Box 278, Faribault, Minnesota 55021
As soon as the smoke rises above the buildings, a group of old
timers gather around. When I blow the whistle, the crowd doubles.
When I threshed some bundles on my street I had no problem with
help. The old timers from the ‘Good Old Days’ were on hand
to tend the separator, pitch bundles and bale the straw. ‘I ran
Advance’.-‘Steam is the smoothest power’. You could
detect a trace of mist in their eyes as they spoke of the Good Old
Days.
But these iron men do not speak entirely from sentiment. Steam
is a wonderful, wonderful power. Let us compare steam with the
modern gas engine. An automobile engine is a four cycle engine. For
each power stroke the piston must travel the entire distance of the
cylinder four times. The outboard boat motor is a two cycle engine
and the piston travels the entire distance of the cylinder twice
for each power stroke. In this respect we may say that the steam
engine is a one cycle engine since there is a power pulse for each
direction of the piston, both forward and back. Small wonder that
steam engineers loved them.
On a gas engine, a fixed amount of fuel is admitted to the
cylinder and the valve is closed. No more fuel can be added. As the
piston moves forward, pushed by the pressure of the burning fuel,
the pressures on the piston gradually diminishes. But the valve of
a steam engine can be set so as to supply a constant pressure
throughout its stroke. This applies to each and every stroke in
either direction. There’s no doubt heat is the destroyer of
valves, rings, and pistons in engines. A steam engine, operating at
150 PSI, develops a temperature of about 365°, while gas engines
temperatures are much higher. In gas engines, carbon and other
deposits can create a variety of problems. But steam, the energy
that is fed to the cylinder and valves, is pure. All the impurities
in the feed water settle to the bottom of the boiler where they may
be blown out. Only pure steam can reach the cylinder and valves of
a steam engine. Lubrication of the piston and valves in a steam
engine is thorough. I wonder if those parts ever wear out. My Case
50 is 60 years old. I entered the Rice County Fair Tractor Pulling
Contest and the load that stopped all entries did not even slow us
down.
The governors of a steam engine maintain a steady and constant
RPM; steam is not wasted since pressure is automatically reduced
when the load is reduced. As a further saving on water and fuel,
the intake valve of a steam engine may be set to close off steam to
the cylinder after a very short movement of the piston when the
load is light. The expansive power of the remaining steam completes
the work. The intake valve of the steam engine may be set so as to
eliminate a great deal of the shock from the pillow bearings and
crank pin. This is done by admitting steam to the piston a moment
before the piston completes its full stroke. The shock of the
reciprocating parts will then be cushioned by steam. This prolongs
the life of the pillow bearings and should reduce the rocking of
the engine to a minimum. When an automobile climbs a mountain it
runs out of breath and loses power. Not so the steam engine! It
delivers the same brake HP at 30,000 feet as at sea level. AND
MORE!. Our traction engines, being noncondensing, have less back
pressure due to the diminished resistance to the exhaust. Have I
missed anything?
They say that love is blind. If there are any objections to a
steam engine, I do not see them. The pleasure I have had with mine
cannot be told. If bundles were available I would give my time and
the use of my machines for an entire season without financial
remuneration. However, one of the by-products I expect to receive
would be some of the cooking as supplied in the ‘Good Old
Days’. The hungriest men on earth are threshers. The best cooks
on earth are threshermen’s wives. And the best music is the
throbbing of a steam engine. TOOT! Coffee time! Fred, Smokey and I
will be talking about plans for threshing those 80 acres of oats
next Summer.
