# fire eater fuel tank



## Mcgyver (Sep 21, 2008)

inspired by Stan, i abandon the search for the perfect door knob (perfect including being both free and not attached to a door) and built a fuel tank for the otherwise complete fire eater







the tank is basically built around a piece of 1.5" dia brass that served some sort of plumbing function, connection out of a sink, something in a toilet tank, whatever; cant remember. I like Stan's idea of o rings, being paranoid about it though i want to make sure they're not vitron or least what temps the alcohol burns at to make sure it safe






check out that knurl, almost as well defined as my abs (not)






Little bit of soldering and away she goes, already had it running on sterno but his will be much cleaner


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## steamer (Sep 21, 2008)

HMMMMM I love the smell of brass in the morning! 

Nice looking tank!

Dave


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## ksouers (Sep 21, 2008)

Nice tank.

How's you get the knurl so nice? It's seems I always get one wheel cutting deeper than the other.


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## Mcgyver (Sep 21, 2008)

thanks guys

actually, that knurl isn't quite perfect, the wheels weren't exactly the same depth if you study where the valleys meet its obvious..... but when they get that small its hard to see whats going on when setting it up (photo was with a macro attachment). the knurls are about 15 thou deep so probably one wheel was out by .003 thou or so compared to the other, not something a blind man on a galloping horse would notice....or the rest of use without a loupe or macro lens.  

The knurl is made with a cut knurling tool of my own design instead of the pressure type knurling tool - that what gives it its crisp look. its such a treat use, you get knurls like that in any material and can do long spindly piece etc, all in a single pass with almost no cutting force and running 100's of rpms....its my intent to share it, been busy working on converting that build into an article for publication.


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## ksouers (Sep 21, 2008)

Thanks Mcgyver. Looking forward to that build article.

And to see how this tank/burner works out.


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## Stan (Sep 22, 2008)

Very nice work Mcgyver. There is no worry about heat on an alcohol burner. When you blow out the flame, you can immediately touch the wick or any part of the container.

 One word of warning is to always loosen the filler cap before lighting. If you fail to heed this warning. it turns into a flame thrower, shooting flaming liquid alcohol.


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## itowbig (Sep 22, 2008)

Stan  said:
			
		

> One word of warning is to always loosen the filler cap before lighting. If you fail to heed this warning. it turns into a flame thrower, shooting flaming liquid alcohol.



now theres a warning i did not think about. good thing you said something. i would have found out the hard way. thank you


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## Bogstandard (Sep 22, 2008)

For these small alcohol tanks, you should really drill a small hole on the filler cap to allow it to vent, this prevents the flare syndrome. When you have finished running, just drop a headed pin into the hole to prevent evaporation.

Bogs


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## Mcgyver (Sep 22, 2008)

what ever you do don't press the red button, don't press the red button.......so just how far can i get flames shooting 



wouldn't have thought of it either, thanks


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## steamer (Sep 22, 2008)

Wouldn't have thought of that either...Thanks Stan! :bow:

Dave


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## Stan (Sep 22, 2008)

From experience, I can tel you that it is amazing how big an area of you bench top can all be in flames in a couple of seconds, and getting bigger every second.

All my newer burners have a captive O ring on the filer plug so I drill a small vent hole right at the edge of the female threads so that when the plug is tightened down the O ring seals the hole. The other method is to just make sloppy threads and and loosen the plug a bit when in use.

I am having a problem finding denatured ethanol for my burners. It is being made by the millions of gallons as a gasoline additive and I can't find a one quart can. It used to be available in the hardware store paint department but not anymore. I don't want to pay the price for laboratory grade at the pharmacy.


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## wareagle (Sep 23, 2008)

Stan, I don't know if any of this stuff will work for your needs, but you may take a look...

*Ethanol 95% Qt* *Methanol Qt*


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## Stan (Sep 23, 2008)

I live in Canada and like the ad says 'No International Shipping'. 

