Picked up a Van Wert Stoker

 
User avatar
StokerDon
Site Moderator
Posts: 7486
Joined: Mon. Nov. 11, 2013 11:17 am
Location: PA, Southern York County!
Stoker Coal Boiler: Gentleman Janitor GJ-5, Van Wert VA-600, Axeman Anderson130 X3.
Hand Fed Coal Furnace: Harman SF3500 reduced down to 3 grates connected to its own plenum
Coal Size/Type: Rice, Chestnut and whatever will fit through the door on the Harman
Other Heating: Noth'in but COAL! Well, Maybe a little tiny bit of wood

Post by StokerDon » Sat. Aug. 05, 2017 7:25 pm

I was up in Wiconisco today and picked up some stoker parts.
IMG_1560.JPG
.JPG | 89.7KB | IMG_1560.JPG
IMG_1562.JPG
.JPG | 100.5KB | IMG_1562.JPG
A VA-800 pot with air chamber. The rings look good, the ash ring has one small crack.
IMG_1570.JPG
.JPG | 93.1KB | IMG_1570.JPG
IMG_1571.JPG
.JPG | 101KB | IMG_1571.JPG
IMG_1569.JPG
.JPG | 106.7KB | IMG_1569.JPG
And an EFM S-20 stoker. It turned out that all the S-20 parts are there. This will still be a "parts stoker" though, some parts are broken and some are just plain wore out.
IMG_1564.JPG
.JPG | 109.7KB | IMG_1564.JPG
IMG_1566.JPG
.JPG | 93.2KB | IMG_1566.JPG
IMG_1567.JPG
.JPG | 106.8KB | IMG_1567.JPG
IMG_1568.JPG
.JPG | 119KB | IMG_1568.JPG
Serial# 91750. According to, stoker-man @ Dating S-15, S-20, S-22, S-30, S-35, S-45 Stokers It's either a 1968 or a 1981 stoker.
IMG_1565.JPG
.JPG | 134.9KB | IMG_1565.JPG
On the way home I stopped by to see Scrapper. I'll post what he's work'in on in:
A Trip to Scrapper's Shop of Misfit Stokers

-Don

 
User avatar
StokerDon
Site Moderator
Posts: 7486
Joined: Mon. Nov. 11, 2013 11:17 am
Location: PA, Southern York County!
Stoker Coal Boiler: Gentleman Janitor GJ-5, Van Wert VA-600, Axeman Anderson130 X3.
Hand Fed Coal Furnace: Harman SF3500 reduced down to 3 grates connected to its own plenum
Coal Size/Type: Rice, Chestnut and whatever will fit through the door on the Harman
Other Heating: Noth'in but COAL! Well, Maybe a little tiny bit of wood

Post by StokerDon » Sun. Aug. 13, 2017 9:59 am

Yesterday I hooked up the VA-800 pot to my test rig. I used the mounting plate, blower, gear box, ect... from my other VA-800.

I wire wheeled the burn rings to get the accumulated rust off of them and put a new gasket in the ash ring.
IMG_1580.JPG
.JPG | 117.6KB | IMG_1580.JPG
The rings are not broken or burned up, but a couple are a little warped.
IMG_1581.JPG
.JPG | 122.7KB | IMG_1581.JPG
I didn't have time to deal with the bin auger. Instead, I turned the transfer head 90 degrees so that the bin auger connection was facing strait up. I connected my make-shift hopper to the transfer head with a big hose clamp. The hopper is 8" stove pipe with reducers down to 4".
IMG_1587.JPG
.JPG | 126.4KB | IMG_1587.JPG
I split down some small pieces of wood and fired it up!
IMG_1588.JPG
.JPG | 121.3KB | IMG_1588.JPG
IMG_1595.JPG
.JPG | 138.5KB | IMG_1595.JPG
IMG_1597.JPG
.JPG | 100KB | IMG_1597.JPG
IMG_1598.JPG
.JPG | 119.7KB | IMG_1598.JPG
IMG_1599.JPG
.JPG | 176.3KB | IMG_1599.JPG
This thing puts out an impressive amount of heat!
Looks like the feed rate is a bit high, it was pushing some lit coal over the side.
IMG_1601.JPG
.JPG | 132.6KB | IMG_1601.JPG
Other than the feed rate being a bit high, the test was a success!

