Seeking info

[Lloyd-ss]

Ken, experiences are everything, I’m gagging to pass on over 50 years of experience before I shuffle off. It’s harder to teach than learn !

regards sutty

Sutty,
Yes, you are passing on your knowledge, but you are also doing something better. You are teaching someone how to think, and how to learn.
And we are all still doing just that.

 

[Steamchick]

Thanks Lloyd. - Maybe teaching someone how to think, and how to learn, is what the experience of life teaches us to do? - I hadn't planned that or even thought of it, but it is how I was taught as a teenager in a machine shop.... I still hear the "voices of wisdom" of those mechanics and machinists. (The "voices in my head"!). They taught me to question what I was doing and find the answers. Not just "do as I say" teaching.
I have had about 30 years of my career teaching younger engineers and graduates how to not just do the job, but how to develop and improve the job I had developed and was handing over to them. I enjoyed working with (mostly) younger and cleverer people - and watching them become good professional engineers. And even teaching the "simpler" folk at work some very simple and basic things gave me lots of satisfaction, in watching them develop. Just as does learning from the many experts on this forum... I call it the school of life. More a seminar of mutual sharing of knowledge than a simple "Teaching" situation.
To make a working model is great. To make a "person" that can create a better model is surely greater? - We all do it. And we learn from it!
It is the "folly of age" that we teach folk what we know, warts and all. - So, watch out for the "warts" that I include!
Thanks for the kind words.

K2

 

[Steamchick]

Hi Sutty,
Looking at the design of you fuel tank, please can you explain the pink coloured bit? (Screenshot - post #129)
Also, in picture burn3 - post #126 - I reckon there is insufficient air getting in to the bottom of the burner. The flame should be Blue - almost all - and looks like there is very little flame, just a lot of vapour burning at the edge of the cloud of vapor where it meets enough air to burn...? Try raising the tube and burner higher off the workbench to see if it goes blue-ish?
K2

 

[sutty]

Hello Ken, that was a valve I put on the vent pipe, I didn't want air coming back along the feed pipe to the burner but it wasn't necessary, i'm just going to fit a breather filter to it, the vent.
The new tank is coming along, should be done tomorrow, we'll try the burner again then.

 

[Steamchick]

Hi Sutty.
I am stopped from building my new greenhouse by rain... so decided to play with meths burners!
I have a camping kettle boiler... from my Father who used it last 30 odd years ago (never throw something out that you will use later - if you live long enough!).
Some pics:

Inside a mock boiler:

This shows more yellowing of the flame due to back pressure reducing the air intake.
But the burner was nearly out of fuel.
After refilling, and adding another layer of rods beneath the tube to allow more air, this is what happened - and what I guess yours will do?

= more fuel and too little air....
And when I added the lid...

it appeared to tidy up the flames, but still a lot of yellow =unburnt fuel.
Interesting to see how you get on with your burner and mock-up firebox?
I'll send some more pics direct to you.
K2

 

[Steamchick]

Hi Sutty, a further thought, to induce more air you could take the engine exhaust and feed it up the chimney to force the draught? - But this may need a control valve to regulate the steam that goes up the lum. I would think an exhaust pipe fed towards the chimney, with one leg to a nozzle inside the chimney directly connected, and a by-pass exhaust up the outside of the chimney could look OK? - This outer by-pass pipe should have the valve on it. Then Valve wide open = very little forced draught, but valve closed will increase the draught.
Or a very tall chimney may help?
I have experienced some boilers that have too little draught because they choke at the flue tubing or at the chimney. If they choke at the chimney (needs to be about 1.5 times the cross-sectional area of the flues in my experience?) just add a bigger chimney, but if they choke at the flues, either live within the limitations or force the draught with exhaust steam. (That is how all the steam locos with coal fires do it!). BUT a wet fuel vapour or gas burner can be "Blown out" by too much forced draught.
MUCH better to experiment with the burner in a mock-up of the boiler before you finalise flue sizes and start silver soldering. My experiments were with a 1in. dia hole (roughly). and a firebox that is as big as the bit of copper tube I had! = much bigger than yours.
K2

 

[Steamchick]

