Sycamore Steam Show

In years past they have had a saw mill running and a daily parade of antique tractors, usually including at least a few steam traction engines, plus displays of stationary engines from models up to full size (>=100 HP), many of which are running during the show. It's well worth a few hours and the weather this weekend looks pretty decent so far as temperature is concerned.

If you are in the Geneseo IL area, this is another good show:

The Oblong, IL steam show is on this weekend, 9 Aug - 11 Aug 2013 ( shows last year's dates)

Oblong's in eastern IL, about an hour away from Effingham, Terre Haute, and Vincennes.

Watching the large engines (100 hp Fairbanks-Morse, 75 hp Superior,

60 hp Muncie) start up is pretty interesting. There are a lot of small engines, models, antique cars, and steam tractors as well.

Thanks for mentioning that event.

I was at that show today, it was great. Lots of amazing looking steam tractors, hay threshing, all kinds of fun things, a little bit of everything for all ages. It also was not a ripoff, like those "festivals".

i

Yeah, those are fun, aren't they? We have Pottsville up here. Back in LoCal, we had the Antique Steam and Gas Museum. Same same. Parades around their acreage including steam traction engines, tractors, old paving machines, steam locos on sections of track going nowhere but looking good with a head of steam, wheelwrights making wheels, blacksmiths installing red-hot steel 'tires' or making gew jaws, watching hit'n'miss engines powering antique sheep shears, kids getting dirty and having fun. All in all, a good day every time. I bought some of my Stanley hand planes and other antique hand tools at those shindigs, usually for a song.

Yes, great all around. But I have a question. Those flat belts, if they are of considerable length, are folded into "figure 8". I wonder why, to avoid thel flopping around?

i

To reverse the rotational direction?

MikeB

Do you mean why are they given a twist so that they are shaped like a Mobius strip.

The reason is it makes the belt last longer because the belt contacts the pulleys on both sides.

-jim

I've seen most run straight, like this:

And some pulleys are 90 degrees off from one another, so they look like an 8.

But I do recall seeing some figure 8s, too. Here's some info for both of us. Starting near the bottom, with Research Continues:

The answer which makes sense is the directionality. You reverse the rotation by flipping the belt 180 degrees on one side.

And to reverse the rotation.. On the thresher we ran the belt straight off the 44 Massey pulley. To run the circular saw we had to twist the belt to run it or the belt came out the "work" side. To run the silo filler IIRC we had to twist the belt for our silo because of where we had to place the tractor to line up the belt. If we could have run the belt through the fence, we could have run the belt straight.

I thought so too, but then I saw some things where direction did not seem to matter, and they did it anyway.

i

That's a smart idea, but this is not what I saw. I saw a figure 8.

i

By the way, my kids want me to make a homemade steam engine. Something that can be made with basic machine tools, such as lathe and a mill. At first, I want to avoid steam entirely and just run it from compressed air.

My question is, does anyone know of a reasonable plan, with valving, governor, etc, that could be made in a few weekends. Thanks.

i

If you want *really* simple, build an oscillating engine first. You can build them from scraps and bar stock. There are many plans around; this is just one I grabbed as an example:

One of my first projects, when I got my SB lathe, was to build a Stuart 10V steam engine from a set of Stuart's castings. These make really nice-looking models that run well and that can develop some power.

The tricky part of steam engines, for the first-timer, is the boilers. You apparently recognize that.

Well, Steamboat Ed does, but I think he gave up on Usenet.

I know I do! Which is why I was looking at Bryan Boilers, they have a nice little water-tube boiler that looks to be just the right size. You can make a shroud to disguise it as a Scotch Marine.

Has all the safety ratings and such, so they don't have to worry about you blowing up in the middle of the lake...

And they can make it rated ASME Power and go to 300 PSI - but 200 is probably plenty. I need to see if they want it mounted fore and aft or abeam.

Only drawback I can see is no superheater - Oh Well, so much for towing water-skiers...

I can get a "junked" fiberglass party-boat hull for near nothing, nothing wrong other than a full refit and repower would cost more than a new boat, so they throw it out. (Golf Cart batteries aren't cheap.)

And Beckett has an oil burner for Steam Cleaners that runs on 12-Volts

15-A (20A with the ignition coil running) that looks like it would be a perfect match - the advanced controls have a CdS flame photosensor to cut the coil once it's lit, and the fuel if you lose the fire.

The other big bugaboos are water feed - It's easy to put a direct drive pump straight off the engine while it's running - but it also needs a modulatable Penberthy Injector or a steam duplex feed pump (or both) for while you're puttering, with a Raspberry PI and flow sensors making sure it's feeding right.

And I need to make a turbogenerator to run the burner, navigation lights, etc. - an efficient multi-stage turbine and a set of planetary gears, then hitch it to an auto alternator. Fun part is finding a

2.5-HP rated turbine - 250 to 1000-HP is easy.

After that, making a condenser out of copper pipe and a hot-well is easy.

-->--

Bruce, that sounds like a career...or a life-long hobby.

That's real steam, but, of course, little demo models like Iggy is talking about don't need all that stuff.

Take a look at PM Research - they sell a number of casting kits including steam and internal combustion engines as well as a bunch of scale model machine tools for overhead line drive. I'm not sure why, but Google warns that their web site can "harm your computer". I've been there before many times with no harm done, but maybe somebody hacked their web site.

If you want bar stock engines, try:

which features quality plans sets from Jerry Howell. He passed away a few years ago and the site is now run by his son. You might like the Stirling engine kits, which run on the heat from a cup of coffee. They sell plan sets and, in some cases, parts kits for items that are hard to find.

For a really simple engine, try this one by Rudy Kouhoupt:

Mike