The Home Machinist!

My boiler is copper, oxygen is not a problem. If you put water in your boiler, everyone gets oxygen in their boiler.

David

Hi Fred,

I use a suction fan-type blower on the top of the stack. The size of blower rather depends on the size of your boiler - bigger boilers obviously need a bigger fan to draw the fire.

I have three blowers -
A small 12Vdc one I made many years ago for a small 3/4" scale locomotive (I made the approximately 2.5 inch diameter impeller out of tinplate cut from an old cookie tin, if I recall correctly). Although crude it worked remarkably well - you may want to consider this if you like to build things yourself.

A larger 12Vdc one purchased from Steamfittings in the UK (http://www.steamfittings.co.uk/asp/comp ... p?CatID=36) - from memory the impeller is roughly 4 inches in diameter. This is ideal for 1" scale models and for small 1.5" scale models, but also works for larger locomotives if you're prepared to wait a while for steam to be raised. It raises steam on my small 3" scale engine (5 gallons in the boiler) to 20psi in about 60 minutes.

A larger-still 240Vac blower that I run on 110Vac as it's much too powerful otherwise. The impeller is roughly 6 inches diameter, it is a modified UK residential gas central heating boiler fan, and raises steam to 20psi on the same small 3" scale engine in about 30 minutes at 110Vac.

One option not mentioned but commonly used for larger traction engines (perhaps 4" scale and above) is to use a temporary extension pipe on the stack to give a total stack height of about 6ft. I've never used one personally, but folks who do seem to get sufficient steam raised to use the engine's own blower in an hour or so.

Good luck,
Steve

Steve Goodbody wrote:Hi Fred,

I use a suction fan-type blower on the top of the stack. The size of blower rather depends on the size of your boiler - bigger boilers obviously need a bigger fan to draw the fire.

I have three blowers -
A small 12Vdc one I made many years ago for a small 3/4" scale locomotive (I made the approximately 2.5 inch diameter impeller out of tinplate cut from an old cookie tin, if I recall correctly). Although crude it worked remarkably well - you may want to consider this if you like to build things yourself.

A larger 12Vdc one purchased from Steamfittings in the UK (http://www.steamfittings.co.uk/asp/comp ... p?CatID=36) - from memory the impeller is roughly 4 inches in diameter. This is ideal for 1" scale models and for small 1.5" scale models, but also works for larger locomotives if you're prepared to wait a while for steam to be raised. It raises steam on my small 3" scale engine (5 gallons in the boiler) to 20psi in about 60 minutes.

A larger-still 240Vac blower that I run on 110Vac as it's much too powerful otherwise. The impeller is roughly 6 inches diameter, it is a modified UK residential gas central heating boiler fan, and raises steam to 20psi on the same small 3" scale engine in about 30 minutes at 110Vac.

One option not mentioned but commonly used for larger traction engines (perhaps 4" scale and above) is to use a temporary extension pipe on the stack to give a total stack height of about 6ft. I've never used one personally, but folks who do seem to get sufficient steam raised to use the engine's own blower in an hour or so.

Good luck,
Steve

Yes Steve I have the Steam fittings blower. It clogged with soot and no long spins at full speed. I know I have a drafting problem as my smoke box door isn't tight. I will remedy this this winter. The loco is NG 4 3/4", the Steamfittings blower seems to be a bit undersized and now broken so Im looking for robust alternative. The best Ive done to raise steam was 40 min...to about 50 to 60 psi. More to come...


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Fred Daddi, if you edit your viewing profile and add your location it will help us if we know you are in the USA or not.

Sorry to hear that Fred (I assume you're in the US by the way, based on your 4 3/4" gauge rather than 5").
As other thoughts:

I believe that Polly Models in the UK also sell a range of blowers (http://www.pollymodelengineering.co.uk/ ... sories.asp) but have no personal experience.

Additionally, I believe that there was an article in Model Engineer magazine (see the reference here: http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/ ... ?th=122952) but don't have a copy I'm afraid.

Lastly, a wood furnace blower such as the following looks like it could be adapted to work (https://altheatsupply.com/wood-furnace- ... v-718.html). 30cfm is probably too much for your engine but the outlet could easily be throttled down. Smaller blowers may be out there however.

Best regards,
Steve

I use a granger blower

1TDN2

made an adapter to cover the inlet and stick down in the stack.

40 years old, still running

..you can pretty much electric power in/around any steaming bay facility. Compressed air...not so often. So if you primarily use compressed air, you might find yourself toting an electric blower around as a back up...in particular when visiting other tracks.

Granger/Dayton blowers are pretty much one in the same. As Bill noted...you'll need an adapter on the inlet to stick down the stack. Doesn't have to be much more than a flange...but helps if that flange does stick down into the stack farther than the top edge. Short stack adapters have a bad habit of getting knocked over easily.

Consider some kind of adjustable flap on the exhaust side...and you won't need to worry about any kind of speed control. Using a flap, you can limit the blower flow if you need to cut the draft back. Might not be so critical for coal burners...but limiting the flow for propane does help when lighting burners and trying to raise steam. Last thing you want to do is suck all the heat out of the firebox.

Carl B.

Joe Tanski has an old hand held vacuum cleaner that he uses with an inexpensive speed control ...for coal or fuel oil on the same loco.

The speed control is very nice to have, but you can 'get by' without it if the blower is set up for one loco.

What I do for my multiple coal / propane locos is instead of a flap but an orifice that restricts inlet flow....as part of the adapter that I have for the various diameter stacks.

This lets me use the same blower with a 3/4 propane Hudson, 3/4 coal tom thumb, 1-1/2 propane 2-8-0 and a loaner engine of 1" coal that is in / out of my basement from time to time.

here is another way of doing it that works well too but more bulky. This design doesn't heat up or soot up the fan.

Builder01 wrote:My boiler is copper, oxygen is no.t a problem. If you put water in your boiler, everyone gets oxygen in their boiler.

David

You obviously missed my qualifier "unavoidable".

That oxygen inside a functioning boiler is harmful to that pressure vessel is not only my professional opinion, but also the opinion of the professional engineers at Babcock and Wilcox, and Combustion Engineering, both firms major boiler and pressure vessel designers/builders.

Further, Power Plant operators go to great lengths to remove all possible air/oxygen from their boilers and the feed water.

Oxygen in the boiler forms acids which also attack copper, albeit a little slower than steel.

Yes, boilers always have oxygen in them. Oxygen, by it's nature is harmful to any type of metal, I very much agree with this. It oxidizes the metal! The things is, boilers are always full of oxygen and it cannot be avoided. Water is made of oxygen. And when empty, (unless you immediately fill it with something else), there is air inside the boiler, which has lots of oxygen. Putting compressed air in a boiler to run the built in blower is not going to shorten the life of the boiler in an amount that any one can measure.

David

While theoretically true, don't think all of us put together will live long enough to have to realistically worry about air in a copper boiler.

Every copper boiler loco that I have built has an air fitting to allow a connection into the top of the boiler.

There are several 65 - 75 year old copper boilered locos running around our club that use only compressed air into the boiler for start-up steaming and as much as I hate to admit it, the boilers are doing better than I am...no noticeable leaks anywhere.