The fuel seems to be the determining factor for succesfull Reynst pulsators and I haven't found anything that works. Methanol can be found in methylated spirits and de-icer but neither are in sufficient concentration.
I've not tried unleaded yet but believe it to be a little too difficult for a first go.
I am yet to find a scource of pure-ish methanol or ethanol in the uk yet.
Can anybody help?
Mike.
Jam jar substitute?
Moderator: Mike Everman
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Nick
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Fuel supply in UK
HI Mike,jmhdx wrote:The fuel seems to be the determining factor for succesfull Reynst pulsators and I haven't found anything that works. Methanol can be found in methylated spirits and de-icer but neither are in sufficient concentration.
I've not tried unleaded yet but believe it to be a little too difficult for a first go.
I am yet to find a scource of pure-ish methanol or ethanol in the uk yet.
Can anybody help?
Mike.
yes, just buy meths from the hardware store i buy so much of it they think im an alcoholic!.
Honestly it works fine, i have built several little reynst combustors including one which runs with water cooling for several minutes. Check out the videos on my site.
http://www.pulseweld.dsl.pipex.com/videos.htm
Cheers and good luck
Nick
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Mike Everman
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Re: Fuel supply in UK
Nick,Nick wrote:HI Mike,jmhdx wrote:The fuel seems to be the determining factor for succesfull Reynst pulsators and I haven't found anything that works. Methanol can be found in methylated spirits and de-icer but neither are in sufficient concentration.
I've not tried unleaded yet but believe it to be a little too difficult for a first go.
I am yet to find a scource of pure-ish methanol or ethanol in the uk yet.
Can anybody help?
Mike.
yes, just buy meths from the hardware store i buy so much of it they think im an alcoholic!.
Honestly it works fine, i have built several little reynst combustors including one which runs with water cooling for several minutes. Check out the videos on my site.
http://www.pulseweld.dsl.pipex.com/videos.htm
Cheers and good luck
Nick
Why would they think you an alcoholic buying methanol, if that were so, you would be a blind or dead alcoholic? Or are you buying ethanol denatured with methanol?
Mark
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Nick
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"Nick,
Why would they think you an alcoholic buying methanol?"
too deep man!, we are talking "hardware store" not chemical engineers.
:-)
But seriously folks, dont try this at home!.
The "meths" i am talking about as a fuel, is just that -"Mineralised Methylated Spirits, contains Ethanol and Methanol UN No. 1170 Ethanol Solution.
cheersthenbye
Nick
Why would they think you an alcoholic buying methanol?"
too deep man!, we are talking "hardware store" not chemical engineers.
:-)
But seriously folks, dont try this at home!.
The "meths" i am talking about as a fuel, is just that -"Mineralised Methylated Spirits, contains Ethanol and Methanol UN No. 1170 Ethanol Solution.
cheersthenbye
Nick
Nick,
You would probably be in heaven with pure methanol to toy with. It's sneaky and can really surprise you when the air is cool and dry, if and when that ever happens in England. I have a small pint sized snorkeler that really runs like a demon on methanol in the cool dry months in NW Florida. Here's an old picture of it, basically it's a jam jar with a pipe attached, but the first time it ran, I was so excited by the fury. It just uses fuel off the bottom and only runs for about 10 seconds before the fuel runs out. Any more fuel and it flames out from sloshing. It starts to hurt your ears or maybe I should say it does.
I found this site for all your nitro or pure very dry methanol needs in the US. Expensive but a quart of pure methanol might be fun to get in the mail if you are small timing it, most places charge a hazmat fee including the guy on ebay selling a quart for $9.00, I think he quoted me $20.00 for the shipping!
http://cgi.aol.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl ... 81719&rd=1
I can buy methanol that is iffy from a small redneck racecar store north of town. Sometimes, it's good and other times it's not as dry as I would like. I feel like I am in a different country when I go in there, it's so backward or a sub-culture. I even ponder about what to wear to the place to fit in! I just want some methanol and it takes forever to get waited on as the guys chew the fat.
http://highfuelsn.goemerchant7.com/inde ... 1113|81050
Mark
You would probably be in heaven with pure methanol to toy with. It's sneaky and can really surprise you when the air is cool and dry, if and when that ever happens in England. I have a small pint sized snorkeler that really runs like a demon on methanol in the cool dry months in NW Florida. Here's an old picture of it, basically it's a jam jar with a pipe attached, but the first time it ran, I was so excited by the fury. It just uses fuel off the bottom and only runs for about 10 seconds before the fuel runs out. Any more fuel and it flames out from sloshing. It starts to hurt your ears or maybe I should say it does.
