Shear pin for a Combustioneer Mk IV

I have just installed a Combustioneer Mk IV (built in Orrville, OH late '80's) and I keep shearing the shear pin.

I am currently using an 1/8" brazing rod for the pins.

Does anyone know what the material specifications for this pin is?

Material: Steel or Brass or something else
Strength: 30 KSI, 57 KSI or ???

I don't want to experiment with diffrerent pins and break the transmittion.

Thank You in advance for your help.

HardWood wrote:I have just installed a Combustioneer Mk IV (built in Orrville, OH late '80's) and I keep shearing the shear pin.

I am currently using an 1/8" brazing rod for the pins.

Does anyone know what the material specifications for this pin is?

Material: Steel or Brass or something else
Strength: 30 KSI, 57 KSI or ???

I don't want to experiment with diffrerent pins and break the transmittion.

Thank You in advance for your help.

Call Michael at Pease Feed and Coal. http://www.peasefeedandcoal.com He knows a lot about those stokers.

I'd asked you what stove your burning bituminous in on another thread. Guess this answers my question.

Can you post pictures of your stove? Outside and inside shots? I'm very interested in how it's put together.

Chris

Sure, I'll take some shots tonight and post them tomorrow

HardWood wrote:Sure, I'll take some shots tonight and post them tomorrow

Sweet! Thanks. There was a Combustioneer that was listed on Ebay a month or two ago, but the pictures were poor and there were no detailed shots of the mechanism.

I find stokers fascinating from a mechanical standpoint, and any way to combine coal burning with machinery just really "lights my fire", so to speak.

I'd have been a real happy man to be a plant engineer back in the early part of the last century and have a nice bank of Babcock & Wilcox boilers with chain grate stokers to run.

Chris

Y ou should like this then

http://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/Museum/Engineering/Bigwood/Bigwood1.htm

VERY nice! Thanks for link!

Chris

HardWood wrote:Sure, I'll take some shots tonight and post them tomorrow

Any luck getting some good pics? I'm really interested in seeing your 'toy'.

thanks!

Chris

Nay,
Took some last night, but they were horrible. Borrowed a digital camera, don't know how to use one. Will try again tonight.

Hi Harry, I have an Iron Fireman stoker unit, basicly the same as your combutioneer unit. My shear pin is either 1/4 or 3/8" It would take a heck of a jamb up to shear it. Is the hole the shear pin goes through only 1/8" diameter?? get the largest pin you can to go in the hole.

Cheap bolts [soft steel] or even brass bolts from a boat shop will work.

I had a terrible time getting mine to burn bituminous, I gave up and am burning anthracite rice coal, works great.

What was happening to my fire was the coal likes to stick together, as it burns, so the ash stays stuck together and rises up out of the firepot, the base of the hunk of ash is the fire. It would get top-heavy and fall over, taking the fire with it. GRRR!!!

With the anthracite coal, it just burns in independant little kernels and falls off the edge of the firepot.

Get some photos as soon as you can, I really want to see what your stove looks like.

The photos below show the stoker on it's wheeled cradle outside the boiler building. The other photo is of bitumonous coal with all the ash rising out of the fire pot as the new coal is pushed in from below.

Greg

Greg, how clean did the bituminous burn in the stoker? Lots of smoke?

Chris

Hi Chris, not too much smoke, but the swelling and clumping together of ash made the fire unreliable. The amount of ash from the bituminous was a problem too. I just couldn't trust a bituminous fire.

The anthracite is burning great, reliable, hot, and consistant. I actually need a bigger size 'retort' or firepot to get more heat, I've come to the conclusion that I'm using about 180-200,000 btu to heat my boiler.

The Iron Fireman retort or firepot has three rows of combustion air holes facing inward toward the center of the pot. aimed at the main part of the fire. But there is a single row of air holes around the outside of the retort as well, there appears to have been a 'shelf' or ring around the outside of the retort to catch and hold more coal and finish the burning with the additional combustion air.

I'm going to cut a steel ring and mount it on the outside of the retort and see if I can get some addtional burn and BTUs from the coal.. I'm getting complete burn when on the lowest feed rate of ~10# per hour, with a timer cycling 10 minutes on 10 off. If I run the feed continously I get lots of burning coal dropping off the edge of the pot into the ash pan. With lots of black unburnt coal.

I'm pretty happy with the stoker-in-a-hand-feed experiment so far, I hope to fine tune it over the next few weeks.

The photo is of anthracite rice coal. You can see the row of additional combustion air vents. I'll get a burner shelf made and mounted below the row of holes soon, I hope.

Greg L.

.

I've seen an arrangement like that in old stoker advertisements or in other old reference materials. Many of the bituminous stokers had a rotating, toothed ring around the retort to grind up and dispose of the ashes, as well as give extra fire space.

Here are some patent #'s for you to peruse:

1,598,579
1,871,653
1,921,864
1,928,167
2,033,919
2,119,937
2,171,862
2,253,694
2,359,638
2,396,888
2,405,982
2,455,817
4,449,462

If you don't know already, go to http://www.uspto.gov. You'll need to install AlternaTIFF to be able to view the images, but it's easy. You can't search the old patents except by patent #, but once you find a good one, they will cite references to earlier patents. GOLDMINE of info.

Have fun,

Chris