Clishay fireing

[Fred_V]

A friend bought an old Clishay and wants to run it on coal. The boiler is the water tube design. I was thinking that it would get all sooted up and be hard to clean.
Any thoughts???
Fred V

[pat1027]

I put a lot of miles on a Clishay with the water tube design in the early 80's. It tended to soot up halfway through the day. Our routine was to take a break at lunch time and drop the fire. Have a sandwich and then run a bottle brush up and down the tubes. We'd be good for the afternoon. With the small firebox the firing technique was a little bit often. Same with the water You had to learn how to fire it. To little and you lost the fire and too much you choked it.

The firebox was the Achilles heal of the boiler design. The original mile steel fire box lasted one summer. It was replaced with a stainless fire box the lasted longer but distorted. The third fire box was stainless with flanges at the top to match the O.D. of the jacket. The space below was packed with refractory.

[Berkman]

I remember being at a Mid South meet in the 90s and there were two coal fired clishays. One was the "gold bug" don't remember what the other looked like. This doesn't help much, but it certainly seems to have been done.

[Fred_V]

Ah, the Goldbug. I forgot about that one. Jerry Deaton always with a stub of a cigar between his teeth. What a great guy. Don Saager with the parrot on his shoulder had one too. I'll contact him.
Thanks,
Fred V

[Fred_V]

Here is a pic of Jerry (2003) running his new engine for the first time wearing his brand new engineers hat. First time around the track a cinder landed on his hat and he came by the steamng bay with smoke pouring out of the top of his head!!! We all yelled at him and he got it before he got burned.

[Berkman]

Here's a pic I found:

https://www.midsouthlivesteamers.com/fa ... nv4vxwbpyi