gas petrol diesel paraffin

[Heckler]

yeah we all did that

when we were kids.
glow plugs equalled methanol based fuel, compression ignition equalled paraffin + ether + castor oil. i used to make my own compression ignition fuel so i know all about that. keil kraft used to be quite expensive in comparison, they wouldnt run on each others.
s

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[jimi]

we did ..

sodium chlorate and sugar stuffed into a pipe, ends hammered over and placed in pile of the 'mix' ...lit ... big bang!

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[Heckler]

just got in from the pub jimi?

so did we, only prob as we found out was that if you pinched some in the end of the pipe it went bang when you hammered it, my mate lost the end of his thumb, didnt play with that any more, although before that happened we did the bit of mixing with water and soaking string in it to make fuse when we ran out of jetex fuse, wasnt drying out quick enough so we warmed it, big mistake!!! lost our eyebrows, also welded 2 * 1.5 inch nuts together, cut off half inch threaded bolt, gently screwed together with potion in middle, kaaaaaaaaabooooooom, only did that once !!!
discretion better part of valour, is that how all us tech minded people evolved?
s

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[BrendanS]

Re: just got in from the pub jimi?

It's the Darwin factor, only the cautious or lucky experimenters live!

Used to make nitroglycerine with ingredients from A level chemistry classes - carefully controlled by strings and pulleys from inside an old WWII 'pill box' on the sea cliffs near where we lived.

We'd graduated from Molotov cocktails thrown over the same sea cliffs, to early crossbows made from flexible curtain track, 2x2 and dowel 'triggers' to full blown steel strung affairs made with car leaf springs, seasoned oak, and machined trigger assemblies.

The later was confiscated one summer holiday after my father caught me firing steel headed bolts into trees to a full six inches in front of an admiring crowd of teenagers

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[stubate]

Re: Multifuel Engines etc..

have found that wd40 uses a flammable propellant that is not as "agressive" as easy start and does the same thing, just squirt it into the intake as you are cranking, same caveats apply as es do not use heaters!
s

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[Mirelle]

Amazingly nasty stuff

finds its way into marine heavy fuels! There are those (P&O Nedlloyd come to mind) who say that if you run on 600 seconds fuel you actually get better stuff than the usual 320, because it is more or less straight off the bottom of the column, and nobody's "got at it" and tipped in used motor oil, etc!



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[richardandtracy]

Very nice of you, but...

Water does exist in chip fryers at temps of 375F. It takes time for the hot oil to boil off the water otherwise your chips'd be crispy right through the instant you chuck them in.

375F is hot enough to dry the oil. My cooker's only good enough to get to 275-325F, causing rancid, emulsion like oil after cooking.

I do the cooking of chips, not Tracy, and the resulting cleaning. SWMBO reckons real chips are too much faff - and uses oven chips. When we got married, she didn't even realise you could make chips from potatoes yourself..

I agree the sticky oil sluge you get is partly oxidised, but I reckon you'll find that it's significantly more cross linked than ordinary oil causing a sticky gum with a very high RMM. The oxidation process will reduce the RMM and reduce the gumming.

Yes, I am hugely pedantic, irritating and annoying to know. Don't say I didn't warn you!

Regards,

Richard

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[stubate]

i mean theres thick and there\'s

stupid but to say that water exists in oil at 375 deg f at atmospheric pressure is bordering on the insane!!
you devalue your inputs by not knowing when to stop digging
s

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[vyv_cox]

Surely it\'s a matter of time and temperature?

Potato is presumably a mixture of starchy stuff and water. If I dip a chip into fat at 375 degF, does all the water evaporate instantly? I don't think so. Chips emerging from hot fat after their regulation 15 minutes or so must have some water in them, or they would be powder.

A Glasgow delicacy is deep-fried ice cream in batter. No idea how long they cook it, but I bet it's got water in it.

We've gone a long way from diesel fuel, haven't we? ;~)



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[stubate]

pedantic wahed tel a tins one last time

water and hot oil dont mix, it explodes, the water in the chip slowly heats up, you know, starch as insulation slowing the heat transfer up and thats why it boils off as is evidenced by the rolling boil you see in the pan.
i tell you what, i will set up a web cam in my work shop, well get all the wahed tela tins to put their faces near to the 375 deg oil and we will rig up an auto jug (cause i aint going any where near) to pour water into the oil. we will place neck collars around the waheds so they cant flinch or move their faces and then all the forum can go to the web page to see if water can exist in 375 deg oil!!
should be fun if they have the guts to prove what they are saying is true.
s




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[PeteMcK]

Doxfords

I vaguely rememeber that the NE England firm of Doxfords developed a prototype of their giant low speed marine engines to run on coal dust (or slurry?) in response to the 1970s oil crises. Unfortunately, Thatcher's sky-high pound killed them around 1980.
The very earliest diesel engines were intended to run on coal dust injected with a compressed air blast.

