Steam Tractor 3/4" (Rudy K)

[Flyboy Jim]

For emptying the tank, could you stick a syringe tube end down the filler tube to draw out the liquid?

I remember that there was a reason for the fill tube to be so far in and the vent to come in from the bottom, but I can't remember what the reason was!  Another case or CRS....   

If it was an aerobatic airplane, it would keep fuel from running out when upside down. Probably doesn't apply to a tractor though. 

Also, I'm not seeing the fuel outlet?

Jim

[Kim]

For emptying the tank, could you stick a syringe tube end down the filler tube to draw out the liquid?

Sounds like a reasonable suggestion! I'll probably do something like that.
Thanks Chris!
Kim

[Kim]

If it was an aerobatic airplane, it would keep fuel from running out when upside down. Probably doesn't apply to a tractor though. 

I hope it doesn't apply to tractor!

Also, I'm not seeing the fuel outlet?

Jim, the fuel outlets are on an adjacent side, so you don't see them in this picture.  the pipes from the burner cups will connect directly into the tank.   Hopefully you'll see that in my next installment!
Kim

[b.lindsey]

Kim, You could always put a drain in the bottom of the tank if room allows. As for how full the tank is, why not just attach a piece of tubing to the vent tube long enough to let the overflow collect in some sort of receptacle, then you know the tank is full.

Bill

[MJM460]

Hi Kim,

Great build and beautifully done.  I have been following quietly along from the beginning.

With the fuel tank, my guess is that the tank is bolted under the frame, you put a little container under the vent and fill until some appears from the vent and is caught in your little container.  No spills like when you over fill with a top filler/vent. And a properly filled tank.  No problem with the vent size, the vapour/ air from the vent during filling is very low density compared with the liquid fuel, so offers less back pressure than liquid for the same volume flow, I am sure the vent size will be adequate.  And it will not cause any problem with a small funnel that you get when vent and filler are combined.

Regarding draining, I suspect the tank is designed to run out before the boiler water is too low.  May need checking during early trial runs.  Then draining is no problem, why stop when you still have water to run.  But otherwise it might be worth adding a bush for a drain plug, or including a removable plug in one of the burner feed tubes.

Thanks for a wonderfully documented thread,

MJM460

P.s Bills post came in while I was typing, similar ideas!

[Kim]

Thanks Bill and MJM,

You're correct MJM, the tank is mounted under frame.  I was picturing doing exactly what you said - sliding a low container under the vent tube during filling.

Hand't thought about run time yet, but that is very possible that the tank size was determined by about how long it could burn before you run out of water in the boiler!

Thank you both for the great input,
Kim

[b.lindsey]

Yeah well, hopefully BEFORE you run out if water with some margin to spare 

Bill

[Kim]

Yeah well, hopefully BEFORE you run out if water with some margin to spare 

Bill

Yes!  Most definitely! 
Kim

[Kim]

Continuing on with the fuel tank:

I wanted to drill all the holes before I bent things into shape. So, with the sheet metal clamped to the mill, I drilled out the four holes.  Here’s the Fill hole:


And here’s all the holes: One fill, one Vent, and two for the pipes to the burner cups.


A friend of mine has loaned me a small metal machine – one of those 3-in-1 gizmos with a shear, a break, and a set of rollers all on the same piece of equipment.  Seems convenient, so I thought I’d try it out on the fuel tank.

Being the bright guy I am, I realized that the tabs needed to be bent about 1/32” further out than the side they would overlap.  So I decided to bend the tabs first, without bending the side of the box by taking out one the 2.5” blocks in the box break, like so:


And while that seemed like a great idea, it didn’t work so well – I forgot it still had the “V” shaped die on the bottom side, so even though it didn’t have the top forcing it into a crisp bend, it still muddled it up some


But it wasn’t bad, so I just straightened it out a bit before going on.

Of course, I couldn’t use the break to bend the sides, so I just found an appropriate piece of metal to bend against, and clamped it in the bench vise. Then I used a piece of wood and a mallet to bend the sheet metal over the metal edge.


Here I’m setup to bend another end:


Not sure making the tank all in one piece was as brilliant as I originally thought.  I couldn’t really bend it closed this way – I couldn’t get anything inside the tank to bend it around!  Anyway, in the end, I managed to get it fairly well bent to shape, but I couldn’t get the last bend to be a sharp 90 degrees – the top flapped open by about 1/4" or so.

So, I decided to put a couple of 2-56 screws in to hold it closed during soldering.  I clamped the box closed then drilled and tapped the holes.


Now the fun begins!  I cleaned it up, prepped it, got some flux and solder in place (this is soft solder now) and roasted the poor puppy. It took me two tries to get even this “good”.


The opposite side went much better:


However, when I did the 3rd side (the one with the screws) that went well, except the two sides I’d already soldered lost all their solder – I had big blobs of solder rolling down the sides of the tank

So I went back and re-soldered the other sides again – being MUCH more careful NOT to overheat everything.  It went better the 5 and 6th times.  But, of course, just as I was feeling good about getting the sides sealed, I realized that all four of the bottom corners leaked!

