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

I know the feeling of I built it myself snd adding I tidied the design too .  I’m very new to this fascinating hobby too . There are not many steamers near me just the hot rod racer guys. There is so much to learn about . I did purchase a paperback book that covers a lot of early steam developement that was informative but I think mormodern approach is the basic automotive things regarding engines is important to understand. Valve timing and how ignition timing affects cylinder pressure thus ultimate torque then calculated horse power . For model steamers in Rc boats I’d guess you need to decide what you want. An African queen river boat chugged or a smoking battle ship under full power. Maybe a harbor tug.  Each will need their own features I just ordered two turbines and maybe a third the issue with these is they spin really fast so are going to need precision gear boxes just as the battle ships. The big problem is the tiny shaft size. Of course metric then between any common frill size so couplers will need to be custom made they rotate so fast that the slightest imbalance will be disastrous. I haven’t seen many steamer in real life except at farm shows  but seeing a great big steam tractor with 50+feet of flat belt between centers running a complete saw mill was pretty impressive . So I think maybe scalping up an existing engine might be the way to go. This book I got covers many different valve designs so I think valuable in the knowledge part is good it readily available on Amazon   Just remember how thing s so from Rc model building some things don’t scale well physical size works but function , not always I just saw a new jet bot trial. It drives props and provides thrust .but it’s in a class I can’t even afford to take pictures of .

So you have some decisions to make.

Byron