I have been overwhelmed with requests for photos of the various steam
cylinder drains that I have on my locomotives. What I intend to do is to
take better photos than I have and post them on the "Notes From Unit Shop"
portion of Jim Pitts website southernsteamtrains.com. I will also do a
write-up about making them on your desktop lathe. This way the information
will be there for anyone to check out. but please have patience as I am in
the third to last week of putting the PCLS Summer Steamup on, and I have
much yet to do.
A good source for isobutane is: Athena International, Inc.
1100 Mark Circle
PO Box 398
Gardnerville, NV 89410
(800) 272-8603
www.athenainternational.com
They sell it 12 to a case and will ship any where in the continental US.
This is the isobutane that you see at most large steamups. I just received
15 cases for the PCLS Summer Steamup.
Gaz is a 20% propane and 80% butane gas mixture that gives, on average,
a 10% higher vapor pressure per unit of temperature than does neat butane.
If you are interested in a complete discussion of liquid gas fuels for use
in small scale live steam locomotives please look for an article that I
wrote for Steam in the Garden about three years ago entitled "What is the
best fuel for gas fired locomotives". Call Ron Brown at SitG for back
issues. By the way, butane is not isobutane, and isobutane is not Gaz, and
Gaz is not Primus: they are all somewhat and very different fuels with
differing characteristics. It's all covered in the article.
Best regards,
Kevin
