[Steam-engine] Steam without wheels

[Richard Strobel]

Francis, It's always great to see you post as friend Corky and I do 
stationary VFT also.  Boiler is now certified by Montana for 100 psi and 
will build a fire as soon as this tinderbox country wets up a little.

By steam hammer, are you referring to what I call a "pile driver?"

Regards,
RickinMt.




> 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
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