-Don

 
Pacowy
Member
Posts: 3555
Joined: Tue. Sep. 04, 2007 10:14 pm
Location: Dalton, MA
Stoker Coal Boiler: H.B. Smith 350 Mills boiler/EFM 85R stoker
Coal Size/Type: Buckwheat/anthracite

Post by Pacowy » Sun. Aug. 13, 2017 10:17 am

It looks like you're burning rice in that? I think VW's were designed for buck, so issue may not be high feed rate but restricted airflow through rice.

Mike

 
User avatar
StokerDon
Site Moderator
Posts: 7486
Joined: Mon. Nov. 11, 2013 11:17 am
Location: PA, Southern York County!
Stoker Coal Boiler: Gentleman Janitor GJ-5, Van Wert VA-600, Axeman Anderson130 X3.
Hand Fed Coal Furnace: Harman SF3500 reduced down to 3 grates connected to its own plenum
Coal Size/Type: Rice, Chestnut and whatever will fit through the door on the Harman
Other Heating: Noth'in but COAL! Well, Maybe a little tiny bit of wood

Post by StokerDon » Sun. Aug. 13, 2017 11:32 am

Pacowy wrote:It looks like you're burning rice in that? I think VW's were designed for buck, so issue may not be high feed rate but restricted airflow through rice.

Mike
Your right Mike, it is Rice coal. Rice is pretty much all there is down here for stokers, Buck would have to come from 30+ miles away. My coal supplier won't stock Buck and the nearest suppliers that do are $30 to $50 a ton more, plus delivery fee. I have been running Rice in my VA-400 stokers for a year and a half now with no problems. You do need a bit more air to push through the Rice though.

In this test we are running the VA-800 drive components except for the motor pulley. The pulley size is reduced from 4.0" to 3.5". That lowers the feed rate, probably not enough for Rice though.

My original purpose for this test was not only to exercise my new VA-800 pot, I was going to try running Pea coal through it. I don't have any Pea coal here so I ran over to the local feed mill that sells Kimmel's to get a bag. Turns out they no longer stock Pea, only Stove, Nut and Rice.

-Don


 
Pacowy
Member
Posts: 3555
Joined: Tue. Sep. 04, 2007 10:14 pm
Location: Dalton, MA
Stoker Coal Boiler: H.B. Smith 350 Mills boiler/EFM 85R stoker
Coal Size/Type: Buckwheat/anthracite

Post by Pacowy » Sun. Aug. 13, 2017 12:54 pm

Yes buck is sometimes harder to source than rice (but may be less $). When we burned buck the best source for bags was about 75 miles away, and for bulk we could have gotten it from about 125 miles away, but normally just bought from the mines (about 250 miles away). We went to the effort to get buck because we had found the performance of rice in a bigger stoker to be unsatisfactory. Your VA-800 is a serious unit, and I don't want for you to think there is something wrong with yours, or for anyone reading this to assume they need to be able to improvise swapping out pulleys, etc. to get one to work properly. To get the full output without unnecessary complications, it's best to use the mfgr spec for fuel.

Mike

 
User avatar
StokerDon
Site Moderator
Posts: 7486
Joined: Mon. Nov. 11, 2013 11:17 am
Location: PA, Southern York County!
Stoker Coal Boiler: Gentleman Janitor GJ-5, Van Wert VA-600, Axeman Anderson130 X3.
Hand Fed Coal Furnace: Harman SF3500 reduced down to 3 grates connected to its own plenum
Coal Size/Type: Rice, Chestnut and whatever will fit through the door on the Harman
Other Heating: Noth'in but COAL! Well, Maybe a little tiny bit of wood

Post by StokerDon » Sun. Aug. 13, 2017 7:19 pm

Pacowy wrote:Your VA-800 is a serious unit, and I don't want for you to think there is something wrong with yours, or for anyone reading this to assume they need to be able to improvise swapping out pulleys, etc. to get one to work properly. To get the full output without unnecessary complications, it's best to use the mfgr spec for fuel.
Mike,
You are right, there is nothing wrong with the VA-800 or 600 or 400 but they are designed to run fuel that is not readily available to most people. The manual was written a long, long time ago and says you should source good quality, white ash, medium Buckwheat coal.

