On Mon, 12 Aug 2013 05:23:42 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 11 Aug 2013 22:46:48 -0500, Ignoramus12972
wrote:

By the way, my kids want me to make a homemade steam engine. Something
that can be made with basic machine tools, such as lathe and a
mill. At first, I want to avoid steam entirely and just run it from
compressed air.

My question is, does anyone know of a reasonable plan, with valving,
governor, etc, that could be made in a few weekends. Thanks.

i

Well, Steamboat Ed does, but I think he gave up on Usenet.

If you want *really* simple, build an oscillating engine first. You
can build them from scraps and bar stock. There are many plans around;
this is just one I grabbed as an example:

http://www.steves-workshop.co.uk/ste...impleoscil.htm

One of my first projects, when I got my SB lathe, was to build a
Stuart 10V steam engine from a set of Stuart's castings. These make
really nice-looking models that run well and that can develop some
power.

The tricky part of steam engines, for the first-timer, is the boilers.
You apparently recognize that.

I know I do! Which is why I was looking at Bryan Boilers, they have a
nice little water-tube boiler that looks to be just the right size.
You can make a shroud to disguise it as a Scotch Marine.

Has all the safety ratings and such, so they don't have to worry
about you blowing up in the middle of the lake...

And they can make it rated ASME Power and go to 300 PSI - but 200 is
probably plenty. I need to see if they want it mounted fore and aft
or abeam.

Only drawback I can see is no superheater - Oh Well, so much for
towing water-skiers...

I can get a "junked" fiberglass party-boat hull for near nothing,
nothing wrong other than a full refit and repower would cost more than
a new boat, so they throw it out. (Golf Cart batteries aren't cheap.)

And Beckett has an oil burner for Steam Cleaners that runs on 12-Volts
15-A (20A with the ignition coil running) that looks like it would be
a perfect match - the advanced controls have a CdS flame photosensor
to cut the coil once it's lit, and the fuel if you lose the fire.

The other big bugaboos are water feed - It's easy to put a direct
drive pump straight off the engine while it's running - but it also
needs a modulatable Penberthy Injector or a steam duplex feed pump (or
both) for while you're puttering, with a Raspberry PI and flow sensors
making sure it's feeding right.

And I need to make a turbogenerator to run the burner, navigation
lights, etc. - an efficient multi-stage turbine and a set of planetary
gears, then hitch it to an auto alternator. Fun part is finding a
2.5-HP rated turbine - 250 to 1000-HP is easy.

After that, making a condenser out of copper pipe and a hot-well is
easy.

-- Bruce --