Gil, the engines at these shows that are running on air.....how often do they oil them?
Do they try and get oil into the cylinders?
Hi Jim, It's easy to feed oil into the cylinders.
- Some of the more detailed models have a plug you can remove to put oil in on top of the piston.
- On others we open the condensate drain valves and put in oil with a needle oiler.
- Some exhibitors use air tool oil supplies which give oil atomized air.
- We can also put oil in air lines or in the steam chest inlet before starting.
To your inquiry, a precision built engine that runs slowly, with a good synthetic oil can be run all day on a single oiling in the morning.
For example, an engine running at 25 RPM will make 10,500 revolutions in 7 hours.
A car engine at 1,000 RPM will make 10,500 revolutions in 10 1/2 minutes.
You can open the drain and let all the oil out of a car engine (not recommended) and it will continue running at a high idle speed with little or no damage for 10 minutes. You have probably seen the old TV ads that promote an additive that lets a car engine run for 1/2 hour after draining the oil. The truth is many would run at idle speed for that length of time with good quality oil but without the additive (also not recommended). In addition, car engines have to handle a major thrashing from the constant explosions required to run them. A steam engine on low pressure air or steam experiences none of the indignities of a constant stream of explosions.
Even knowing this, for my slower running models, I will shut them down mid-day and re-lubricate everything.
On live steam, low pressure saturated steam (0-20 psi) with lo load will effectively continually lubricate the cylinder with water.
Gil
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