New project: Model of second german steamship "Courier"

[Hankwilliams]

Thanks, Damian. The boat now is as good as finished. The engine skylight will be best arranged, when the engine is installed.
Tomorrow I will begin with engine built.

Thomas

[Hankwilliams]

Building the side lever engine. Cylinder and some other parts are Regner 12/36, at least 25 years old, but with little use.
Hope, it will run when it will be finished!

Thomas

[Hankwilliams]

Side lever engine will be soon finished, the slide gear must be still made.  I consider to turn the cylinder by 90 degrees, that the slide box will be in front of it. So it may be more easy to connect the excenter rod with the slide valve. The 36 mm stroke is a little bit too much, 25 - 30 mm would be better for the hight of engine, it`s not easy to install it in the narrow and flat hull. But until now, all of my steamers came to function - after less or more difficulties...

Thomas

[DamienG]

 

[andy]

Only 1 cylinder? What about start and stop on the water with the model?

Andy

[Hankwilliams]

I will install a small electric starter like in my "Mt. Washington" with single cylinder walking beam engine. Meanwhile I turned the cylinder of "Courier" by 90 degrees, the slide valve is now between crankshaft and cylinder. This is more original, even the connection between excenter and slide valve can be better realized.

Thomas

[Hankwilliams]

Side lever engine looks like finished! Tomorrow I will do a steam test - it should run, but almost shure some adjustment will be necessary. It is possible, that one or two flywheels one the paddle shaft will  be good for smoother running - for test run I use a heavy flywheel, but it`s too big for the hull.

One further altering concerns the position of the boiler, it was turned by 90 degrees. This was necessary to get enought space for the engine behind the paddle shaft like it was in the original boat. One side effect: For my impression the boat now got a better proportion, the funnel is not more so far behind the paddleboxes.

Thomas

[DamienG]

Indeed a work of art Thomas 

[Hankwilliams]

Thanks again, Damian. Today I did the first steam test with this engine - she was running in booth directions smooth for a few minutes, but then the piston slide blocked. The old brass piston slide seems to have too less ? when the parts became hot. Tomorrow I will turn the engine for longer time with electric drill,  while it will be oiled.
If the failure can`t be solved  I must order a new teflon slide valve for the 12/36, since a few years Regner uses Teflon Slide valves and pistons.

Thomas

[derekwarner_decoy]

As always this Regner 12/36 must be a beautiful engine Thomas...do you think that she will be capable of say 120 RPM and still be stable in a single cylinder confrigaution?.... Derek

[Hankwilliams]

Hi Derek,

today I ordered at Regner 2 Teflon slide valve pistons and 2 smaller flywheels of 50 mm diameter for installing on the paddleshaft. Together with the brass paddlewheels (99 mm diameter) this should be sufficient to get a stable run of 80 - 90 RPM. Today I will do other test runs with the old brass slide. The tolerance between piston and slide cylinder should be better now because the engine was turned for 2 hours with an electric drilling.
The walking beam engine of "MT. Washington" with same cylinder and the original flywheel of 80 mm is running well with gear reduction of 1 : 2 to the big paddlewheels.

[Hankwilliams]

new testruns this afternoon. Engine runs very well forward, no as good back, I must adjust the slide valve more precise- but today it didn`t block. Engine was runninng for 1,5 hours. It seems, now things came together!

Thomas

[Hankwilliams]

Engine is running now in well manner in both directions!
Minimum speed in load is ca. 60 RPM. There will be a gear reduction of 4 : 5 to the paddleshaft with cogwheels (similar to the original boat). The two small flywheels I got today and installed them on the paddleshaft. I hope, together with the paddlewheels there will be sufficient centrifugal force. If not, further possibility would be to weight the paddles.

Thomas

[Hankwilliams]

Experiences for an old steam enthusiast: Engine is running very well outside of hull with an heavy flywheel, but much less good inside the model.
The turning cogwheels are rather loud, but the main point seems the lack of centrifugal force throught the paddlewheels. Obviously the paddlewheels together with the small flywheels gave not very much centrifugal force. May be, thats also a matter, that the centrifugal force is not on the crankshaft of the engine, but on the paddleshaft - this could be an explanation of the noisy cogwheels.
Tomorrow I will do a steam test with the boat in water.

[Bierjunge]

Thomas, fist of all, my sincere congratulation for this beautyful boat! I wonder how you can build all these fantastic steam driven ships in such quick succession...

So please don't understand my following remarks as criticism, but as attempt to help, from a machine dynamics point of view:

Experiences for an old steam enthusiast: Engine is running very well outside of hull with an heavy flywheel, but much less good inside the model.
The turning cogwheels are rather loud, but the main point seems the lack of centrifugal force throught the paddlewheels. Obviously the paddlewheels together with the small flywheels gave not very much centrifugal force. May be, thats also a matter, that the centrifugal force is not on the crankshaft of the engine, but on the paddleshaft - this could be an explanation of the noisy cogwheels.

Just a remark: You're not talking about centrifugal force (which acts radially and thus has no influence on the rotation at all), but about moment of inertia. The inertia of a flywheel scales linear with its mass and with the square of its diameter. But the diameter of a hidden flywheel is limited. So that is no option.
But: The kinetic energy stored in a flywheel goes by the square of its speed. So a small flywheel on an slow rotating shaft (such as the paddle shaft) does not have much effect indeed.
But since you have this reduction stage anyway:
Maybe you could add another, hidden gear stage increasing the speed of the flywheel?
Just to give an example: If you manage to add a speed increaser stage with the ratio of 1:5 between paddle shaft and flywheel, the flywheel would have as much effect as 25 flywheels of the same inertia mounted on the paddle shaft!

Moritz

PS: You presumably know these old toy cars with a so called friction motor. That's the same idea, to simulate a high inertia by a fast spinning flywheel with a high gear ratio.