[modeleng] Re: Corn

> Corn might work exceptionally well if a person stoker fed it into the
> firebox.  Charles

A feller could make a "stoker" like a very early design I saw.  It consisted
of a sort of hopper with a ram in the bottom that you sat right against the
fire door.  Coal was shoveled into the hopper  and the ram then was stroked
to deliver a measured amount to the firebox each cycle. I guess the fireman
worked like the devil to get the hopper filled and then he could tend to his
water etc while the stoker fed a steady stream of coal.  I don't remember
how it distributed the coal to the corners of the grate, but it may have had
steam jets like the later auger stokers used to blow the coal wherever it
was needed.  Something like that would work with corn, but again, you would
need to feed quite a bit of it.  As Bill Bowser pointed out, the heating
value of corn is probably the same as wood, but its uniformity in size would
make firing with a stoker a cinch.

Jesse in Tennessee, but not the part where Charles lives.


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