The Steamboating Forum

I'm a newbie from Idaho. I do not have a boat, I do have a Stuart Turner #1 that I was hoping to find a suitable hull for. I have viewed a few threads about boats suitable for this engine. One such boat was a Fiberglass copy of a Wineglass Wherry, built by a fellow in Pennsylvania. I would be interested in an existing hull or kit suitable for this engine. Would a boat such as the Amp-Eater by Glen-L marine designs be suitable?

Welcome to the Forum!

The Stuart No.1 is a very pretty little engine, and ought to run well, but remember it's basically a model, and not designed for long periods of use. For occasional use it should be fine. You may have to replace bearings etc. after maybe a few hundred hours running. You probably also need to buy or make an engine-driven boiler feed pump, plus a hand pump for emergency use: even small boilers become potentially dangerous if they run low on water. Engine lubrication can be done manually using an oil can, but if you do that it MUST be done frequently, and not neglected after a liquid lunch! Some semi-automatic system would be better.

I've just looked up the Amp-eater from Glen-L; I haven't seen it before, but at a glance it does look suitable, and probably fairly quick and easy to build. The real question is whether it's stable enough to take a boiler, which even for this size of engine can be of comparable weight to a person and may have a fairly high centre of gravity. There is a sentence in the SBA Steamboating Guide which goes something like this: "Stand upright in the boat where the boiler is intended to go, and if you find yourself upside-down under water, the boat isn't stable enough". The SBA Steamboating Guide is not an expensive publication, and by no means encyclopaedic, but worth getting a copy.

Welcome to the forum! Both hulls should be suitable, albeit a little tippy.

Have you given any thought to boilers?

What part of Idaho are you from? Planning on river, or lake steaming?

RGSP wrote:Welcome to the Forum!

The Stuart No.1 is a very pretty little engine, and ought to run well, but remember it's basically a model, and not designed for long periods of use. For occasional use it should be fine. You may have to replace bearings etc. after maybe a few hundred hours running. You probably also need to buy or make an engine-driven boiler feed pump, plus a hand pump for emergency use: even small boilers become potentially dangerous if they run low on water. Engine lubrication can be done manually using an oil can, but if you do that it MUST be done frequently, and not neglected after a liquid lunch! Some semi-automatic system would be better.

My Stuart No.1 has a displacement lubricator, I would like to add drip lubricators. I don't have an engine driven boiler feed pump, but intend to build one.

RGSP wrote:I've just looked up the Amp-eater from Glen-L; I haven't seen it before, but at a glance it does look suitable, and probably fairly quick and easy to build. The real question is whether it's stable enough to take a boiler, which even for this size of engine can be of comparable weight to a person and may have a fairly high centre of gravity. There is a sentence in the SBA Steamboating Guide which goes something like this: "Stand upright in the boat where the boiler is intended to go, and if you find yourself upside-down under water, the boat isn't stable enough". The SBA Steamboating Guide is not an expensive publication, and by no means encyclopaedic, but worth getting a copy.

There is a youtube video of an Amp-Eater named Katie Ann Too that has been built as a steamer the guy who built her also converted her from a transom tail to a fan tail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1SqctYDJyk

TahoeSteam wrote:Welcome to the forum! Both hulls should be suitable, albeit a little tippy.

Have you given any thought to boilers?

What part of Idaho are you from? Planning on river, or lake steaming?

I haven't decided what type of boiler to use.

I live in Boise area, and would primarily use her in lakes or reservoirs.

copterav8r wrote:My Stuart No.1 has a displacement lubricator, I would like to add drip lubricators. I don't have an engine driven boiler feed pump, but intend to build one.

If you're not intending to superheat (and I wouldn't for that size) then many people would claim that with a slide valve and cast-iron piston and cylinder, condensed steam will be enough lubrication inside the engine. Tiny displacement lubricators are inclined to dispense far too much oil into the steam, or none, and putting some oil into the engine as an anti-corrosion method after use is probably more important than lubrication when running. You can get it in via the cylinder cocks, a syringe, and a bit of plastic tube, and then turning the engine over by hand.

Drip lubricators are good, but with the tiny size of the No.1 you'll find some difficulty in fitting them in: drip don't scale down! Simple oil cups reduce the frequency of needing to use an oil can, and I don't know, but you may be able to attach one to the crosshead, which is always difficult to lubricate effectively. Plastic fine-gauge medical or veterinary catheters make good gravity oil supply lines attached to a single high level oil resovoir, and are flexible enough to attach to big ends & crossheads as well as main bearings - though I admit they look a bit silly.

Hello, would this be the boat from PA you speak of ? her name is Muskrat owned by Livingston Morris with a Stuart 1, the engine has built up wrist pins and I believe built up cranks to withstand the demand of constant use but I do not think in the 23 years I have been part of the Lake Nockamixon Meets have I ever once seen it have any sort of mechanical failure. The Muskrat is a great boat and I have seen him on Lake George cutting thru whitecaps like a hot knife thru butter.

steamdon-jr wrote:Hello, would this be the boat from PA you speak of ? her name is Muskrat owned by Livingston Morris with a Stuart 1

Yes, that's the one and she's a beauty.

Livingston's wineglass hull is indeed very nice, and when pushed, one of the faster steamboats in the group. He has a watertube boiler, wood fired, and has no trouble with continuous running. The Stuart No. 1 provides a neat and reliable setup, with steam exhaust over the side of the hull.

I'd love to have a wineglass hull, but know of no available drawings. A kit is available to build a wineglass wherry from wood, but it's two feet longer than muskrat. Roger Ullsky built Katie Ann Too from Glen-L Marine's drawings for Amp-Eater and powered her with an engine of his own design which has the same bore and stroke as a Stuart Turner #1. The Amp-Eater hull isn't as nice looking nor is it as sleek as the wineglass hull.