Superheater

[deeferdog]

Hi all, I have been building a boiler over quite a long time, (I will post on this later) and am now at the closing stages, my question is this, "Do I need to dry off the steam before passing it off to the engine, i.e. a superheater coil?" I am not really interested in efficiency, this is only a model after all. The engine this is intended to run is an Oscillator and I seem to remember someone mentioning that Oscillators work best with wet steam. I can't imagine why this would be so, I would be very grateful for any advice as I have never run any of the engines that I have made on steam. As always, the older I get, the more I realise how much I have to learn. This is a shame because as a teenager I pretty much knew everything. Cheers, Peter

 

[chrsbrbnk]

Depending on the boiler design and purpose if its a large say a rideable model burning wood or coal or anything else combustible then No, most of them foul up quickly. and the steam dome and such take care of drying the steam enough. A small boiler running on propane or alcohol could have one. but my guess is its more of neat part of the model than really useful. attention to water level is way more of a factor in wet steam or worse slugs of water. 1/3 scale model traction engines and smaller have a problem with the water sloshing from end to end as they go up and down small humps and inclines all really not helpful to the boiler or engine

 

[deeferdog]

Thanks for your reply and help. The boiler is very small and will only be used in a fixed capacity so I don't think surge will come into it. This must have been a problem in ship's boilers? Cheers, Peter