Steamboat

In '49 or '50 I got this little boat as a Santa Claus present.
Pressed from sheet metal, probably made in Nuernberg, Germany where many toys were made. The little candle heated the few drops of water in the thin tube and the steam expelled the water pushing the boat forward in a somewhat irregular fashion, but faster than the toy boats with a battery and a Mabuchi electric motor I later bought for my kids.

I once suggested this type of propulsion to someone on this forum who wanted to build a boat with an almost zero budget, but he didn't take the bait.

Has anyone ever seen such a toy, small or large?

 

Potato cannons had some similarity.. 2" iron tube other end "blinded", a little water and a potato stucked in to the pipe. Thou a candle wasn't enough as a heat source

 

Ooh yeap, these were common back in those days, seems we belong to the same vintage....... . There was a study on pulsing steam jets done by some institution, I'll see if I can locate it! I remember they found that the steam generator should have a substantial thermal mass, but of course the efficiency was low.

The pulsation is in fact a similar resonance phenomenon as found in the pulsejets of the V1 rockets, operating in the Lenoir air standard cycle.

 

pop pop boats

Yes I do remember them CDK. They are called pop pop boats.

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&s...sqnACQ&usg=AFQjCNHVc3yks3IOW0rfP8WFTTDjvvZpDQ

 

Nice toys, but the most of energy is expelled as heat and is useless for propulsion. Maybe the efficiency could be improved a bit by intertwining the two tubes, to recover some heat from the steam.
Would the whole thing still work? Don't know...

 

When I was seven or eight my dad built one for me.

 

Clearly we're a bunch of old farts with good memories of over a half a century ago.

 

I got one for Christmas not that many years ago and thought, "That'll never

work." Sure enough, given enough time, the little thing started banging

like crazy (popping really) and off it went in the bathtub.

Agreed, not very efficient on a larger scale.

Great learning tool though.

-Tom

 

Was made by Schuco in Nürnberg from the late 40ies `til the late 50ies. Was really fast for its size. Hard to find today, much sought after collectors items (all early Schuco toys).

 

Bought one last year, found one in a little shop in the UK somewhere although it looks like it could be made in India, bought it because i hadnt seen one before. Works pretty well, I was suprised.

My immediate thought was to make a bigger version-but......

like most of these ideas I never seem to get around to doing alot of them- working on big boats takes up all my time, and the customers......all my mental energy!!!!!!

J

 

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&s...gunACQ&usg=AFQjCNGHt3FHt4Lw44WO_qNygBPvVPNGkA

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&s...jqXACQ&usg=AFQjCNFq_VLr4AG4wxs8sqsiEvmDko8DlQ

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&s...jqXACQ&usg=AFQjCNFjqumBGCMbZS4V3bUELdg1rnJUUQ

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&s...jqXACQ&usg=AFQjCNF9sbUr25CtGqAMt4HI8idXd-cWbw

http://www.eclecticspace.net/poppop/poppop_en.html

 

Try this ......


http://www.eclecticspace.net/index2.php?rub=poppop

Go to the english version , then select the link on the bottom right...." biggest pop pop engines in the world ".....

http://www.eclecticspace.net/doc/Big_pop-pop_engines_02_HQ.avi

 

yep...

What can I say ....

 

Old farts? I know what you mean. You are an old fart when the oldies radio station is playing music you never heard before.

 

You're an old fart when the oldies radio station is playing music you remember being a favorite when the grand kids were born.