propane question

[Bill Shields]

heat the tender water....

[Harold_V]

heat the tender water....

I was chastised for suggesting adding heat to propane bottles. I still think it's a good idea. I've experienced icing. I've also experienced a bottle blowing off because of increased pressure (due to heating). Use common sense and it should work just fine.

H

[Bill Shields]

adding heat to the water will be tantamount to keeping it at room temperature

[Bill Shields]

ah...but COMMON SENSE is so UN-COMMON that it is practically an oxy-moron

[SteveM]

Having separate valves, as Chuck suggests, gets you another benefit:
You can run on one tank and when / if it ices up, you switch to the other tank.

Steve

[SteveM]

I was chastised for suggesting adding heat to propane bottles.

My dad ran a steam line around the tank in the tank car. If it iced up, he just opened up a valve in the cab for a few minutes.

Steve

[Drprez]

Where can you buy burners like these?

[JohnHudak]

Where can you buy burners like these?

Nicholas, I didn’t see anything available like these for the smaller scales, so I ended up making my own...
Maybe someone out there can knock some out for the smaller scale people?
(Not me, too many projects)

[curtis cutter]

Do you know what the BTU requirements will be? A gallon of propane weighs about 4.2 pounds and contains about 90,000 BTU's so a 1 pound cylinder contains roughly 21,000 BTU's.

[jtdute]

LocoParts has smaller propane nozzles similar to what you are looking for. We developed these for our Drop-in burners that are made to fit through a fire door. The drop-in burners are for those wishing to convert from Coal to Propane for a temporary basis. The smaller nozzles also have been used in smaller scale locomotives successfully. Remember converting the smaller scale locomotives to propane present their hurdles because of the smaller firebox and combustion path. Attached is a picture comparing our standard Nozzle to our smaller nozzles (standard nozzle on the top).

[Bill Shields]

you will have trouble using that style of burner in such a small firebox..not because it is not a good burner...but because your working area wrong for that type of burner.

my previous comment about the burners mounted under the throat sheet, pointed back toward the fire-door with an internal arch is still your most viable solution.

if you take the small burner you see here, unscrew the slotted top and put on a pipe 'extension' (maybe 2" long) with an open end you will have a burner that will make a nice long flame.

put 3-4 of them side by side under the throat pointed toward the firedoor.

see my article in 1988 Live steam regarding my 3/4" Hudson that runs this way. Makes more steam than knows what to do with.

drawback is that you CANNOT EVER run without draft or think about opening the firedoor while the burners are 'on high'...since the flame will come out and sear the inside of the cab.

[Greg_Lewis]

Hey Bill...
I pulled your great article on propane burners in the Dec. 1988 Live Steam, and you closed with a paragraph that leaves me with a big question. You wrote that closing the throttle quickly without opening the blower will result in interesting combinations of the flame coming out the bottom of the fire pan or the fire door. Then you closed with the solution to this by writing that you use:

[A]n automatic control valve that proportions blower rate indirectly to the rate of steam exhausting the stack.

How about some more info on how this works? I don't want to hijack this thread so perhaps a new one with a description of this would help me visualize what you did. THANKS!