Coal Fired Steam Cycle 2 - FULL VERSION

[Music] [Music] uh [Music] all right before the hill sticks inside the inside the firebox a bit of paraffin on a rag that's in there and that's quite a powerful shoot that now now we need to put the steam raising blower on which draws the fire through this is something i made out of a modest thousand heating stand and then i need to open this which is up to the damper flap at the bottom [Applause] and uh just like a normal fire so we'll leave those sticks to burn away merrily and when they're going well we'll put some troll on [Music] right so we've got the fire crackling away in there and what's happening is inside this portion the fire box is a smaller box which is about that cubed surrounded by water and [Music] and that's the that's the as the air is drawn into the bottom through the grate in the fire box it heats the water around it and then and then instead of going going straight up a chimney like it was in your in your in your house it goes through some tubes and inside inside this boiler there are 18 tubes and they carry on through the end here the boiler stops there and this is a smart box and then and then all the all the hot smoke and heat off the fire goes into this void and up the chimney and as it's passing through it's heating all the water up inside the main boiler part there as well as all around the the firebox walls so it's an efficient way of um of heating water and basically the more tubes you you have in there the greater area of heat that's that that's that's heating the water up and uh for an engine a boiler this size 18 children's about is about normal so i'm going to take this off now we don't need that because because now we're at sufficient pressure so we can open open this blower which is letting steam go up the chimney and hoping to draw the fire through the fire tubes and keep the fire going by itself and raising the pressure so that that that steam raising blower is there just initially just just to give it helping start just to get going so we're at 30 now so we need i need to get up to about about 100 really 100 psi working pressure is 125 but uh hundred under little stein at that so so steam engines can be potentially dangerous can't they they can be uh it's um this is rated at 125 psi working pressure uh and it has safety valves which which will blow off if it gets if if it gets it off just to stop the pressure going above there there's two just in case one fails so just to keep everything nice and safe because potentially there's that much pressure you know it's like a bomb so just to keep things on the safe side when this gets gets going a bit further on a bit more we can turn this this uh this blower off and and and it'll it'll just draw the fire itself it'll be all right and and then we can shut the the damper damper flap at the bottom so the damper flap at the bottom is the same as the damper flap that you'd have on your log burning stove at home is it exactly the same yeah yeah yeah yeah like a coal fire at home you have a flap which you open up it lets the air there draw through the fire grit and then through the coals itself and uh and and and since it worked for chimney uh if you not without the shut the damper then it just quiets things down a bit and it'll burn at less ferocious race do you need to use any special type of coal this is this is uh small anthracites uh lumps just from the local coal man really nothing special i mean uh you can use welsh coal that's they say that's that's the best but obviously it's more expensive it's harder to get all done this is fine it takes a bit of um taking all you know you need plenty of sticks and paraffin in to get it going but but once it's going it burns like you can see no no smoke so it's all nice and clean a smokeless environmentally friendly steam cycle keeps everybody happy you don't upset the neighbours when they've got the small slapping on their washing line getting full of smoke so there we are 50 psi now it's going up all the time we've got a glass gauge on this side that seems to be bobbing up and down a little bit can you explain to us what that is yeah that's the sight glass they've all got sight glasses of engines some up to us a matter of safety just in case one fails but but you've always got your eye on the on the on the uh on the side glass [Music] what's the sight glass telling us that's telling us the level of the water so at the moment now it's up to there so everything above there is steam below it is water if it gets too low you don't want that to happen because then um the fusible plug is exposed on the crown of the firebox which is which is like a brass plug filled with lead the lead melts and steam rushes in puts the fire out again another safety matter all steam engines have to have kills of all plugs but uh you don't want that happening so so you make sure it's um it's at that level if you get too much water in then uh then you'll be trying to run your engine on a mixture of steam in the water which you don't want you just want steam so it's a bit of a balancing act really so you've got water in the boiler and you've got water in the tank at the bottom yeah do you need to transfer the water from the tank at the bottom into the boiler or does that happen automatically right well let me just turn this off because i think that should be all right i've turned the blower off now so so it's drawing by itself i've still got the damper open uh right the water right yes if when the water gets gets low because obviously it's producing it's turning into steam so it's it's uh it's going down all the time slowly it's a water level so it needs two methods replace replenishing the boiler with water this has got a feed pump which which runs all the time the engine's uh turning over uh and also steam injector so can you show us those uh i can show you them but can't operate them yet because there's not quite enough pressure but basically you open you up you open that that let's put that little steaming steam into the um into the injector and you put water in as well and then and that will pump that through into the boiler uh i'll show you i'll show you it when uh when the timer rises when it needs replenishing so now we should be in a position where something should happen we're above 75 psi and it's still it's still rising so let's see if we can cook some life out of it you know [Applause] there we go it's all turning around [Applause] fuel leaks i'll sort that out in a minute [Applause] i just want to tighten up that ground nut [Applause] let's get my spanner and sort that out take that a little bit there's always something to tinker about with those ones that need to tighten are leaks a general hazard of steam engines well you always you always get gets just out of the glass there because there's a gland in here because the steam's going either side of that piston moving that rod up and down so so it does leak out to there a fair bit but of course i've just started opening this condensation in the lines so if i if i uh if i open this then then you can see the water