Re: The H. O. Baker boiler & then some...
Posted by:
Jim Crank (IP Logged)
Date: March 17, 2002 03:43PM
<HTML>Pat,
You are absolutely correct. I had a Baker in my 1918 Stanley and it was horrible. Didn't make steam all that fast, had a lousy reserve, was way too big and heavy and mine and another one around here had a strange problem of internal errosion in the bend right over the fire in that central drum.
Had to weld it up too often.
Also the very devil to make and really not worth the trouble as it just isn't that good.
If the Baker doesn't have that rotary blowdown system, then one evaporating coil after another plugs up with sludge and carbon and slowly and surely fails. You can't clean it out either.
Although I sure am no fan of fire tube boilers, there is nothing wrong with a Stanley boiler in a Stanley car IF TAKEN CARE OF. Except, use at least four blowdown points on the bottom. I once cut an old 23" Stanley boiler apart and saw immediately that the radius of cleaner crown sheet was only about a 6" radius from the blowdown point. Too many tubes and too close together to get one blowdown to really do the job, you need at least four and even six if you can get them in. Alan Brasel fills his with kerosene when he parks it and for many many years now, that car runs better than any condensing Stanley I ever saw. Messy; but effective.
Maybe there is a water tube design that would be really satisfactory; but a Stanley should be as it was made, fire tube boiler and all.
Why butcher a nice car?
Still, with a condensing Stanley, nothing works as well as a really good separator on the exhaust steam line going into the condenser. That is a real fix and as yet, I have not seen a good one for Stanleys. Always too small and the oily mess just blows into the condenser.
Like a filter, slow down the velocity and give it time to separate out the oil.
The Doble also needs one there too and E-14 has had one in it since the 1940's and it really works well. Becker only cleaned the coil stack out once in every three or four years, that I recall. That isn't bad.
As the White owner's manual tells you, blow down the coil after each long run from both ends and HARD. Well, I put the same blowdown valves in E-23 and blow it often. Maybe I will get many years out of the new coil stack in the Doble. My White had the original coil stack in it, 90 years before it started leaking. So they really knew what they were talking about, didn't they.
Jim</HTML>