James H. Stephenson

“ Let us consider our steam boiler. We saw that some different kinds of atoms have a strong tendency to rush together; for example, oxygen and carbon. The air is full of oxygen, and coal and wood are full of carbon. When they are raised to a certain temperature, and the molecules get loose enough so that they can tear themselves away from whatever they are attached to, they rush together with terrible force, which sets all surrounding molecules to vibrating faster than ever. This means that heat is given out. ”

“ When you come to the point where you are always able to keep out of trouble, you are probably ready to learn how you can make your engine do more work on less fuel than it does at present. In that direction the best of us have an infinite amount to learn. It is a fact that in an ordinary farm engine only about 4 per cent of the coal energy is actually saved and used for work; the rest is lost, partly in the boiler, more largely in the engine. ”

“ The work is the most masterly exposition of the scientific principles of Bookkeeping and their practical application which has ever appeared in the English language, and it should be in the hands of every school boy or girl, every clerk, farmer, teacher and business or professional man; for a knowledge of Bookkeeping, even though it may not be followed as a profession, is a necessity felt by every person in business life and a recognized prime factor of business success. ”

“ A traction engine is much like an ox; try to goad it on too fast and it will stop and turn around on you. It does its best work when moving slowly and steadily, and seldom is anything gained by rushing.
The first thing for an engineer to learn is to handle his throttle. When an engine is doing work the throttle should be wide open; but on the road, or in turning, backing, etc., the engineer’s hand must be on the throttle all the time and he must exercise a nice judgment as to just how much steam the engine will need to do a certain amount of work. ”

“ Consider what you want an engine for. If it is a stationary engine, consider the work to be done, the space it is to occupy, and what conveniences will save your time. Remember, TIME IS MONEY, and that means that SPACE IS ALSO MONEY. Choose the kind of engine that will be most convenient for the position in which you wish to place it and the purpose or purposes for which you wish to use it. If buying a traction engine, consider also the roads and an engine’s pulling qualities. ”

“ To all intents and purposes the operation of a gas or gasoline engine is the same as that of a steam engine with the care of the boiler eliminated. The care of the engine itself is practically the same, though the bearings are relatively larger in a gasoline or gas engine and do not require adjustment so often. Some manufacturers will tell you that a gas engine requires no attention at all. ”

“ It is something of a trick to handle a traction engine on the road. The novice is almost certain to run it into a ditch the first thing, or get stuck on a hill, or in a sand patch or a mudhole. Some attention must therefore be paid to handling a traction engine on the road.
In the first place, never pull the throttle open with a jerk, nor put down the reverse lever with a snap. Handle your engine deliberately and thoughtfully, knowing beforehand just what you wish to do and how you will do it. ”

“ Coal smoke is nothing more or less than unburned carbon. The more smoke you get, the less will be the heat from a given amount of fuel. Great clouds of black smoke from an engine all the time are a very bad sign in an engineer. They show that he does not know how to fire. He has not followed the directions already given, to have a thin, hot fire, with few ashes under his grate. Instead, he throws on great shovelsful of coal at a time, and has the coal up to the firebox door. His fuel is always making smoke, which soon clogs up the smoke flues and lessens the amount of steam he is getting. ”

“ Now if your pump and boiler are in good working condition, and you leave the globe valve in the supply pipe to the pump open, with the hose in the tank, you will probably come to your engine in the morning and find the boiler nearly full of water, and you will think some one has been tampering with the engine. The truth is, however, that as the steam condensed, a vacuum was formed, and the water flowed in on account of atmospheric pressure, just as it flows into a suction pump when the plunger rises and creates a vacuum in the pump. ”

“ Heat up a piece of iron in a hot furnace, and the molecules keep getting further and further apart, and the iron gets softer and softer, till it becomes a liquid. If we take some liquid like water and heat it, the molecules get farther and farther apart, till the water boils, as we say, or turns into steam. As steam the molecules have broken apart entirely, and are beating back and forth so rapidly that they have a tendency to push each other farther and farther apart. This pushing tendency is the cause of steam pressure. ”

“ If economy of fuel is very important and you are prepared to make the necessary effort to secure it, a return flue boiler will be a good investment, and a really good compound engine may be. Where a large plant is to be operated and a high power constant and steady energy is demanded, stick to steam, since the gasoline engines of the larger size have not proved so successful, and are certainly by no means so steady; and in such a case the exhaust steam can be used for heating and for various other purposes that will work the greatest economy. ”

“ The management of the fire is one of the most important things in running a steam engine. On it depend two things of the greatest consequence—success in getting up steam quickly and keeping it at a steady pressure under all conditions; and economy in the use of fuel. An engineer who understands firing in the most economical way will probably save his wages to his employer over the engineer who is indifferent or unscientific about it. Therefore the young engineer should give the subject great attention. ”

“ If we are asked where all the lost energy goes to, we might reply in a general sort of way, a good deal goes up the smokestack in smoke or unused fuel; some is radiated from the boiler in the form of heat and is lost without producing any effect on the steam within the boiler; some is lost in the cooling of the steam as it passes to the steam cylinder; some is lost in the cooling of the cylinder itself after each stroke; some is lost through the pressure on the back of the steam valve, causing a friction that requires a good deal of energy in the engine to overcome ”