P.S. Did I mention that when I talked about soap as a temperature recorder, I meant a bar of household soap, or hand soap, not the modern wet and gooey stuff from a plastic bottle! It can also be used on aluminium to define a heated temperature for annealing hardened and tempered aluminium. (How I learned about it!).
K2

 

[davidyat]

Thanks Lloyd. - Maybe teaching someone how to think, and how to learn, is what the experience of life teaches us to do? - I hadn't planned that or even thought of it, but it is how I was taught as a teenager in a machine shop.... I still hear the "voices of wisdom" of those mechanics and machinists. (The "voices in my head"!). They taught me to question what I was doing and find the answers. Not just "do as I say" teaching.
I have had about 30 years of my career teaching younger engineers and graduates how to not just do the job, but how to develop and improve the job I had developed and was handing over to them. I enjoyed working with (mostly) younger and cleverer people - and watching them become good professional engineers. And even teaching the "simpler" folk at work some very simple and basic things gave me lots of satisfaction, in watching them develop. Just as does learning from the many experts on this forum... I call it the school of life. More a seminar of mutual sharing of knowledge than a simple "Teaching" situation.
To make a working model is great. To make a "person" that can create a better model is surely greater? - We all do it. And we learn from it!
It is the "folly of age" that we teach folk what we know, warts and all. - So, watch out for the "warts" that I include!
Thanks for the kind words.

K2

Steamchick, your story about learning how to think took me back to the final days of High School. It was in 1964. We had a Chemistry teacher who asked us, "What are you going to learn in College"? We were giving all the subject answers, Math, English, etc. He kept saying, "Wrong answer". He said, "If someone asks what are you going to learn in College, you answer, I'm going to learn how to think. If you know how to think, you can do anything". His example was, when he was learning Chemistry, he wasn't very good with long hand math (no calculators then). On a final exam once, he took a word problem and set it up mathematically and moved on to the next one. If he had the time, he would then start the long hand math. He didn't have one answer on his test. He got an 87 on the test, with no answers. He said his professors saw that he knew HOW to get the right answer. Given enough time, he would eventually get the right answer. I seem to hear today that in College, they don't want you to learn how to think, only to regurgitate what they say to you. Please show me that I'm wrong!

 

[ajoeiam]

Steamchick, your story about learning how to think took me back to the final days of High School. It was in 1964. We had a Chemistry teacher who asked us, "What are you going to learn in College"? We were giving all the subject answers, Math, English, etc. He kept saying, "Wrong answer". He said, "If someone asks what are you going to learn in College, you answer, I'm going to learn how to think. If you know how to think, you can do anything". His example was, when he was learning Chemistry, he wasn't very good with long hand math (no calculators then). On a final exam once, he took a word problem and set it up mathematically and moved on to the next one. If he had the time, he would then start the long hand math. He didn't have one answer on his test. He got an 87 on the test, with no answers. He said his professors saw that he knew HOW to get the right answer. Given enough time, he would eventually get the right answer. I seem to hear today that in College, they don't want you to learn how to think, only to regurgitate what they say to you. Please show me that I'm wrong!

AIUI it may be even worse than just 'regurgitating' facts.
It seems that today one is taught which computer tools to use and that's it - - - next topic.
Actually working through the problem - - - that take too much effort - - - at least that's what it seems like to me.

We have gotten to where the tools do the work - - - and that's scary!
If one doesn't know what a good answer should be one could be producing garbage.

(Sorta like if the CAM program is doing something wrong and the operator doesn't know how to measure the features - - - well scrap has been produced.
Accurate scrap but scrap nonetheless!!!)

 

[davidyat]

AIUI it may be even worse than just 'regurgitating' facts.
It seems that today one is taught which computer tools to use and that's it - - - next topic.
Actually working through the problem - - - that take too much effort - - - at least that's what it seems like to me.

We have gotten to where the tools do the work - - - and that's scary!
If one doesn't know what a good answer should be one could be producing garbage.

(Sorta like if the CAM program is doing something wrong and the operator doesn't know how to measure the features - - - well scrap has been produced.
Accurate scrap but scrap nonetheless!!!)

Ajoeiam, you said, "Regurgitating Facts". How would a student know these days if the professors are giving them "facts"?

 

[Lloyd-ss]

I kinda feel like I (we) are taking Sutty's thread off track, and I hope he will say so if he thinks we are having too much fun and not staying focused on the task at hand, LOL. I am going to shift the focus a bit more.