I found this site for all your nitro or pure very dry methanol needs in the US. Expensive but a quart of pure methanol might be fun to get in the mail if you are small timing it, most places charge a hazmat fee including the guy on ebay selling a quart for $9.00, I think he quoted me $20.00 for the shipping!
http://cgi.aol.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl ... 81719&rd=1
I can buy methanol that is iffy from a small redneck racecar store north of town. Sometimes, it's good and other times it's not as dry as I would like. I feel like I am in a different country when I go in there, it's so backward or a sub-culture. I even ponder about what to wear to the place to fit in! I just want some methanol and it takes forever to get waited on as the guys chew the fat.
http://highfuelsn.goemerchant7.com/inde ... 1113|81050
Mark
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Nick
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the purple stuff
Hi Blapto,
yep thats the stuff, not as nasty as the gear mark is talking about but happy to run jam jars just fine.
Nick
(Hmmm, wonder if i can get me some of that nasty stuff though?? -add hysterical laughter here)
yep thats the stuff, not as nasty as the gear mark is talking about but happy to run jam jars just fine.
Nick
(Hmmm, wonder if i can get me some of that nasty stuff though?? -add hysterical laughter here)
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Graham C. Williams
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Gents,
Could just a simple tin can work for a jam jar? By tin can I mean the cans that things like soup or canned fruits and veggies come in. I measured this over the weekend and they are around 4.25 in. tall and have a 3 in. diameter. I was thinking of just buying like five and drilling all different sizes into the top to see which one works best.
I noticed that the "rule of thumb" is the hole should be between 25% and 20% of the diameter and the H/D should be between 2 and 3. This will give a hole size of around .75 in., but will the jar/can be too short?
The fabrication procedure will be to simply drill the hole, discard the contents, clean the can out, and test. I would like to run a jam jar without the risk of having pieces of glass embedded in my face.
Anyone notice any problems with this design?? This would be nice due to the "jam jar" being made from an already sealed container.
Thanks,
Dwenger
Could just a simple tin can work for a jam jar? By tin can I mean the cans that things like soup or canned fruits and veggies come in. I measured this over the weekend and they are around 4.25 in. tall and have a 3 in. diameter. I was thinking of just buying like five and drilling all different sizes into the top to see which one works best.
I noticed that the "rule of thumb" is the hole should be between 25% and 20% of the diameter and the H/D should be between 2 and 3. This will give a hole size of around .75 in., but will the jar/can be too short?
The fabrication procedure will be to simply drill the hole, discard the contents, clean the can out, and test. I would like to run a jam jar without the risk of having pieces of glass embedded in my face.
Anyone notice any problems with this design?? This would be nice due to the "jam jar" being made from an already sealed container.
Thanks,
Dwenger
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larry cottrill
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Dwenger -
I like that idea, with the exception that I don't know how you're ever going to tell when the can is really clean inside!
The "modern" soup cans have a 'pop top' and a rounded-edge bottom. I don't know what Mark would think of this, but I would suggest drilling your hole in the bottom of the can! That end will be stiffer, which should help, and the interior of the can top will be flatter, which should also be better as the bottom of your "jar".
To me, .75 inch sounds pretty big for that size container. I don't know ... Mark could give you a much better idea, I'm sure.
L Cottrill
I like that idea, with the exception that I don't know how you're ever going to tell when the can is really clean inside!
The "modern" soup cans have a 'pop top' and a rounded-edge bottom. I don't know what Mark would think of this, but I would suggest drilling your hole in the bottom of the can! That end will be stiffer, which should help, and the interior of the can top will be flatter, which should also be better as the bottom of your "jar".
