Posted by Jerry on September 8th, 2008 — Posted in Journal, Steam, Technology
Geoff Hudspith has been developing this bike since the 1970s, and has been riding it at shows for years. But it is also a practical workhorse as well as a beautiful piece of home engineering
Seen here on Google video, the bike is seen being fired up and run – even taken on a ferry. This is no museum piece, but everyday transport. And it runs on steam.
The bike runs on 125 psi and burns kerosene. Performance is about 8mph sustained speed, 6 – 8mpg of water and about 60 – 70mpg of paraffin. The engine has run for 11 years – five years on the bike, and shows no sign of wearing out!
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on August 27th, 2008 — Posted in Journal, Steam, Technology
David Nergaard’s 1922 Stanley steamer had lain abandoned for many years to decay until it was found in the 1950s. At that point a custom body was built for it and the steam plant installed. The car is regularly driven and David puts about 5000 miles per year on the clock.
You can read more about steam cars in general, and Stanleys in particular at the Steam Car Club of Great Britain
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on August 11th, 2008 — Posted in History, Journal, Steam, Technology
In 1784, William Murdoch – a Scot working in Cornwall servicing Boulton and Watt beam engines – began making models of what may well have become the first self propelled steam vehicle after Joseph Cugnot’s experimental steam military tractor.
Employed by Boulton and Watt – who were possessive of their patents – Murdoch was said to have invented a coal-gas lamp so he could build models at night. Intriguingly, Watt wrote to Boulton in 1784 to say he had taken out a patent on self-propelled vehicles, which suggests he might have had his suspicions about what his employee was up to.
Although the replica built by the ‘Murdoch Boys’ is somewhat conjectural, it is clearly based on extant models, and plausibly uses a version of the Watt beam engine on wheels. The machine – known as ‘The Murdoch Flyer’ is said to be capable of 12 mph (about 20kph) at which speed it is apparently a rather exciting ride. It would have been quite a feat of engineering in its day.
Interestingly, it is a three-wheeler, making it similar in some respects to Cugnot’s wagon and the later Gardner-Serpollet which both survive in Paris at the Musee des Arts et Metiers.
The machine is powered by a single cylinder sitting inside a boiler which drives a beam up and down. A vertical shaft transits power to a crankshaft in front of the boiler behind the driver’s seat. Gears then power the rear wheels.
It may look decidedly Victorian steam punk – but the original was built in the reign of George III. It was the same year that the Italian Vincenzo Lunardi made the first hydrogen balloon ascent in England.
Thanks to Bob Blackman’s blog. You can read more about steam cars at the Steam Car Club of Great Britain.
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Posted by Jerry on July 16th, 2008 — Posted in Journal, Steam, Technology
The British Steam Car Challenge aims to break a world steam car record set by a Stanley steamer that has stood for 100 years. But if you thought this is some romantic harking back to an Edwardian world using Victorian technology, think again. This is today’s technology right now. Your plug-in electric car uses it, the internet runs on it and your house is lit by it. The steam turbine lies at the heart of modern electric power stations, whether nuclear or conventionally fueled. And that is a clue.
External combustion engines can use a wider range of fuels than any other technology. So a steam car can run on fossil fuel oils, or biodiesel, or alcohol or old vegetable oil. And the burners run clean. The British steam car challenge car will burn its fuel completely, producing almost no harmful emissions – unlike the internal combustion engine. Its two-stage turbine producing almost 270kw is designed to take this three tonne car to speeds in excess of 270kph powered by LPG.
Eight years in the making, this car is in every way a testament to the dedication of this small team of British enthusiasts. And despite being a purpose-built sprint car, the lessons learnt from demonstrating the practicalities of the steam generators and associated control systems could well be applied in a future steam hybrid car or a worthy successor to the Doble, Stanley and White cars of the past. External combustion could well be one of the green high performance solutions to our current love affair with fossil fuels.
The car will be driven at the Bonneville salt flats during Speed Week this year in August – by Don Wales (grandson of Sir Malcolm Campbell) and Charles Burnett III.
If you stop by their website before 30 July you can donate £1.00 and be part of history in the making, adding your name to the car and contributing to an extraordinary team.
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on June 9th, 2008 — Posted in History, Journal, Steam, Technology
The Locomobile steam car at the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa is described as “circa 1901”. I have a feeling it might be an early 1902 model. It is chassis number 555 and has the Stanhope type two body with the ogee shaped front, rather than the flat upright dashboard.
The Locomobile was designed and built by the Stanley Brothers from 1899-1904. In 1901 they sold the Locomobile company, and bought it back a year later – making a profit both times. They produced the most successful steam car of its day – around 4000 were built in total, before the Stanley company produced cars under its own name until 1927.
The cars were simple and quite fast for their day, winning several hill-climbs. They could take off with enough acceleration to lift the front wheels and were quite popular as runabouts. But they had quite a short range – 20-30 miles between water stops as they had no condenser to recycle the exhaust steam back into the boiler.
The early ones had a two-cylinder Masson engine, but these were not very reliable, being prone to breakdowns. But this was fixed by late 1901 when FE and FO Stanley designed their own engine.
You can read more about Stanly steam cars at the British Steam Car Club of Great Britain (page two of the locomobile specs gives chassis numbers for the type B and C), as well as at the Stanley Museum in the USA.
The car is currently on display in the the main museum building in Ottawa.
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