[Steam-engine] Steam without wheels

[Francis Orr]

Andy, sounds like you are still on the steeper part of the Huber learning curve!

My youngest son and I were on a steep learning curve of 1-4 August at the Puget Sound Antique Tractor & Machinery Show at Lynden WA. The club owns what we believe to be is a 400 Lb Chambersberg steam hammer. Some 10 years ago, I got one of our steam tractors to come down to the blacksmith shop and with a steam hose, hooked it up to the hammer. It didn't run again until three years ago when they started using air which was entirely unsatisfactory. With a new "man in charge" last year, they started talking about a big air tank for an accululator. It was suggested that since it was a steam hammer, why not use steam? Since Washington State went to inspected boilers, all of our steam tractors but one have dissappearered.  I have a VFT boiler which I thought might do the trick so the decision was made to give it a try. 

We were lucky all along the way. My #3 son is a semi-pro blacksmith and was my right hand man in getting this set up. Getting the Sched 80 1.5" pipe for the steam line, the MIC (man in charge) asked how long should we get it? turned out that they got 3" to much which was easily cut off and then threaded. We did as good as we could on the lineup when we set the boiler down. It was close enough to do the job with two street "Ls" and a 4" nipple. 

We are still not sure how the exhaust should be handled. The end of the short exhaust line was flared with a two bolt flange slid over it. The cylinder has a deep, "as cast" recess. What did the flare make up to? We tried five rings of 1" packing but it would not make up tight enough. We finally went to a local guy who cut out a plywood doughnut that would fit in the recess and with a couple of the packing rings, were able to make up tight enough to hold the low pressure steam of the exhaust. 

I just happened to have a 1.25" Swarthout Exhaust Head which we mounted on the end of the 2" exhaust line. This separated out all of the condensate and sent it down a piece of garden hose from the roof instead of showering all the spectators. When the hammer was running full bore, the exhaust was quite a sight!! Anyone know of any exhaust heads that are available, let me know. I put them on everything including the big 750 HP vertical, cross-compound Allis Chalmers Corliss at Rollag. That head weights over 400 Lbs and is quite a sight. 

I talked earlier about the learning curve. My #2 son and I learned how to fire the boiler which was barely big enough to handle the load. It got a little easier when we got a Clark flywheel pump going for boiler feed instead of the big injector. Day one was rebuilding the foot treadle and trying to figure out what the levers did. On day two we got the piston rod and the guides cleaned up and removed a lot of old grease and dirt. Day three we repacked the piston rod and one of the two control levers (should have done the other one too). On day four, we were able to really have some fun making the ground shake. Nothing like the big hammer at Rollag but still an interesting exhibit. Are there any other operating steam hammers out there? There used to be two shops in Detroit that had operating hammers. I spent hours watching them on my layovers there. Anyone wants to see some pictures contact me at steam.boat at verizon.net. 

Next time maybe I'll take about Australia or the NWSS steam boat meet at Seattle on 10, 11 & 12 August. 

Francis A. Orr