These days most of us buy coal that comes from processing plants, not directly from a mine. This coal seems to be mostly hard, red ash coal that doesn't burn as fast as the medium, white ash coal. There are a few threads on this form that deal with reducing the feed rate on Van Werts. I suspect that the problem stems from hard coal that takes longer to burn than medium coal.

My point is, if you had an EFM or a Gentleman Janitor that was pushing lit coal over the side, you would lower the feed rate a little and turn the air up a little. You wouldn't just go out and buy more expensive and more difficult to get coal. The Van Wert is no different, it's just a little trickier to adjust the feed rate, but it can be done.

-Don

 
Pacowy
Member
Posts: 3555
Joined: Tue. Sep. 04, 2007 10:14 pm
Location: Dalton, MA
Stoker Coal Boiler: H.B. Smith 350 Mills boiler/EFM 85R stoker
Coal Size/Type: Buckwheat/anthracite

Post by Pacowy » Sun. Aug. 13, 2017 8:24 pm

And my point is that I did have a situation where a bigger EFM stoker (S-30) gagged on rice coal and had to be held back to the point that the boiler no longer could bring the steam system to a positive pressure. Your "solution" of cutting back the feed rate might produce a more orderly fire, but it comes at the expense of effectively derating the system.

It's not really a surprise that the deeper underfed pots tend to have trouble getting enough air through thicker beds of rice. If you need a big output and really are stuck with rice, perhaps you should consider a Keystoker or other similar unit that achieves greater output primarily by increasing the area of (rather than depth of coal on) the burn surface.

I've been through plenty of rice and buck (and a little pea) from various sources and I have no doubt that coals are still produced that will let the bigger underfed stokers perform to their capabilities. Especially for a system with a load big enough to warrant use of one of the bigger underfed stokers, I'd put the effort into getting the right fuel rather than into modifications to sacrifice performance.

Mike

 
Pacowy
Member
Posts: 3555
Joined: Tue. Sep. 04, 2007 10:14 pm
Location: Dalton, MA
Stoker Coal Boiler: H.B. Smith 350 Mills boiler/EFM 85R stoker
Coal Size/Type: Buckwheat/anthracite

Post by Pacowy » Sun. Aug. 13, 2017 9:13 pm

StokerDon wrote: The manual was written a long, long time ago and says you should source good quality, white ash, medium Buckwheat coal.
Not sure what manual you are referring to. The first lines in the Van Wert operating instructions I have are as follows:

OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS

VAN WERT ANTHRATHERM
ALL MODELS
USE BUCKWHEAT SIZE PENNSYLVANIA STANDARD ANTHRACITE HARD COAL

[caps and bold in original]

The issue is not whether the coal is hard; it is that you are using rice instead of buck.

Mike


 
User avatar
StokerDon
Site Moderator
Posts: 7486
Joined: Mon. Nov. 11, 2013 11:17 am
Location: PA, Southern York County!
Stoker Coal Boiler: Gentleman Janitor GJ-5, Van Wert VA-600, Axeman Anderson130 X3.
Hand Fed Coal Furnace: Harman SF3500 reduced down to 3 grates connected to its own plenum
Coal Size/Type: Rice, Chestnut and whatever will fit through the door on the Harman
Other Heating: Noth'in but COAL! Well, Maybe a little tiny bit of wood

Post by StokerDon » Mon. Aug. 14, 2017 7:22 pm

Pacowy wrote:Not sure what manual you are referring to. The first lines in the Van Wert operating instructions I have are as follows:

OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS

VAN WERT ANTHRATHERM
ALL MODELS
USE BUCKWHEAT SIZE PENNSYLVANIA STANDARD ANTHRACITE HARD COAL

[caps and bold in original]
Mike,
Sorry to hear you were having problems with the big stoker. Hard verses Medium anthracite will cause a need to adjust air and feed rate. I believe that to be the case with the Van Wert.

