If I ever ...

[rlukens]

get this flame eater to eat, I'll post a pic. Until then,..

 

[stevehuckss396]

Here's the thing about model engines and i've said it a few times, When you are finished building the engine, have it mounted, have all the support stuff I.E. fuel tanks, boilers, Etc. all ready to go, you are 85 percent done. There is always something that needs to sanded, filed, tightened, adjusted, tweaked in. We all go through the same thing no matter what type of engine it is. Just keep trying and adjusting and trying some more. You will eventually get it going. I have no doubt!

 

[Hopper]

It's not just model engines. Restoring old motorcycles is the same. Getting it started the first time is not the end of the job. There is always a list of things that need tinkering with the first few hundred miles or more before the job is finished.

Same with full-sized industrial machinery. Ships take weeks, even months, of sea trials to iron out all the bugs after they are launched. Power stations and similar industrial plants take months of "commissioning" work at the end of construction to get them to actually work and keep working.

So don't feel bad if your model engine needs a bunch of tinkering to get it running right. That's engineering.

 

[robbay]

Flame Eaters running on alcohol need 96% + pure alcohol and preferably 98%, could be your problem. Tried methylated spirit and it won't work on mine.

 

[Cogsy]

If you're talking ethyl-alcohol (like methylated spirits) don't waste your money on anything with a claimed purity over 96%. It's so hygroscopic it will quickly absorb moisture from the air til it reaches the 96% mark anyway.

 

[robbay]

If you're talking ethyl-alcohol (like methylated spirits) don't waste your money on anything with a claimed purity over 96%. It's so hygroscopic it will quickly absorb moisture from the air til it reaches the 96% mark anyway.

As a chemist working in a research laboratory we used absolute alcohol (100%) occasionally for synthesis. Each usage was recorded in a log for the Customs and Excise and the log always showed increased usage near the lab Christmas party. No one could drink it neat because it burned the mouth, but for young blokes earning a pittance, it was palatable mixed with orange squash. The container was always flushed with dry nitrogen after opening but that's not readily available in the workshop, so I guess Cogsy is right.

 

[CFLBob]

When I went through this with my flame eater a few months ago, I bought some denatured ethanol from Amazon just to run it. This stuff:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y18DSND/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

When I got it, I found it was only 90.5% ethyl alcohol with the rest being isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol and N propyl acetate. My engine runs on it. Before that, I was using hardware store denatured alcohol which was 50%, if I recall.

As a chemist working in a research laboratory we used absolute alcohol (100%) occasionally for synthesis. Each usage was recorded in a log for the Customs and Excise and the log always showed increased usage near the lab Christmas party.

At the end of the last Ice Age, when I was in my first iteration of college - biology, not engineering - I worked in lab that had a large drum (55 gallons) of chemically pure alcohol. As robbay said, on special occasions (like Fridays) the lab supervisor would decant a little out of the drum. The preference in that school was to mix with a little Welch's grape juice. Just a few ml in a glass.

 

[Cogsy]

I was going to say I was never broke enough to contemplate drinking lab alcohol - but then I thought back to my younger days and remembered the stuff we did sometimes drink and some of it was far worse than that. I guess we would've been into it if it was available to us, and probably a lot nicer than $7 flagons of port...