Posted 2 years ago
hotairfan
(388 items)
I had to do some work on the water pump that is part of this engine, and I remembered that I never posted it on Collector's Weekly.
I purchased this hot air engine at the Cabin Fever Expo Show in 2010.
After some modifications, I got it to run the way I liked. The only fault left, was the pump that pumps the water through
the engine, (cooling it), and then on to the roof of an apartment building to gravity feed it to each individual apartment...... well, this pump would sometimes act funny and would fail to pump water. It finally failed for good and it was time to look for a problem.
The pump was fine, it turned out to be the water check valves on both sides of the pump that were defective. I replaced both check valves, (clack valves as they are called in Jolly Ole England).
The model maker and designer of this "Caloric" engine did a wonderful job making and painting this hot air engine. Although I didn't originally like the color scheme, I later found that this is the colors that the original engines were painted, so, I guess that I am stuck with it being painted with these colors.
The full sized "Caloric" engines were placed in the basement or over the well or, if the city supplied water, they would be connected to the water pipe (early water supplies were not powerful enough to pump the water to the upper levels of the tenement buildings).
The water was pumped through the engine to cool the cold side of the hot air engine, then up to the roof, where a large cedar tank would hold the water supply and gravity would feed it to the individual apartments.
With this model engine, I have the water exiting through a nozzle and into the brass tube and back to the reservoir (under the framework).
This model operates on an alcohol burner to supply the heat to run the engine. The alcohol supply is in the brass cup and the tube holding the wick leads under and up to the hot side of the engine.
The walking beam action adds to it's operating beauty.
Pretty impressive contraption. I like how they put their name skeletonized on the walking beam.
I agree, Dave
the full sized engine, and the model engine, had 2 styles. One type had 2 swing arms that went up and down to operate the pump, and the walking beam model that rocked back and forth.
I've always was prone to the walking beam style.
It surely does show off the name "Caloric".