Cheap Chinese Temu Steam Boat

[Blue HeelerParticipant @blueheeler]

Cheap Chinese Temu Steam Boat

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD1ylwiLR2A

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

“Proof of Concept” … Just about !

MichaelG.

[Blue HeelerParticipant @blueheeler]

Close Michael, I reckon about a half lit (soggy) cigar for this one 🙂
I’ll have another muck around with it on the weekend when my Grandson comes over.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Should have got a pop pop boat.

Might be worth extending your exhaust down and then rearwards just under water so the steam has something (water) to push against

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

Should have got a pop pop boat.

Might be worth extending your exhaust down and then rearwards just under water so the steam has something (water) to push against

I’ve been thinking about some ideas Jason, but that one didn’t register in the old brain bank, makes perfect sense.
Thank you.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Before that it might also be worth trying it with the candle closer to the wood support, it will then heat the glass and the shallower water is more likely to flash to steam which is what it was doing towards the end of the video with those short spurts.

[Bo’sunParticipant @bosun58570]

Some form of keel might be a useful addition.  Probably only suitable for indoor use.  Any slight breeze is going to play havoc with steerage, let alone any effect on the candle flame.  I hope your Grandson is inspired.  Do let us know how you get on with Jason’s suggestion.

[JohnFParticipant @johnf59703]

Memories !

We used to make a similar type of “boat” from a tin as the boat [whatever baccy tin was available] and used bent wire to support another tin with a conical end [say a brasso tin] with a small hole in the lid and charged with a a little water, powered by meths in an open tin lid.  They worked well sailed them in a water trough and “raced them” too !!!!

Lots of fun !

John

[JohnF]

On JohnF Said:

Memories !

We used to make a similar type of “boat” from a tin as the boat [whatever baccy tin was available] and used bent wire to support another tin with a conical end [say a brasso tin] with a small hole in the lid and charged with a a little water, powered by meths in an open tin lid.  They worked well sailed them in a water trough and “raced them” too !!!!

Lots of fun !

John

Yes John, clearly great fun.  But I suspect, far too risky for youngsters today, and life jackets would have to be mandatory!  Heaven help us for furthering their “all round education”.  But having said that, I’m sure there’ll be an app’ out there somewhere for it?

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

Might be worth extending your exhaust down and then rearwards just under water so the steam has something (water) to push against

Caution, the condensing steam will pull cold water into the glass jar and shatter it.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I’ve just submitted something very like this, but it disappeared

Do I really want to watch someone opening an envelope? Gave up after a very short time. There used to be a chap came to ME exhibitions selling toc toc boats for charity. They worked really well

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

why would you put a child anywhere near a naked flame under a glass bottle????

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

This is effectively a steam rocket. As Mr Newton showed, a rocket eflux doesn’t need anything to push against. If it did they wouldn’t work too well in outer space.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I was only thinking along the lines of the old pop pop boats which seem to work far better with just a candle as the steam comes out below water level.

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Forum member Windy’s mate’s steam rocket drag-race motorcycle works on much the same principle and goes rather fast. Windy posted some videos of it on here some time back.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Toc toc work on some strange pulsation effect, a pulse of steam ejects from the back, but a slug water is sucked back into the hot container over the flame, where it vapourises and is ejected, starting the whole process again. Some kind of resonance effect. The outlet has to be under water so a slug can be sucked back in. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some of the slug was spat out again by the vapourising steam, and obviously water is heavier than steam, so potentially more thrust. But then sucking it in would give negative thrust, so quite clearly a topic for a research student using computer fluid dynamics

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

The reason that the toc toc boats work better isn’t the steam that’s being ejected, it’s the water. It has far more momentum when ejected than the steam 🙂

Used to make them for fun and (sometimes) give them to friends, in my early teens.

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

I was only thinking along the lines of the old pop pop boats which seem to work far better with just a candle as the steam comes out below water level.

 

Never had a toy pop pop boat (but will buy one).

This is my Putt Putt boat (clinker built) with a Blaxland Chapman inboard motor out the front of my home on our private mooring poles that I did up in the ’80s (now long gone) these were really common inboard motor timber boats when I was a boy, but when aluminium boats became common these were quickly abandoned because of the amount of maintenace. But they were just great to fish out of and had a lot more ‘soul’ than boats I’ve had moored out the front since that.

 

 

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I’ve always quite fancied making a model of one of the single cylinder boat engines like that plus an old outboard, maybe one day they will get to the top of the list

[Blue HeelerParticipant @blueheeler]

Jason These clinker built boats (carvel built was fairly rare in my neck of the woods) weren’t built as ‘forever boats’ they were hard working boats that came with a holiday house or could be rented out at the boatshed in tourist season. They were built in a very small lakeside boat shed that was near me (long gone and now just foreshore). Its virtually impossible to stop a wooden boat from eventually developing rot somewhere. When the rot or damage was too bad they’d build another and transfer the engine over (mine was a single cylinder, some larger boats had twin cylinders)  Clinker boats needed to be kept in the water to remain water tight. It was a big job for someone to bail them out throughout a high rainfall night (maybe get out of bed multiple times to do it) so that the engines didn’t go under water. Lots of folks tried fibreglassing the outside of boats which made them heavy and not as elegant motoring, but it backfired on them because it amplified rot.
As soon as aluminium boats came on the scene (first ones weren’t welded they were riveted) these beautiful old boat were left to rot on the banks and foreshores.

[Blue HeelerParticipant @blueheeler]

To the extreme!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9tMjCwP-yI

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