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[Mirelle]

Ahh, the one with the rubber crankshaft...

Doxfords....Doxfords.....wonderful machines. Loved by shipowners because, being a vertically opposed piston design, that is to say with two pistons moving in opposite directions in the same cylinder, so that in effect two cylinders were placed one above another, they were very short, as three cylinders were really six, so the engine room was short, and did not take up much cargo space! Also because they were, for their day, amazingly fuel efficient.

Loved by maritime lawyers because of the "Doxford Docking", a regular source of employment, brought about by the fact that the Doxford has perfect primary and secondary balancing, so, being a direct coupled two stroke, it was horriby easy to start it ahead when you meant to go astern, or vice versa, leading, very often, to demolition of quay wall and employment for lawyers.

Loved by marine engineers, despite certain weaknesses in the crankshaft department, because it allowed them to sing (with gestures) the Doxford Song.

Alas, the company fell upon hard times when That Woman came to power and destroyed the British shipping industry, and the company was snapped up and closed down by Burmeister and Wain, Denmark, who had correctly spotted that Doxfords, if they could only get enough funding to develop their next engine, would be their most dangerous competitor, due to the excellent fuel efficiency of their design.

The crankshaft issues arose because both pistons were coupled to a single crankshaft, which therefore had to get along with no less than six webs per cylinder, because the upper piston had two conrods, one each side of the cylinder.

Sic transit gloria mundi....

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[Mirelle]

And I might add.....

That if you have not seen half a dozen Oriental ladies of negotiable virtue, well schooled after an evening's practice, performing the actions to the Doxford Song, whilst the words are belted out by surrounding plumbers, there are some who would say you have'nt lived!

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[vyv_cox]

Moving the goalposts

Anyone who has done a decent firefighting course has seen this demonstration, so it doesn't need repeating. But that wasn't the discussion.

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[stubate]

yawn yawn

pedantic, nit picking, dont know when to stop, etc etc
the web cam is waiting
s


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[BarryH]

Going back to the bio fuels thing. I've made my own fuel out of veggy oil. Its not neat veggie oil, but a mix of veg oil, straight derv and a splash of white spirit. You can actually do it legally for road vehicles if you inform the VAT people and you pay the duty. It still works out a lot cheaper than filling stations prices, because the main ingrediant, the veg oil, is free. Well it is from my local chippy!

Its got to be filtered and filtred and filtered again. Theres a web site set up by one of those welsh chappies that gives a lot of info on it. I used an old volkswagen/volvo engine to test it one. I was playing about with it with the idea that it was going to be installed in the boat. It actually ran smoother and cleaner than on red diesel. The smell was somewhat odd though.

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[PeteMcK]

Sad to relate

unlike my former boss, who knew more about these things than he would admit, I haven't lived.

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[Mirelle]

In the immortal words...

of one such Plumber-in-Chief...

uttered in a bar in Manila, circa 1985....

Containerisation.....

....sip of San Miguel....

and the end of the Vietnam war....

.....sip of San Miguel.....

have B******D the East!



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[adarcy]

Re: Flat heads !!

err don't think so Jim.

Until the latest generation of automotive based diesels there was a clear distinction between direct injection diesels and indirect injections. The former could have a Heron head where the fuel is injected and most/all of the combustion chamber is in the piston head. However all the IDI's I've seen of heard of had a precombustion chamber in the head where the injection and initial ignition took place - certainly not a flat head.

DI's (until the new CDI type) relied on compression to ignite alone from cold and didn't have a glow plug and are limited to about 2800-3200 RPM. IDI's have a glow plud and can/could rev to about 4500.

I feel pretty sure that theold BMC diesels were bastardised petrol engines which would require an IDI head.

Anthony

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[tr7v8]

Re: Flat heads !!

I think thats what I said or meant to!
Don't think the 2.2 lump is based on a petrol but could be wrong, it's certainly very heavily built if it was. Certainly they are Heron head or damn close. And from memory are direct injection with heater plugs. Most of the high revving diesels in cars today seem to have petrol type chambers eg. pent roof. And use similar technologies in the way of management etc.


<hr width=100% size=1>Jim

Draco 2500