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

I took Nick's advice and bought 95% Everclear to burn. It's fantastic, zero fumes. I still run outside but the sweet smell of nothing.

Decided to use this Bing vaporizing burner that came with my engine. I replaced the wicks in it as they were shot. And it didn't burn evenly.

I made new wicks with torn and trimmed cotton coarse sheet. I trimmed both pilot and mushroom wicks flush.

If you look at the picture, there is flame at the base of the pilot wicks. They are little pipes pushed into the tin. Perhaps they were soldered in at some point? Now they are press fit. Is that correct?

The fire seems rather energetic but perhaps that is correct.
This is my first carb burner.
My Märklin's are missing their carbs but I have those dialed in and don't kick out as much flame as this. What I did on my carb-less Märklin was make a brass insert that holds the metal mesh wick, which is cupped a little on top. It "holds" the flame. I think it works quite well. Lots of trial and error to get that dialed in!

Back to the question at hand... Does that burn look correct? Or do I need to seal around the pilot wicks?

Thank you for this help.

I noticed the pilot wicks feed into the tank a couple of inches, so I suspect a modification from a previous owner.

I will solder them in.

I'd love to see a photo of the one you made.

Some tin work  tin from usual source ( kitchen)
No embossing on the front plate yet.
The flame photo was before the pilot tubes installed as I needed to know if it would work .
There was a successful trial this morning and the pilot flames did their job .
A little slower due to heavier gauge material used . [ Guests cannot view attachments ] [ Guests cannot view attachments ] [ Guests cannot view attachments ] [ Guests cannot view attachments ] [ Guests cannot view attachments ] [ Guests cannot view attachments ] [ Guests cannot view attachments ]

I know that I just talked you into using 95% Everclear, but when the burners work too good as you have shown, I use our weak MN Everclear which calms the flame down quite a bit. You will have a little water in the bottom of the burner after a run, so pour it out and rinse the burner with good alcohol, empty and dry.

This shows the importance of a vent. The vent tube was mostly plugged as you can see that when I have the cover removed the flame is not so crazy but with the cover on the flame goes nuts

Also  mushrooms must fit very tight, one of them fitted a little bit loose but since the photos I've widened it out and now fits tight

Yes a wet rag has always been the easiest/quickest way to put out these small fires. Quite a few years ago now, I was running a 4097/91/6 with a flat wick burner filled with denatured alcohol outside on a hot sunny day. I didn't know nearly half the baseplate was flooded with alcohol and on fire till I felt the heat coming off... couldn't see the flame in the sunlight

Nick, the flat wick burner has a design flaw. There should be a cup around the wick in case of a siphon effect.
On my Marklin that lacked its carb, I ended make a brass cup around a stainless mesh wick and it works flawless.

Mamod burners by design have a similar cup. So they don’t siphon.

What the burner belongs to