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[Aussie Bruce]

Well Guys here goes after some two years of work a borderer 5/8 by 5/8 twin i have built the piston ported version a la Marcher

It absolutely purrs at 5 psi and handles reversing brilliantly

to go reversing valve , boiler feed pump and boiler. boat is half waydone now its a small Melbourne harbour tug from the turn of the century 60 ft basically 1 tenth scale so about 6 foot

Boiler is drawn out its 6" x 10 " 8"internal return flue style with water tubes when the drawings are done i will publish with here

Apologies to the moderator if these photos are to big please resize as required

[HS93 (RIP)]

Very nice .. Peter

[Bunkerbarge]

Absolutely beautiful, just a shame you are not going to see it in the boat.

I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the plant go together though.

[mrsgoggins]

Nice one, I'll show you mine sometime.
What heating surface area will your boiler have?
Regards,
Keith

[edible_engine]

hi very nice what sort of rpm will this turn ? min and max ?

[Aussie Bruce]

Nice one, I'll show you mine sometime.
What heating surface area will your boiler have?
Regards,
Keith

Hi Keith after discussion / correspondence with Mr Malcolm Beak via the model boats forum it will be a Centre fired 4" dia OD with a 1-1/2 centre flue with 19 3/8 flues it will have a baffled zone for a water level probe as i would like to have electronic water level control. From my calcs and Malcolm's it is around the 137 to 142 sq in of heating surface. My local club is quite strict about the pressure that we run our steamers at it is recommended that we do not go over 35 psi (insurance etc)

I have Started it The Boiler shell is complete and the end plates as well as the bushes but i am awaiting the arrival of pay day to purchase the required amount of 3/8 tubes boy has the price of copper spiraled 

The burner will be a poker style with a commercial disposable 80/20 butane LPG mix.

The only complication is that all items including fittings are scratch built I only buy what i need to in the way of fasteners or raw materials only. so time is not a priority :) :)

Good Luck 

[Aussie Bruce]

hi very nice what sort of rpm will this turn ? min and max ?

Hi Mate

After tunning the piston Valves as it has minimal Lap and Lead it starts now on compressed air at 2 or 3 psi about 100 to 150 rpm ( regulator for my airbrush) and at 100 psi Well i haven't had the taco on it yet but it would have to turn at least 2200 rpm maybe even 2750 but thats not what its about on steam you keep winding on the pitch on the prop because even on air try and stop it at 100 psi i have burnt fingers before trying to prove it its all about th torque of the engine.

By the way if i was to do it again i would like to up the crank throw to say 3/4 and a 5/8 (19/ 20mm x 16mm)and stroke.

But it is nice to see it sitting on the bench spinning around doing nothing yet   

[HS93 (RIP)]

Hi Bruce .one of the problems of going big is that the amount of steam required to run it ,followed by the amount of water you then have to carry to keep it , I think that may be why Stuart double 10s need such a big boat , my engine is prob the same as yours now and you still need an efficient boiler,, Peter

[mrsgoggins]

Thanks for the response Bruce. I must say I am surprised at the low boiler pressures your club seem to expect. Perhaps they have not heard that the atmospheric engine has been dropped in favour of high pressure steam.
I have yet to install my Borderer steam plant as the 1/19 scale TID it is destined for is developing slowly. My engine is 5/8" stroke by 1/2" bore coupled to an own design centre flue boiler, 4" o/d with a 2 1/4" flue fitted with 22  3/8" cross tubes and fired by a 2" ceramic burner. Heating area is about 100 sq ins and the design working pressure is 100psi. I have also fitted a mechanical boiler feed pump, displacement lubricator and a Cheddar ABC unit. Some testing has been carried out but it will get serious when the weather improves.
Keep the information coming - it gives me some confidence in what I am doing.
Regards,
Keith

[Aussie Bruce]