I often wonder where that desire to learn comes from. Some of it is innate, some of it has to be kick-started, and some of it just ain't there.
My dad was my real mentor, but only until I went off to college; then I was on my own. I have an old photo of me and my brother, at about age 6, on the roof of a little backyard shed we were "helping" my dad build. We had nail aprons on, and hammers and were sitting up there nailing down the 1x6 pine sheathing boards. A lot of bent nails under the roofing, LOL.

My dad could build or fix most things, and he did just that. He also was a natural born leader, and could really put out a line of BS and get people to help and accomplish things (and stay on task). A neighbor gave me and my brother 2 old lawnmower engines (we were maybe12) to learn on. I had my dad's tools out and was carefully disassembling and being amazed at what I found. But after about 10 minutes, my brother got bored and frustrated and finished his disassembly with a ball peen hammer.

I got the mechanical aptitude from my dad, and my brother got the line of BS. He can't do what I do, nor can I do what he does. But that is fine.

 

[sutty]

Ken, I saw some burners like that on YouTube, they were made from coke cans,

 

[sutty]

Guys, feel free, We finished the tank and got the burner running, slight mods needed i think it burns well enough but it's flaring, either not enough fuel or too much and I need to reduce the holes in the pillars that feed the vaporising head. Here's a short vid..

regards sutty

 

[Lloyd-ss]

Hi Sutty, Getting close!
is the modulation of the flame you adjusting the valve, or is it doing it by itself?
Lloyd

 

[sutty]

Lloyd, all by itself, I can’t work out if it’s burning the fuel faster than it can get to the bottom tank or if the tubes that the vapours rise through are too big, I might make some reducing jets to fit in them.

sutty

 

[Lloyd-ss]

Lloyd, all by itself, I can’t work out if it’s burning the fuel faster than it can get to the bottom tank or if the tubes that the vapours rise through are too big, I might make some reducing jets to fit in them.

sutty

Hi Sutty,
I could be totally wrong on this, but looking at your diagram in post #129, it looks like the vapor tube is coming out from the bottom section of the fuel tank, where the liquid fuel is. Should it becoming out of the top half of the tank where the vapors accumulate?

And just so that I know for sure, your mentholated spirits are what we call in the US, denatured alcohol?? Ethyl alcohol blended with some methanol to make it poisonous. Also used as a solvent and thinner for shellac. And camp stove fuel as Sterno? It has a sweet smell, but evaporates slightly slower than acetone?

Lloyd

 

[sutty]

Yes Lloyd, you’re right, the burner I copied had a wick from the bottom reservoir into the top chamber but I couldn’t get that set up to work so I took the wicks out, works better but still not right. Waiting for Ken’s input.

Sutty

 

[Steamchick]

Ken, I saw some burners like that on YouTube, they were made from coke cans,

Yes, I have seen them. Same principle.
But yours is a similar principle I think?
A closed "wet" chamber that is heated to give off vapour with a bit of pressure through some jets?
Just yours is bigger, with a reservoir feeding it.
K2

 

[Steamchick]

Hi Lloyd. I think Methylated spirits is unrefined alcohol, so contains the natural ratio of Methanol and Ethanol, distilled at higher temperature than whisky, etc, where careful control and multiple distillation separates the 2 alcohols.
I could be wrong?
K2

 

[Lloyd-ss]

Distillation is an interesting process. While in college, we rented a big old farmhouse in Floyd County, Virginia, which is next door to Franklin County, the self-proclaimed moonshine capital of the Blue Ridge. (No fights over that title, please.) The farmhouse had a big garden and fruit trees and grape vines. I knew a lot about that from when I was a kid, and it all stuck. We tried our hand at making wine, but it tasted bad, even though it had a good alcohol content. One of our friends was a bio-chem major, so, there was only one thing to do with 10 gallons of bad tasting wine, to keep in the spirits of the local pleasures. I remember how excited we were when that first clear dribble came out of the tube. Not much flavor, but much better than the wine. I remember the temperature in the vessel stagnated at right about 190F.... or so. My buddy said it would stay there until all the alcohol boiled out. And so it did. Ah, to be young and stupid again, instead of old and... what... I forget, oh well.