By the way, the next line after your quote from the Van Wert install manual states "best performance will be attained with Medium free-burning buckwheat size coal".
VanWertInstallManual.PDF
.PDF | 3.7MB | VanWertInstallManual.PDF
"Hard coal" in your quote refers to Anthracite verses Bituminous. The next line refers to the type of Anthracite, "Medium, free burning" and then the size. I intemperate that as a need for a relatively fast burning coal.

I agree that we may not get the full rated net BTU boiler output on hard rice coal. Sizing a boiler with a little extra capacity for the load would take care of that.

I also agree that if you can get the coal that the manual recommends, you will get the best performance. All is not lost though, if the recommended coal costs a lot more and or causes undue hardship to acquire.

-Don

 
Pacowy
Member
Posts: 3555
Joined: Tue. Sep. 04, 2007 10:14 pm
Location: Dalton, MA
Stoker Coal Boiler: H.B. Smith 350 Mills boiler/EFM 85R stoker
Coal Size/Type: Buckwheat/anthracite

Post by Pacowy » Tue. Aug. 15, 2017 1:13 am

I had the problems with the big stoker because I started out with an easy local supply of rice and a lack of appreciation of the importance to some machines of the size difference between rice and buck. I learned, and am trying to pass it on.

I think your doc shows my quote was accurate, and that your quote was not "the next line after" my quote, but came at the bottom of the following page. And even using quotation marks, you overlooked the fact that the manual had BUCKWHEAT all in caps. Not to mention that I'm confused by your assertion that anthracite = hard, since you were the one arguing that changes in the characteristics of anthracite had made it take longer to burn (which I would understand to mean "hard-burning").

Leaving all of that aside, I don't think I have any issue with your quote. If you read more of the manual, the concern with red-ash coals appears to be with clinkering, cracks in the fire, etc. From 2004-2016 I burned around 250 tons of rice, buck and a little pea, from sources including Lehigh, Gale, Jeddo, Blaschak, Reading and others, and very little of it had so much iron as to be problematic, so I'm pretty sure suitable coals are still out there. At the same time I have to disagree with your suggestion that feeding even more rice to an even bigger boiler is a realistic solution. The bigger the underfed stoker, the deeper the pot and the worse the breathing problem with rice. So I'll repeat, if you're really stuck with rice and you need big output, get a Keystoker, etc. And if you already have or want to get the benefits of a big underfed stoker, listen to Rafiki and "look harder" for buck. That's the definition of "hard" that is most relevant here.

Mike

 
User avatar
StokerDon
Site Moderator
Posts: 7486
Joined: Mon. Nov. 11, 2013 11:17 am
Location: PA, Southern York County!
Stoker Coal Boiler: Gentleman Janitor GJ-5, Van Wert VA-600, Axeman Anderson130 X3.
Hand Fed Coal Furnace: Harman SF3500 reduced down to 3 grates connected to its own plenum
Coal Size/Type: Rice, Chestnut and whatever will fit through the door on the Harman
Other Heating: Noth'in but COAL! Well, Maybe a little tiny bit of wood

Post by StokerDon » Wed. Aug. 16, 2017 7:42 pm

Mike,

Time will tell. I guess that means I need to find a boiler to stick this thing in.

-Don

 
Pauly2696
New Member
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun. Jan. 28, 2018 7:08 am

Post by Pauly2696 » Sun. Jan. 28, 2018 8:00 am

I have one posted in the classified section

 
lincolnmania
Member
Posts: 2684
Joined: Fri. Jan. 26, 2007 9:55 pm
Location: Birdsboro PA.
Stoker Coal Boiler: EFM 350
Hot Air Coal Stoker Furnace: reading allegheny stoker
Hot Air Coal Stoker Stove: alaska kodiak stoker 1986. 1987 triburner, 1987 crane diamond
Coal Size/Type: rice

Post by lincolnmania » Sun. Jan. 28, 2018 6:54 pm

i sent you a pm pauly and don.

Post Reply

Return to “Stoker Coal Boilers Using Anthracite (Hydronic & Steam)”