Hi Bruce .one of the problems of going big is that the amount of steam required to run it ,followed by the amount of water you then have to carry to keep it , I think that may be why Stuart double 10s need such a big boat , my engine is prob the same as yours now and you still need an efficient boiler,, Peter

Yep got it in one mate re boiler size i forgot to mention that this will be 6 inch long effective firing area 8 inch including front and rear flue air space talking it over with others in my club a yarrow would be nice or even a single drum / twin drum with a heap of radiant tubes its got a name just not sure of it at the moment. well when its finished we will have to try it if it doesn't work well then on to the shelf with it (boiler i mean) :-[

Yep its a bit of a tradition here in Australia you build a steam boat and it has to be 5 foot long minimum with a beam of 12inches 

We Build em big so to say 

[Aussie Bruce]

Thanks for the response Bruce. I must say I am surprised at the low boiler pressures your club seem to expect. Perhaps they have not heard that the atmospheric engine has been dropped in favour of high pressure steam.
I have yet to install my Borderer steam plant as the 1/19 scale TID it is destined for is developing slowly. My engine is 5/8" stroke by 1/2" bore coupled to an own design centre flue boiler, 4" o/d with a 2 1/4" flue fitted with 22  3/8" cross tubes and fired by a 2" ceramic burner. Heating area is about 100 sq ins and the design working pressure is 100psi. I have also fitted a mechanical boiler feed pump, displacement lubricator and a Cheddar ABC unit. Some testing has been carried out but it will get serious when the weather improves.
Keep the information coming - it gives me some confidence in what I am doing.
Regards,
Keith

Ohhh yeah but of course the trade off is of course insurance cover and lets just say the ability to not quite meet the requirements for our miniature boiler code it is a standard and can get a bit pernickety at times but really having a 35 psi requirement is not to bad and has plenty to recommend it.

From my experience any way if the pressure settles around 20 psi to 30 psi you've got the makings of a twenty minute run to play with any way and no need to drive the burner hard if it all balances out speed Scale etc enough pressure to give a bit of a kick to top speed why do you need 90 psi  any way, although with ABC you don't have to worry about it.

[billj]

aussie bruce,  would you like a set of boiler feed pump plans that will fit on the rear of that fantastic engine? the feed pump is run directly off the rear of the crank, if you want them let me know your email address.

billj

[Aussie Bruce]

Hi Bill

Thank you very much for your kind offer but i am up to my ears into making it at the moment.

I am fortunate to belong to the Melbourne society of model and experimental engineers where we have a great library going back to the first edition of the model engineer I am building my borderer to the word's and music from 1st of December 1989 to 7th of December 1990 of the model engineer and it incorporates the plans and instructions for the boiler feed pump.

I have completed the piston reversing valve and had to rework my pipe work some what but hey thats what its all about. so stay tuned i will throw up some photos soon

[malcolmbeak]

Hi Bruce

I see you have made a grand job of the Borderer, and look forward to seeing the boiler etc.
It's been a while since we were in contact, and you said that you were going to get some articles I sent you on your club web site. If this hasn't happened yet, don't bother - they are now on the Puddleducks site under Downloads.

All the best    Malcolm

[tigertiger]

Hi Bruce

I see you have made a grand job of the Borderer, and look forward to seeing the boiler etc.
It's been a while since we were in contact, and you said that you were going to get some articles I sent you on your club web site. If this hasn't happened yet, don't bother - they are now on the Puddleducks site under Downloads.

All the best    Malcolm

Can you post a link for this website please

[barriew]

http://www.paddleducks.co.uk

Barrie

[Aussie Bruce]

Hi Bruce

I see you have made a grand job of the Borderer, and look forward to seeing the boiler etc.
It's been a while since we were in contact, and you said that you were going to get some articles I sent you on your club web site. If this hasn't happened yet, don't bother - they are now on the Puddleducks site under Downloads.

