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Author Topic: Old Model Steam Burner - Seeking Knowledge....  (Read 521 times)

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Old Model Steam Burner - Seeking Knowledge....
« on: September 17, 2023, 10:21:39 pm »
    Here sharing some photos of an old burner I acquired several months ago, part of a lot of model steam items that included a very nice and large boiler. I really only wanted the boiler, and the price for the lot was not any great bargain for just the boiler, but this burner is what tipped the scale for me to buy the entire lot.

     I was vaguely familiar with these types of burners, having previously seen a couple of what I believe were the same basic type, made by Boucher. This one is apparently a scratch-built version, with the only markings being those on the pressure gauge - "Pressurite, Patented Sept. 12, 1911". I found references to Pressurite from some old automotive magazine ads dating from around 1915, for a variety of automotive pressure gauges (this gauge reads up to 120 PSI).

    All I can recall is that these burners used kerosene or even gasoline, presumably involving the pressurization of the fuel tank with air. And, that these things did not exactly come with a 5-star safety rating (to say the least). But I really don't recall for sure. So, I thought I would reach out to see if anyone here might know any more details? I believe that they were mostly used in boat models (which might explain why antique live steam boat models are typically scarce these days!).

   I certainly have no anticipated use for this whatsoever, and so I am interested in selling it, for whatever it might be worth (offers welcome, and I don't expect that it has much value). I am guessing that there are few potential buyers here, but naturally I would like to know as much about it as I can, if I list it on e-bay at some point. I have gone through it and the only minor issue is that the air valve has a leak, which would require that the internal stem or the entire valve be replaced. It holds pressure OK if a standard cap is screwed down tight enough on the valve, and the pressure gauge works fine. As for its overall functionality, I will leave that to braver souls than I!

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Re: Old Model Steam Burner - Seeking Knowledge....
« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2023, 08:52:04 am »
This burner is essentially of the blow torch family of burners and works just like a plumbers blow torch of old. Saito still makes marine engines with boilers that use them, specifying alcohol (meths) as fuel, though the old plumber's units did use a variety of other fuels, and yours may have as well. Saito's burners do not use compressed air pre-pressurization, but rather just use a flame cup to heat up the torch head which then pressurizes the tank at the same time as it volatilizes the fuel. I suspect that your burner used a flame cup of some form as well, otherwise just pressurizing the tank would have it jetting raw fuel out the torch, unless pre-heated in some fashion to vaporize the fuel, which is what the coils of feed piping around the burner is supposed to do.

Hope any of that made sense and helped!
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Re: Old Model Steam Burner - Seeking Knowledge....
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2023, 08:01:20 pm »
This will pretty much work in the same way as my TMY burner here.



As Daniel already mentioned, just preheat the tank itself to raise pressure, and once lit, the hot burner-tube will take care of keeping the pressure going.
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Re: Old Model Steam Burner - Seeking Knowledge....
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2023, 09:39:54 pm »
    Thanks so much Daniel and Jan, that is all very interesting and helpful information. I know that there are some folks out there who like things "old school" and there are probably some old model boat enthusiasts among them, so maybe I can eventually find a home for the old burner with someone who can really appreciate it. But I have enjoyed playing around with it as an antique curiosity, regardless.

    Coincidentally, another much smaller and newer burner came in the same lot with this one (see photos below). I thought that this newer burner might be a Saito, but it is not marked (I don't know much about Saito aside from seeing them on e-bay). It just uses standard butane fuel (at least that has worked so far), and produces the same type of long flame jet as the TMY in Jan's video, works great! I don't really have any use for it as a steam model burner, but it works great as a small blow torch, so for now I will just keep it for that alone. Any idea what brand this one might be?  Thanks!

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