So back to the soldering station and a few more rounds of soldering to get the corners.  Now, I think it’s all water tight (or hopefully, alcohol tight ). But what do I discover?  I drilled the filler hole and the vent hole wrong.  I flipped the size of the bits – I drilled the vent 3/16” when it should have been 1/8”, and the Filler hole 1/8” when it should have been 3/16”. And what’s worse, I drilled the Filler hole on the wrong side. I can’t turn the tank around, otherwise the fuel outlets will be on the wrong side. So I’m devising a cunning method to work around this conundrum.

But that will be for another day. For today, I leave you with two shots of the sort-of final fuel tank (with out Filler Tube, Vent Hole, or mounting brackets:




I’ll clean up the unsightly solder blobs before I’m finished, but I’m going to wait till all the soldering is complete.

Thanks for taking a look at my very shallow learning curve.
Kim

[scc]

I regularly have days like that............you will feel good after you have rescued it and all will be well I do enjoy this build.
Thanks for sharing .           Best Wishes   Terry

[b.lindsey]

I think it turned out well Kim. A little clean up and paint an it will look just right? All those joints in different planes are at best difficult!!

Bill

[Kim]

Thanks Terry and Bill!
I hope to have some more time to work with it this afternoon.
Kim

[Kim]

Continuing to continue on with the fuel tank:

To make up for past sins I must move one hole and shrink another.  So, here’s how I did it.

First, I drilled the hole in the right place.  This was easy.  Unfortunately, it didn’t close up the wrong hole
 

To close up the unwanted hole, I decided to solder a patch over it.

And to shrink the hole that was too big for the vent, I did a similar thing.  Except I used this opportunity to solve my other problem – how to keep the vent tube from falling all the way into the fuel tank!  (Yes, that happened once, and it took me 20 minutes to fish it out).

I cut a disk of sheet metal, drilled a 1/8” hole, and silver soldered the vent tube in it. This way, I could soft solder the sheet metal in place and the vent tube would be suspended at the correct height!  I felt pretty good about this solution!

So here are all the helpful little pieces I made to make this all happen. In the lower left is the patch for the hole in the wrong place. In the middle is the fill tube. And on the upper right,  the vent with its own sheet metal patch silver solder in place – like a flange or something.


I did the top side first. I need to plug the little hole and solder the fill tube in the big one.
 

Like so:


And on the underside, I need to solder in the vent, with its flange to fill the extra part of this over sized hole (and to keep it at the appropriate height from the other side of the tank.


Like so:


And after a little clean up, here’s what it looks like:




The solder joint on the bottom side (vent hole) looks a little cold, so I may try reflowing that. But it doesn’t seem to leak, so I may just clean it up some and leave it as is.

I still have to solder on the mounting brackets, so the fuel tank isn’t done yet.  But its getting closer!

Thanks for stopping by!
Kim

[MJM460]

Hi Kim,

Thanks for taking us through the trials of making the tank.  I also find it difficult to get a tidy joint all around.  I have found silver soldering worked for me though, with no more trouble than you had with soft solder.

As an aside, did you feel the 3 in 1 overall useful, if only for other tasks?  I have looked at them often and wondered if they would be worthwhile.  I am thinking of sheet metal furnace boxes for around small boilers, but also for the little fuel tanks and other small boxes.

Thanks for a wonderful thread.  I am another regular reader.

MJM460

[Kim]

Thanks for the comment MJM,

As an aside, did you feel the 3 in 1 overall useful, if only for other tasks?  I have looked at them often and wondered if they would be worthwhile.  I am thinking of sheet metal furnace boxes for around small boilers, but also for the little fuel tanks and other small boxes.

I'm not certain where I stand on this yet.  I was actually pleased with the little shear - it seemed to cut this sheet metal quite well - though this is only 22 GA, and I think that may be near the limit of this little unit.  So, I do like the shear.

I haven't used the rollers yet, but they seem like they are no different from any other roller, so they ought to be just fine.

It's the brake that I'm finding a little off-putting.  The thing with this one is that I have trouble getting it setup so that the bend occurs in the desired spot.  With a standard brake I can line it up with the edge of the clamping part.  And while that's not always easy to do, at least I can see my line.  With these "V" shaped die method, I'm finding it harder to line up. And consequently, my bends don't always come out where I want them.  Maybe I'll find the technique and get better at it, but frankly, since I can't see the line under there, I don't exactly see how that will happen.

This one is only 8".  If I were to buy one myself, I think I'd go a little bigger. But I'm also considering getting a dedicated box brake instead.  That's the part I'd use most anyway.  A shear would be nice though!

I'd love to hear other peoples thoughts on these little units too.

Kim

<edit - to fix my misspelling of brake>