Quick n dirty meth burner

[compound driver 2]

Hi
The following burner was made in desperation to overcome the lack of decent coal thats available at the moment. All i seem to be getting is Either Polish or Russian coal and both are little better than slate clinkering at the first sign of hard work and producing huge amounts of ash when not working. I was so fed up with not being able to get a decent fire in my small traction engine I cobbled together the following.

The burner its self is made from six 1.25 inch long 1/2 inch diameter brass tubes with a brass plug silver soldered into the bottom of each tube. The feed pipe for the meth is 5/32 thin wall copper passed through the bottoms of the brass tubes and then pierced after silver soldering in place. Keep the feed tubes as low in the wick tubes as you can.

I arranged the wick tubes in two lines of three with a balance pipe on the end two wick tubes. Along with a feed to both banks of wicks this allows a good feed of meth when running.

As can be seen the two feed pipes link into a manifold for the meth. All in all the burner took about half hour to make and infact it took longer sorting out the wick length.

these are great little burners for for small engines be it a gauge 1 loco or a small traction engine. The one big advantage over gas is that if you run out of steam in the boiler on a meth burner the flame will go out reducing the risk of damage to the boiler.

The only down side is you do still need to give the fire ad raft to get it going and the steam blower will have to be used to keep the fire going if the engine isnt running.

The burner could cope with some cleaning up and the pipes being arranged a bit better but atleast now and until some decent coal turns up i can steam the engine.

Worth remembering that good quality methalated spirit burns with an almost invisible flame so take care when your using the burner. I added a drop of paraffin to the meth to give the flame some colour for the picture.

cheers kevin

Cheers kevin

 

[BobWarfield]

"I added a drop of paraffin to the meth to give the flame some colour for the picture."

Heh, was wondering if you were burning up the wicks or what. Nice burner there.

Someday I need to make a small boiler for running steam engines. They just don't sound right on air. Plus, I really enjoy welding and brazing, and some nice precision silver solder work would be a relaxing way to spend an afternoon or two!

Cheers,

BW

 

[compound driver 2]

Hi
As a follow up to the burners.
Just took a couple of pictures of the water/spirit tank for the traction engine. Made the frame up from 5/16 x 1/16 brass angle silver soldered together, il add rivets before the paint goes on.
The bowser its self is from 26 gauge brass sheet rolled riveted and then sealed with soft solder. The end plate rivets I cheated and soldered in rather than upsetting. The top and bottom tanks are two tanks one inside the other.
The wheels were machined from 3 1/2 cast iron more for speed than anything. If the tank and burners stay for any time il cut out the spokes and hub and build a set of riveted wheels using the existing rims.
The tank holds about 1/2 pint of spirit in the bottom half and about the same in water in the top half. water feed is simply balanced with the tender tank through a plug cock and the spirit flow is controled with the globe valve. Due to the spirit being higher in the tank than the top of the burners a valve had to be used.

All the solder joints still want cleaning up and the false bolts put in the drawbar mounting points. I decided to solder the draw bar on and then bolt in an attempt to take some of the strain off the four 12 BA Bolts.

 

[Powder keg]

That looks great Kevin! I really admire your work. Thanks for sharing. I'd like to build a tractor someday. I've got the book on the Minnie.

Cheers, Wes

 

[compound driver 2]

Hi Wes

Its a very good engine to build as a first one. In many ways i wish I had built the Minnie as my first engine. The building is straight forward with a few changes to things like the water pump and the smokebox being the only areas needing change.

My 1 inch Minnie will steam very well on coal as long as good coal is available. Im also building the same engine but in 2 inch to the foot and that will have enough power to pull two or three people.

If you do decide to build the Minnie go to Blackgates in the UK for castings there the cheapest and in my opinion the best for quality.

Cheers kevin