All the best    Malcolm

Hi Malcolm great to hear from you, hmm all i will say is that I am a little bit disapointed over that fiasco apologies 

Moving right along yep some more pictures of engine now fitted with reversing valve just need some cotton string to lag the pipes

 

[edible_engine]

hi it looks very nice can i ask what lathe you have?

[Aussie Bruce]

hi it looks very nice can i ask what lathe you have?

Hi Mate yep I have seen your post re no name lathes and some of the replies on your possible choice of lathe but I come from a different background, country etc so I have not commented on that post. It is hard to know where to stop.  ???

In Australia for the last 20 years or so people do not bother at all with Myford Harrison or Boxford, lathes although some of our older generation still do, not to say they are not great quality etc but based on price alone you cannot beat the Chinese manufacturers. Our usual dealers are Hare and Forbes etc and all import lathes and tools from China. :'(

The Size of our general modelling lathes is typically a bit bigger then what I see in model engineer etc the best bang for buck lathe here in Australia is say 300 mm Dia x 1000 mm bed (Min 150 radius swing over the saddle these lathes can retail for about $2500 to $2800) so I would say 25% bigger machine than the Chester DB11V.
That’s not to say you cannot buy any option / colour / brand of small mini lathe here locally from what I see they are the same as what is available in the UK.

Based on what my friends own of the 6 or so 5 own the 300 x 1000 size machines either belt drive headstock, or geared head variety. Only one owns a Myford and uses mine from time to time when we work on motorcycle projects as you cannot get much at all through the headstock and not much swing and low power.

Please note I am a fitter and turner by trade although I now work in a technical position and have other interests such as motorcycles and do some cash jobs from time to time so my machine is used almost daily at least when I am not using the mill

I could go on but the bottom line is if you buy a small lathe, small jobs are all it will do.  My advice would be to pick up a second hand larger machine if that is what you want to do.

Good Luck mate and get plenty of cash together to start to buy some tooling because that is where the real money is spent

[HS93 (RIP)]

Bruce Sorry to go of topic but do you know if John Drain      http://www.pt-boat.com/  is still trading ive e-mailed him a few times but with no luck , thanks peter

[Aussie Bruce]

Well after what seems a while I have got the bug well and truly so to speak and have had to change the title of this post to steam plant  ::)

Its nearly done only strip down and paint up but I havent decided one way or the other yet

But here it is now withwater feed pump and lubricator

 

[Bunkerbarge]

I think this would look stunning if it was polished rather than painted.  It looks pretty good as it is though!!

[bogstandard]

Hi Bruce,
Looks very nice, just polish it, I think painting covers up all your hard work.
Just a couple of questions.
Did you make the gears and splined takeoff  yourself?
I have never seen a displacement lubricator hanging off the side, I thought they are inline, how does your one work?
Again, great engine.

John

[Aussie Bruce]

Hi Bruce,
Looks very nice, just polish it, I think painting covers up all your hard work.
Just a couple of questions.
Did you make the gears and splined takeoff  yourself?
I have never seen a displacement lubricator hanging off the side, I thought they are inline, how does your one work?
Again, great engine.

John

Hi John well i have to come clean i bought the gears from our local small gear specialist in Melbourne they where not to expensive at all about $25 dollars finer pitch than what is called up but i just got the right ratio in the end they run really well   

I could have machined them up if i wanted to as i have a mill and dividing head etc, I have a RF30 Drill Mill (Big) and a small Horizontal Mill its like a big model really but its ideal for this small stuff, It was given to me but i still need an arbour for it though but for $25 i couldn't go past those gears it was going to cost me that for the arbour material alone.

Yep I know its usual to run lubricators in line with the main steam line etc but its not really required to at all in my experience as you can see i tee mine off close to the control valve it also gives me the option of adding a valve at the opposite end to get rid of any condensation at that point but really you need it as thats what gets the oil flowing anyway

besides i can get easy access to the drain valve to empty it where its located now

[HS93 (RIP)]

This is a picture of a Martin Howes and Baylis engine where they mount the lubricator hanging off the side of the steam chest's