Perhaps these are the "screens" you refer too?. I have thought
> of trying a temporary fireplate to my 10mm coal engines though.
> Regards,
> Tony D.
>
Tony,
The screens J.R is refering to are located in the smoke box, and right
in front of the tube sheet. It is a heavy coarse wire cloth, also
refered to as "front end netting" and sometimes has a hole size of about
1/2". I think the whole idea was to not obstruct the flow of gasses, but
those particles that hit the netting would loose some of their energy,
and loose their incandescence. The netting I have seen usually runs from
the top of the smoke box, down to a point about even with the exhaust
nozzle, and "stirs up" the mix, without putting too much of a
restriction in the flow of gasses. When cinders hit this netting, they
usually fall down to the bottom of the smoke box, where they can be
removed by opening a cinder clean out, or if they are still airborne, in
a front end of the Hall-Slater self cleaning style, will not be glowing
anymore, and hopefully less of a fire risk. Remember that J.R. said he
was talking about full sized practice. I think this is another area
where "you can't scale down mother nature!" In our No. 1 guage locos,
the coal we use is smaller than the cinders stopped by the smoke box
netting J.R. is refering to!
Keith Taylor
Keith Taylor
