Little and Often firing technique

[DetroiTug]

Here is a video that explains locomotive firing, but it can be applied to firing our small steamboat boilers as well.



-Ron

[fredrosse]

Thanks for the great video. Made me late for work today, had to watch the whole thing, so I missed the (electric) train!

[Jack Innes]

Thank you as well for the great video. I learned why my 100 year old cook stove has so many draft controls at different levels. I have fired several traction engines & can see that knowing how to do it properly would be an major advantage. b]

[Dhutch]

Very interesting video, largely reconfirms what I was taught about firing the boat by my grandfather, but very interesting to hear it said again.

Daniel

[Lopez Mike]

I fire with wood and my experience has been similar in some ways. I have a VFT.

It works best if I avoid big hunks. With large logs two bad things happen. One is that it takes a while for each log to get burning and another is that I end up with holes in the fire which pass cold air.

Typical bits for my 12" diameter grate will be no bigger than my fist.

As to reading the stack for smoke, the only time I see much smoke with soft wood is when I close the air down all the way when stopped.

So far I have only used primary air from under the grate. I have no easy way to open the fire box door in small increments but when the primary air is closed and I still have too much fire and the pressure is still rising, it helps a small bit to open the fire door all the way. I suppose it's letting cold air up the tubes.

When working hard I keep a rather deep fire as blocking the primary air doesn't seen to be a problem at all. I cram in all that will fit. Need to with soft wood.