I think that old modelers specified ethanol because it contains about 30% more energy than an equivalent amount of methanol. Methanol is still available in the paint department.

The disappearance from the hardware shelf probably came about by some do-gooder project to stop the less fortunate from drinking it and killing themselves. However, we have a segment of the population who put gasoline into a plastic bag and breathe the fumes until they pass out and/or die. The new gasoline-ethanol blend should be very attractive for that group.


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## wareagle (Sep 23, 2008)

Stan, sorry. A swing and a miss! 

Do you have any motor sports in your area that use methanol or ethanol for fuel? The reason I ask is here a lot of the speed shops have racing fuel that they will sell by the gallon, including the alchohol based fuels.


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## Mcgyver (Sep 23, 2008)

last nights work, a bit of solder, bit of emery and a bit of brasso and we're almost done. haven't chosen my anti flamer thrower technology yet, might be a separate little breather valve, maybe a hole angled off the refill female threads like Stan suggests. All and all, very glad I went this route over the door knob






here'sa small innovation on it....When i ran it on Sterno, there was adjustment required in the flame position as I've heard other guys say. I also wanted a clean mounting. Came up with the idea of boring out the bottom and installed a rare earth magnet with a corresponding slug of steel in the base (yet to cemented in)






might have it running tonight depending the on the kids baseball, hockey and soccer schedules (this week all three are going on, oh yeah one's doing basketball as well lol). would it every be nice complete something!


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## itowbig (Sep 23, 2008)

you make an auto valve for the breather. something like a really weak spring
so that it opens up automatically when you light it then when the flame shuts off it closes. something like that anyway.
does this make sense. atmospheric valve kinda i think.


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## Stan (Sep 23, 2008)

Mcgyver: You must have bought that enormous chunk of brass for the flywheel before brass became so expensive. Your work all looks very first class.


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## Mcgyver (Sep 25, 2008)

thanks; yeah I've been carting around that hunk of brass for decades, long before i had a shop. It was a parted off stub of large dia stock i picked up somewhere and thought it would be handy on day

grabbed some supplies at crappy tire on the way home, and got it running tonight. I used methyl hydrate as fuel - Stan do you figure that's the right stuff? it certainly ran slower on that than the Sterno.


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## Stan (Sep 26, 2008)

Mcgyver: As I said in a previous post, ethanol has about 30% more energy than methanol so the heat output is obvious on small burner flames.

I just took a good look at the construction pictures of your fuel tank and offer a suggestion. Do like the jewelers do and make your first joints with silver solder. You can then soft solder the later joints easier without the risk of losing the first joints. 

On your tank, I would silver solder the top filler fitting and the wick holder from the inside first and then tin the top and bottom section and just sweat them on. HTH Stan


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## Bernd (Feb 21, 2010)

Mcgyver  said:
			
		

> thanks guys
> 
> actually, that knurl isn't quite perfect, the wheels weren't exactly the same depth if you study where the valleys meet its obvious..... but when they get that small its hard to see whats going on when setting it up (photo was with a macro attachment). the knurls are about 15 thou deep so probably one wheel was out by .003 thou or so compared to the other, not something a blind man on a galloping horse would notice....or the rest of use without a loupe or macro lens.
> 
> The knurl is made with a cut knurling tool of my own design instead of the pressure type knurling tool - that what gives it its crisp look. its such a treat use, you get knurls like that in any material and can do long spindly piece etc, all in a single pass with almost no cutting force and running 100's of rpms....its my intent to share it, been busy working on converting that build into an article for publication.



Well now. Can I assume you are the one that wrote the article in 'The Home Shop Machinist" on the cut knurling tool?

Bernd


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## Omnimill (Feb 22, 2010)

Very nicely done Mcgyver, and great pictures. Thanks for the tip about the hole Bogs - I was wondering about that! Knurling does look good, anyone tried a single diamond cut knurl rather than two single cut ones?

Vic.


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