Making fuel for toy steam engine's

[BentJar]

well, guys, we ran the Electric Nixon stone for the last time yesterday making fuel. My grandson and I have been playing with my old toy steam engines for a while but the fuel tabs are getting expensive and hard to find. The hobby stores no longer sell them because of the EPA feds think some child may eat one of them or smell them burning and get some kinda brain damage.
Anyway, I built a copper tank and 2 wick burner assembly for them and have been using alcohol from the drug store. It burns good (70 and 91 %) but soots up the boilers and related parts.

I had several gallons of stored up heads/tails from my stilling days so we ran them thru real slow and kept only 90% and above. While the still was running we took off enough fuel to try it out on one of the larger steam engines.
The engine took off running in 6 minutes. A real purty blue flame and no soot anywhere. I should have been saving up them fores .
It was great to run the still again. I miss that a lot. I am almost 70 years old and making
liquor was one of the most enjoyable hobbys of my entire life. Right up there with rebuilding old Harleys.
Them days are gone now and I need to get rid of the equipment, but It will be like losing a child. Cant have my wife dealing with all that.
Stilling came down from my GF to my dad and then to me. It was another way of survival on the farm. Not a hobby during those hard times. Over 200 years of a knowledge will be lost when I pass on, and its damn shame.

Bent




.

[cranky]

Another good use of the heads
Sorry to hear the other parts

[raketemensch]

It seems like you can write pretty well, and even if you can't still, your brain still works...

No need to take all that knowledge with you, we've got thousands of willing, eager students here who could benefit from your learning.

[cob]

BentJar ; alcohol fuel can be bought at the auto parts store. HEET in the yellow container.

the big box stores in the paint department carry denatured ethanol and methanol.

just remember methanol will absorb through your skin.

[kiwi Bruce]

Hi Bentjar, I don't know what the fuel was in the original toy steam engines, but you should try alcohol gel as a substitute. It won't spill and is easily made at home. Rubbing alcohol turns to gel when mixed with calcium acetate. You'll need chalk (calcium carbonate) or crushed sea shell (like oystershell for chickens) to each cup of shell or chalk add four cups of white vinegar, and let this sit for 24 hours, outside or in a shed because it smells.Strain it using a cheesecloth or coffee filter and put it on the stove top on low and evaporate off 1/2 to 3/4 of the liquid. Let this cool, then add nine times the volume of isopropyl alcohol. It will gel immediately. You can put it in a small tin dish or tray to get it under the boiler of your engine. The BIG PLUS is, it burns cleanly...no soot. (It has to be isopropyl, home distilled won't gel) Try it and tell us how it works. Kiwi

[BentJar]

Im sure there are other substitute fuels out there but I was wanting to make it run off my moonshine. I tried
sterno and lower proof rubbing alcohol. They both work but are not clean enough . They
seem to have some additive in them that produces a yellow/orange flame.
The fuel I made runs a blue flame like natural gas once the burner gets up to operating temps.

Take a look at the tank and burner. It holds about 100 mL of alcohol and will run the steam engine for
an hour with 0ne water stop.

There is a leveling screw and bracket under the tank to raise it as the fuel is used
up. Much like a carburetor float. As the engine starts to lose power, turning the screw raises the tank and
adds fuel to the 2 wicks and their chamber. Raise it too high and you get a flooding of the wick chamber
and a run away fire. There is a fine balance in the wick level and fuel level. Dial that in and it runs like a freight train

Anyway, I sure wish I had poured all the fores and early heads in a 30 gallon container and stored them up.


Bent