Elmer's Fancy Wobbler #15 - First run on live steam!

Inky Engines · Aug 13, 2012

I've just completed this my first steam boiler, and associated wobbler engine as a distraction between builds of Elmer's Grasshopper, and the combination of Elmer's Mill and Factory Engines.

The boiler is based loosely on a design by Stan Bray in his book 'Making Simple Model Steam Engines'. Originally I intended the boiler would run on solid fuel, but it took about 60 minutes to produce steam - a ceramic gas burner achieved the same result in 4 minutes! The boiler is silver soldered throughout, pressure tested to 120 psi and with a relief valve set at 30 psi.

An 'interesting' first run of the engine / boiler combination is shown on the You Tube video.

[ame]http://youtu.be/DzVHH0GOmnE[/ame]

So now its back to the Mill and Factory engines - will post when complete.

Geoff at Inky Engines

rhitee93 · Aug 13, 2012

Very nice. It looks good with all the polished copper and brass

Sshire · Aug 13, 2012

Geoff
Beautiful work. The boiler is excellent!
What burner did you use?

Inky Engines · Aug 14, 2012

Brian / Stan .... Thank you for your kind comments.

Stan .... the ceramic burner is 1" diameter and was supplied by Mike Abbot who trades as maccsteam.co based in Macclesfield, UK. Mike builds and supplies a range of vertical and horizontal boilers, but was more than happy to give advice re a suitable burner for this self build project. The remaining solid fuel tablets are to be used for lighting the BBQ!

Kind regards

Geoff at Inky Engines

ChooChooMike · Aug 14, 2012

Wonderful engine and boiler ! Any build pictures on the boiler ?

Mike

Inky Engines · Aug 15, 2012

Mike

Thanks for your comment.

Sorry, I haven't taken any build pictures (other than of component parts) of the Inky Engine builds to date. The boiler build was largely by the book and moistly uneventful. The end plates were easy with a steel former and plenty of annealing. Of lessons learned: I found that very little heat is required to silver solder nipples, but that lots is required to solder on the boiler end plates! My first attempt with the wrong nozzle resulted in everything turning black. I also learned that it is not necessary to attempt to solder everything in one go. I was surprised how easy it was to accurately and cleanly break the water gauge sight glass, a nick with a swiss file - a knock against the corner of the workbench - job done. I had put of this task for days with visions of the tube ending up in a mess of fragments on the floor. I was pleased with the base turned from a piece of aluminium tube - the Stan Bray design shows a stand for the boiler made 'by simply wrapping an old tin round it' - entirely fit for purpose of course, and in keeping with the theme of his book, but not pretty.

Kind regards

Geoff at Inky Engines