Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

Doug @crazydoug ever worked on one? or Charlie @txlabman, know anyone or anything about the heaters?

I’ve worked on the Empire heaters with some success at repairing them, although I’ve never fooled with the B-38 before. I would assume the heater is made the same way they are for the steam engines. Those are made with sheets of mica where the ni-chrome element is wound around one sheet and insulated on both sides with two others. The element is a very small ribbon. I’ve thought about re-winding the heaters with new ni-chrome wire, but haven’t tried it yet.

Joe, did you happen to purchase your B-38 from Shelby today?

Joe,
I sent you a private message with my email address.

Many times the problem with these heaters is at the terminal connections and not actually an open in the element. Have you opened it up and checked the element. Take the wire off the terminals and scrape the corrosion off the end of the wires before checking for continuity. You can buy ni-chrome wire if needed, but you have to figure out the resistance of the element - if i recall the ni-chrome wire is rated by resistance per foot. You have to do some calculating. I can measure the resistance of the element if needed.
crazydoug

Well, here’s an update on the B38.
Joe sent me the engine to work on. When it arrived, it was very dirty and oily. First thing I did was look to see what the heater was like. The heater basically disintegrated when I removed it. It may have been dosed with high voltage since most of the nichrome element was essentially vaporized and the mica was burned through. I never saw one so destroyed before.

Next step was to clean the engine and replace some gaskets to get it airtight. Once it was airtight, it would easily run with a little torch heat in the hot end.

Next, I started ordering materials for the new heater. The last of my materials arrived yesterday so I went building the new heater. I counted 38 wraps of nichrome ribbon on the old heater, so that’s how I made the new one. On 110 volts the hot end will get to around 400 degrees, which I feel is too hot. At 80 volts, it stays right around 300 degrees and runs nice. I plan to make another heater with added wraps of nichrome ribbon. The added resistance should help.

If anyone has one of these that is all original and could tell me how hot theirs runs on the hot end, that would be great.

Nice work Mike

Is that nichrome ribbon wrapped around some sort of mica board?

Yes it is.