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I am always amazed at the complexity of steam engine and boiler design. They look so simplistic after they are built. The criticism of my work has lead to very satisfying results. On another topic. Since I’m not using rivets on the Yarrow project, I am deciding on silver solder. The 65%...

My first steam build was a Clarkson 1” bore vertical engine with missing pages that happened to be the slide valve and steam port dimensions. I found some sites that walked through slide valve design. I also read an article discussing lap allowance for steam expansion. Here is one of the...

I replaced the thin aluminum eccentric and used bronze clock bushings in the linkage. I waited to mark off the steam ports so I could compensate for any incremental error.

Once I get it together and running, I will substitute one of the cylinders. I will simply bolt the valve chest to the larger cylinder. I was going to make the out board cylinder smaller, but it would be easy enough to replace with a larger one. I’m cutting a new eccentric assembly for the...

This is turning out to be a smooth easy running beast.

Interesting. The 3” burner works nicely on the original boiler project and I was thinking I would do the same for the Yarrow. I may have to adjust the angle between drums to fit the burner. Might go back to my original idea and size the second cylinder bore to run a two stage expansion...

The valve eccentric was poorly made out of thin aluminum. I will remake it in bronze then cut the steam ports and make the slide valves. The flywheel is not very nice and is only temporary.

The plan is for two rows with 10 outside and 9 inside in an offset configuration. I planned on 3” between tanks, but that was more of a artistic wag giving me 38 tubes and 114” of tube for heating.

Thanks for taking time to do the analysis. I will start off with the 40 tubes and contemplate adding the down tubes. Swedging the tubes will be interesting. Time to start cutting.

Your boiler has some interesting design elements I had not considered. I arbitrarily picked an 8” overall length. Here’s what I have. 2-1/2“ main shell at .075” wall thickness 1-1/8” secondary shell .055” 3/8” tubes at .03” I also have a 1’ section of the 3” tube I used on the completed...

I have the materials. I’m staring at it while working on my latest side track engine project and studying Yarrow designs. I like the concept of domed end caps for the main and side tanks, but I want the look of copper rivets. I’m actually at a hold up while I determine how to swedge the tubes...

Slowly progressing on the tandem resurrection project. I’m using the last resurrection project as a guide. My plane is to get it to run, then see what happens from there. The rule is to use only materials from the shop floor.

I’m not sure. My information is from a group that collects California built engines and more specifically, those built in San Francisco. I’m not entirely sure they actually know what this is either. Pacific or Oriental was the guess. The intake and exhaust matches a Pacific from the mid to...

I was told it may be a Pacific or an Oriental. I found a picture of a large Oriental that has a small fly ball governor where this has a homemade looking wing nut. If this is the case the exhaust will sound like a throttle control engine ‘which it does’. I’ll fire post a video.

Impressively fast identification. Anyone seen one of these? I added a few artistic extras because people kept commenting that it looked like a coffee grinder.

I made a 2.25” throw crankshaft. Now the entire cylinder is used. Given a 2.25” stroke and a 1.2” ID secondary cylinder I can determine the high pressure cylinder diameter. I have a nice 5” flywheel, but I think I need a little more mass.

I just took the second cylinder off the frame and saw that it was ported to be a steam cylinder and later plugged. So it looks like it may have started as a compound engine and then made it into an unfinished air pump and finally abandoned. I‘m thinking about an in-line compound expansion engine.

The larger brass fitting is a check valve. The other is just a port to a hole. Could make a simple reed valve. You may be right. It does looks like a pump may have been intended. The rod into the second cylinder has a seal like the working cylinder, but lacks piston rings while the working...

I found a link explaining how to determine the primary and secondary cylinder bore. https://thermodynamicsheatengines.com/HeatEnginesVol%202%20Chapter%202%20RS.pdf Lots of wasted space as it sits and it looks clunky. The stroke is currently 1.2” and will be extended to 2.25” to use the entire...

I was given another steam engine shaped object as a birthday gift. Unlike last years project, I think I saw this one on E-Bay. It appears to be an incomplete abandoned attempt at a dual in-line engine. I did a rough rework this morning on the valve cylinder using a black felt pen and my...