Has anyone brought a Blower

Hi all, I'll soon be steaming my engine. I'm after some information on where to buy a blower from. And what size I will need

Cheers Charlie

chas12154 wrote:Hi all, I'll soon be steaming my engine. I'm after some information on where to buy a blower from. And what size I will need

Cheers Charlie

You wont need a blower the 2" Burrell drafts really well, if your concerned just nip down to your local car exhaust supplier and grab a piece of discarded steel exhaust pipe about 50 cm long to pop in the top of the chimney, if you feel you simply must have a blower and the associated battery then look on the steam fittings website.

Thanks Ian for your reply. Will give it a go without one and see what happens. I only asked as I had seen other models with them and thought I would need one.

Charlie

I see many folks with blowers, from 2" 3" 4" and even 6"

Cant see any reason for one on 3" and above in honesty, although it does seem to make a lazy way of steaming a 2" will more than likely benifit from a blower, well maybe not benifit just take the skill of keeping the fire going in the early stages
Our small 5" gauge loco we use to own was definately easier to to fire with a blower but with plenty of small wood and the occasional use of a fire lighter in the smoke box and an extension chimney she would light up quite happily without any mechanical blower at all.

Be very warey of over use and bringing it to temperature to quick if you're using a mechanical blower, I've seen two small engines suffer now in my short time at rallys with folks over egging electric blowers and bringing engines into steam in less than 20mins

locos tend to need a blower as there chimneys are a lot shorter and don't self draft very well

Thanks for all your replies. I think I'm going to wait and see how the engine steams before buying a blower. I think an extension chimney will be the way to go.
The next question is, how long the extension chimney needs to be?

Maidstone engineering sell small blowers or you could make one yourself to save money.
Kev

chas12154 wrote:
The next question is, how long the extension chimney needs to be?

As long as you like really, I use about 5 feet on the 4" and on the little loco which I'd say is of similar scale to a 2" we had about 24" on it.

Thanks Livesteam for your reply. Will get something and try it, see how I go.


Charlie