam driven feedwater pumps are generally steam hogs. Great to watch and fine to add water when you are stopped.
On the tug I run a steampump continually, by taking water/steam off at the middle trycock it keeps the water level there all the time. I've never been able to determine the exact efficiency by different methods of adding feedwater. The feedwater goes through an exhaust heat exchanger right at the pump and then through the economizer. So I'm pulling steam away and replacing with 180°F water. Which by volume will create much more steam per stroke than is being used to run the pump. Without wandering too closely to any sort of notions of perpetual motion :lol: , it is not as inefficient as one might think. But, yes the pump uses a lot of steam even being a single cylinder, coupled with the twin 3+3 engine. The advantage is it is easy to fire and it is steady, just have to watch the glass and add wood. I'm guessing the real inefficiency here is when it is pulling boiler water and replacing less volume lower temp water. Of course the pump runs very slow at that point minimizing the loss. Who knows..

Adding with manual bypass, steam generation was never stable unless I could find a sweetpoint for the bypass valve and adjust it in small increments up and down, and that was about impossible with boat speed etc. Simply opening and closing it resulted in fluctuations from great performance to poor performance.

-Ron
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