To me, .75 inch sounds pretty big for that size container. I don't know ... Mark could give you a much better idea, I'm sure.
L Cottrill
I find soup cans have resin coatings that must be burned off or else they will smoke and kill the effect and then the seams leak air as you watch the resin boil and hiss out the seams. Some cans just have a seam at the top and are seamless at the bottom, like some salmon cans. But I haven't had much luck with cans, perhaps because the top and bottom flex and dampen the feedback. Maybe with a snorkel you could overcome this effect or get around the frailty. Then in about a week the can has burned up, oxidized in the air to a horrid mass of scaling rust particles. I have a squat propane canister that I drilled out and ran last night, it too is a horrid diseased vessel that if it were a plant, would be said to have the blight.
An it isn't very motivating to have something so deteriorated. I thought once to try some high temperature spray paint, but then I would have to get the insides clean and painted too. In this way you might be able to protect the iron, I don't know.
Keep your holes under 20% the diameter to see how it behaves, you can always increase the size latter if it is too small, my hazmat jar with the 3/4 inch hole is less than 1/5 the diameter. Winter and summer affect the ratio, if you had some inserts to adjust hole sizes, that would be neat, or some sort of iris.
Perhaps you could afix a washer on the top of a small stainless steel thermos bottle in the neck and use some of that bonding high temperature metalic "glue" Al has mentioned for mufflers or furnaces. Thermos bottles are usually 18/8 stainless steel. The glue is called Thermo Steel or something and good for 2000 degrees F or a bit higher I think. If you left the vacuum outer jacket on your thermos you could use that to circulate water through your "jar" to cool it. You could drill a hole near the top and near the bottom and have an in and an out flow as the water jacket wicks away heat, as Reynst did the same thing on his design.
On my giant 2.5 gallon snorkeler, I can pour 2 liters in the tank and it just boils on the bottom of the tank and amazingly feeds combustion for about 5 minutes. Maybe you could fuel up the vacuum chamber of a thermos and feed/direct the steamy fuel vapors to the combustion chamber, the fuel cooling the vessel. The gas tank/ coolant method might be very exciting and your thermos could overheat and spew hot fuel and fire which would relegate this as an outdoor experiment. I would start out with small amounts at first and see how she does.
I remember Nick made a nice jam jar video using water for cooling. Even gave it a title at the start of the show.
Mark
An it isn't very motivating to have something so deteriorated. I thought once to try some high temperature spray paint, but then I would have to get the insides clean and painted too. In this way you might be able to protect the iron, I don't know.
Keep your holes under 20% the diameter to see how it behaves, you can always increase the size latter if it is too small, my hazmat jar with the 3/4 inch hole is less than 1/5 the diameter. Winter and summer affect the ratio, if you had some inserts to adjust hole sizes, that would be neat, or some sort of iris.
Perhaps you could afix a washer on the top of a small stainless steel thermos bottle in the neck and use some of that bonding high temperature metalic "glue" Al has mentioned for mufflers or furnaces. Thermos bottles are usually 18/8 stainless steel. The glue is called Thermo Steel or something and good for 2000 degrees F or a bit higher I think. If you left the vacuum outer jacket on your thermos you could use that to circulate water through your "jar" to cool it. You could drill a hole near the top and near the bottom and have an in and an out flow as the water jacket wicks away heat, as Reynst did the same thing on his design.
On my giant 2.5 gallon snorkeler, I can pour 2 liters in the tank and it just boils on the bottom of the tank and amazingly feeds combustion for about 5 minutes. Maybe you could fuel up the vacuum chamber of a thermos and feed/direct the steamy fuel vapors to the combustion chamber, the fuel cooling the vessel. The gas tank/ coolant method might be very exciting and your thermos could overheat and spew hot fuel and fire which would relegate this as an outdoor experiment. I would start out with small amounts at first and see how she does.
I remember Nick made a nice jam jar video using water for cooling. Even gave it a title at the start of the show.
Mark