coming out out of out of either side of the uh the cylinder that's a wet steam coming out condensation in the line so once we got rid of that then uh we can we can shut that off and then it's just running running off the steam no watering and what sort of a steam engine is that is that a single expansion is it a double expansion it's uh it's a double acting steam engine um yeah single cylinder so so so the same go through parts at either end in this cylinder into the piston and uh just move the piston backwards and forwards double acting double acting stealing so yeah while it's doing that you can see it's turning it's turning this round which is the mechanical lubricator [Music] uh inside here steam oil that's pumping oil in to lubricate the piston rings so everything's uh nice and free in there and what's the little pump at the bottom doing what's that sorry we've got a pump on the end of the crankshaft right well this eccentric here is moving that that rod up and down which is moving that pump and what that what what what that is doing is is very minus tank is full of water it's pumping water from the bottom of the tank up to the top all the time and hence that that that valve is pointing that way if i uh if i can turn this valve that way and it shuts it a little more and you can see it shuts the valve and what it's doing then it's sending water from this pipe straight into the boiler which is um which is filling the waterfall filling the boiler full of water that's the thief pump now it has a it tells a steam injector as well which is uh which is this wheel we open we open that steam goes down there we open uh one of these which which which lets the water into the injector and that will pump through this other pipe and put water directly into the into the boiler so it's got two methods of replacing that by the flow of water is that for safety that you have two methods yeah exactly yeah just for safety everything with steam engine really if you've got two of everything it it it's it keeps things a lot more safer you know two safety valves two methods of replenishing a boiler and sometimes two side glasses so so yeah so so if that engine's turning if like if you're if you're actually in motion you're riding or you've just got it ticking over then then you can you use uh use a feed pump down there or or if you if you've got it you've got it turned off all together then then that doesn't need to be running you can you can just turn your steam injector on fill the buyer up i think you mentioned that you've got a four-speed gearbox on this um yep does it work in the same way as a conventional motorbike gearbox yeah this is this is a well it'll be a 1950s aerial square 4 pre-unit gearbox that it's four-speed it's a birming box so yeah i've got a hand change here which i can change gear with and um and and i've got the added bonus of having a clutch on on on the end of the gearbox so so i can disengage it as needs be there's a bit of a story with the saddle i believe you've even made that yourself the saddle started off life as uh the leather on a vaulting horse it's a good friend of mine uh he used to they used to serve his gym equipment and uh and he kindly uh gave me a nice piece of leather uh which uh which i fashioned into into that seat so i showed you on youtube how to do saddle stitching so i learned how to do that and uh made the seat pan and uh and it's turned out very nice and is that ticking over so it's still building up pressure up slowly let's just keep an eye on the fire you're always always watching the fire always watching the pressure gauge we'll give it a little puck i've still got the damper open probably put a little alcohol in there very man this is all new to me i'm no expert at all i've i've i've just picked it up over the past few years because i was interested just talking to people really how is the power of a steam engine rated is it in horsepower is in kilowatts nominal brake horsepower but that's something i don't really understand because because uh full-size engines are rated like either six or seven uh nominal brake horsepower but i've no idea what this is it it won't be anything like that i wouldn't have thought well i was looking at the uh at the cycle parts of the machine and it seems to be fairly short of breaks for something that weighs i think you said it was 375 kilograms yeah well 350 yeah yeah it's uh you're definitely right in that respect it's um the rear brake uh is an external handbrake drum off 1940s willage jeep just chosen because i didn't want a modern looking drum brake on it it had to look something really old so i came up with that idea it hasn't got a front brake at all uh so and to be honest the brake isn't anything special but it does the job it retards you slowly so it's just driving that wheel now by friction you know it's not in gear [Applause] so yeah so how long has this incredible machine taken you to build about four years in all i spent the first the first year building the engine and once i've done that and and i'd run it on compressed air i knew it would work i was happy with that and then there was the saga of the boiler where i spent all winter making a boiler and uh and told me to find find out that um my efforts were all in vain really and uh i i i would be much better and better uh letting letting a qualified man build a boiler so um so we did so and then from there i was just adding out everything on uh over the course of winter where i have i have a good uh three or four months spare from my work so i spend every minute of the day beavering away and making things in the garage and on the day that you first fired the boiler how was that experience for you very very worrying i had a few friends around one of them uh i knew i was in gul'dan's because he he's a local steam expert that i took a lot of advice from and uh basically i was running around like a ned was chicken not knowing what was happening in his and he was saying calm down it's all right and steam flying everywhere water flying everywhere safety valves going off but uh [Applause] once i got the hang of it everything was fine and and now i understand how it works and how to control it uh it's pressure and whatnot then it's not a problem at all but very worrying at first if you if you're new if you're new to steam and you don't really really understand it really you know but no it's all right now it's all right [Music] me [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] uh it's

Channel: Sandy -

Views: 392,741

Keywords: custom motorbike, home built motorbike, custom motorcycle, custom steam engine, home built steam engine, weird inventions, steam engines, steam bike, steam enthusiast, odd inventions, steam cycle, mini steam engines, steam powered machines, steam power, custom machines, weird and wonderful, coal fired steam engine, crazy inventions, interesting inventions, custom vehicles, home built vehicle, home built motorcycle, custom choppers, mad machines, steam engine

Id: 03Kb5r7MHXE

Length: 19min 26sec (1166 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 26 2020