I'm good at metallurgy

[railroader]

I teach materials science at a small college. I also have a 1/8 scale steam locomotive. Contact me if you need anything.

Cheers

Chris Schilling
Midland Michigan

[email protected]

 

[Herbiev]

Hi Chris. Did you build the loco and if so have you got some pictures ?

 

[railroader]

My PC just crashed and I lost all my pictures.

I bought my locomotive from Jim Zeeler in Ohio. It is modeled after the 1830's vintage Invicta, made by the Stephenson company in England. It weighs 110 pounds empty. It's probably the least expensive way to get into steam. A small engine, it pulls 2 cars nicely. And it is a great deal of fun to drive.

There is a nice YouTube video of an engine made by the same guy. It's fun to watch.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPuyr_MQS48[/ame]

Cheers

Chris Schilling
Midland MI

 

[railroader]

Photos are at the end of the list of messages under the discussion of ceramic burners in locos. You can see the underside of my locomotive with a set of propane burners I recently made. I'm interested in possibly going to ceramic burners; as the members of this forum are very good at that....and no one I'm aware of is using them in 1/8 scale live steam.

Cheers

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/f26/ceramic-gas-burners-locos-10137/index3.html

 

[robcas631]

Love this engine!

 

[rkepler]

Photos are at the end of the list of messages under the discussion of ceramic burners in locos. You can see the underside of my locomotive with a set of propane burners I recently made. I'm interested in possibly going to ceramic burners; as the members of this forum are very good at that....and no one I'm aware of is using them in 1/8 scale live steam.

As a 1/8 scale loco modeler: the whole combustion of fuel and transfer of heat in a boiler is a *really* complex problem. Not something I really understand except that you're going to get the most heat from radiative transfer. So punching as much fuel as reasonable into the boiler and making it take its time getting to the flues and heating an arch to yellow heat seems to be the way to get the most performance. While a ceramic arch would be appropriate I don't see that it'd have a decent lifespan in our models, and I don't think you get as much area as you need in the ceramic burner. With the little ceramic burner I have in a stationary boiler I've found that it gets unhappy with a high fuel gas flow and expect something sized right would get really unhappy in my loco boiler at the flow rates I use there (combustion starts well above the burner). It'd be interesting to see what it could do.