“ Firing with wood is in many ways the exact reverse of firing with coal. The firebox should be filled full of wood at all times. The wood should be thrown in in every direction, in pieces of moderate size, and as it burns away, fresh pieces should be put in at the front so that they will get lighted and ready to burn before being pushed back near the boiler. It often helps a wood fire, too, to stir it with a poker. Wood makes much less ash than coal, and what little accumulates in the grate will not do much harm. ”

“ You should have a good pump, a good injector, a good heater, an extra steam gauge, an extra fusible plug ready to put in, a flue expander and a beader. You should also certainly have a good force pump and hose to clean the boiler, and the best oil and grease you can get. Never believe the man who tells you that something not quite the best is just as good. ”

“ With coal there is little danger of fires caused by sparks from the engine. What sparks there are are heavy and dead, and will even fall on a pile of straw without setting it on fire. On a very windy day, however, when you are running your engine very hard, especially if it is of the direct locomotive boiler type, you want to be careful even with coal.
With wood it is very different; and likewise with straw. Wood and straw sparks are always dangerous, and an engine should never be run for threshing with wood or straw without using a spark-arrester. ”

“ The force of the steam drives the air out of the stack, causing a vacuum, which is immediately filled by the hot gases from the firebox coming through the boiler tubes. Little is to be gained by using the blower with less than 15 pounds of steam, as the blower has so little strength below that, that it draws off about as much steam as is made and nothing is gained.
The blower is seldom needed when the engine is working, as the exhaust steam should be sufficient to keep the fire going briskly. If it is not, you should conclude that something is the matter. ”

“ If you have a new engine and it starts off nice and easy (the lone engine without load) with twenty pounds steam pressure in the boiler, you may make up your mind that you have a good engine to handle and one that will give but little trouble. But if it requires fifty or sixty pounds to start it, you want to keep your eyes open, for something is tight. But don’t begin taking the engine to pieces, for you might get more pieces than you know what to do with. Oil every bearing fully, and then start your engine and let it run for a while. ”

“ There is always something to be done about a steam engine.
So here is another point of great saving in a gasoline engine, namely, the saving of one man’s time. The man who runs the gasoline engine may give nearly all his time to other work, such as feeding a corn-sheller, a fodder chopper, or the like. ”

“ Aside from this, in some states, notably Ohio, the law compels any person operating an engine above ten horsepower to carry a steam engineer’s license. This does not apply to a gasoline engine.
Again, the gasoline engine is as portable as a traction engine, and can be applied to all the uses of a traction engine and to general farm use all the rest of the year. At little expense it can be fitted up to hoist hay, to pump water, to husk and shell corn, to saw wood, and even by recent inventions to plowing. It is as good about a farm as an extra man and a team of horses. ”

“ Shut off the boiler pressure and the steam in the cylinder will still have its own natural tendency to expand. As the space in the cylinder grows larger with the movement of the piston from end to end, the expansive power of the steam becomes less and less, of course. However, every little helps, and the push this lessened expansive force exerts on the piston is so much energy saved. If the full boiler pressure is kept on the piston the whole length of the stroke, and then the exhaust port is immediately opened, all this expansive energy of the steam is lost. ”

“ The only danger that may be encountered is in starting the engine, filling the supply tank when a burner near at hand is in flame, etc. Once a gasoline engine is started and is supplied with gasoline, it may be left entirely alone without care for hours at a time without danger and without adjustment.
With a steam engine there is always danger, unless a highly skilled man is watching the engine every moment. If the water gets a little low he is liable to have an explosion; if it gets a little too high he may knock out a cylinder head in his engine ”

“ The art of becoming a good feeder will not be learned in a day. The bundles should be tipped well up against the cylinder cap, and flat bundles turned on edge, so that cylinder will take them from the top. It is not hard to spread a bundle, and in fast threshing a bundle may be fed on each side, each bundle being kept pretty well to its own side, while the cylinder is kept full the entire width. A good feeder will keep the straw carrier evenly covered with straw, and will watch the stacker, tailings and grain elevator and know the moment anything goes wrong. ”

“ The only point wherein a farmer might find it advantageous to have a steam plant would be where he is running a dairy and wished steam and hot water for cleansing his creamery machinery. This can be largely overcome by using the water from the jackets which can be kept at a temperature of about 175 degrees, and if a higher temperature is needed he can heat it with the exhaust from the engine. The time will certainly come soon when no farmer will consider himself up to date until he has a gasoline engine. ”

“ A gasoline engine can be run on a pint of gasoline per hour for each horsepower, and as soon as the work is done there is no more consumption of fuel and the engine can be left without fear, except for draining off the water in the water jacket in cold weather. A steam engine for farm use would require at least four pounds of coal per horsepower per hour, and in the majority of cases it would be twice that, taking into consideration the amount of fuel necessary to start the fire and that left unburned after the farmer is through with his power. ”