Old Propane Bottle for steam bending?

[Bob Perkins]

Hi Everyone,

Tomorrow is toxic waste day and I've been storing an expired gas grill bottle to drop off.

Then I had an idea - If I were to do some steam bending (next boat) I may be able to use it to hold the water for steam.

Anyone done this? The only drawback I can think of is - is that after removing the valves from the top of the bottle and adding some new plumbing - the resulting hole is too small to let out a large volume of steam.

Just a though...

Any opinions?

[JimM]

Bob
If you don't have some way to regulate steam pressure in the propane tank you have a boiler (boom!) instead of a steam generator.

[ 10-17-2003, 01:47 PM: Message edited by: JimM ]

[Capt'n Pea]

Whoaa....

I'm with Jim, be carefull you could be making yourself a really nice bomb... :eek:

For safty sake never heat water in a closed system, I'd have to look up the steam tables but, you'll generate a lot of pressure really fast.

[Capt'n Pea]

Whoaa....

I'm with Jim, be carefull you could be making yourself a really nice bomb... :eek:

For safty sake never heat water in a closed system, I'd have to look up the steam tables but, you'll generate a lot of pressure really fast.

[Dan Lindberg]

Bob,

I don't know about your part of the country, but here there are many places where you can exchange the enpty tanks for full tanks and there are still a few that will accept the old tanks and give you a tank with the new valve.

And once you get the new, filled tank, then get one of those "turkey" burners, about 60 K btu's, makes great steam. smile.gif (I just have a 5 gal can with a hole in the top to boil the water in.)

Dan

[Bob Quick]

I thought about writting a response telling you what to do but decided that the liablity people would frown on it. ( I have done it myself several times.) Just remember that working on the old bottles is risky and inherently unsafe.
Two things to remember is that ALL old bottles have some residual propane left in them and that the original design was intended to have max working pressures of 250 PSI on a NEW bottle.

[Bob Perkins]

Hey Everyone,

The intent was never to make a pressure cooker! I stopped making stuff blow up when I was a kid.

I was just thinking of it as a boiling vessel - that's all.. At WB School, an old fashoned gas can was used on a turkey cooker.

I was just wondering if anyone made the conversion out of an old LP tank?

But I do love how ya can stirr up responses on this forum. smile.gif

Thanks

[JimD]

Sounds reasonable to me but never heard of anyone doing it before so I wonder if there's an impractical drawback. If you can rig it so you can run a hose out of it into the steam box why not? Bbq tanks aren't wide, flat bottomed, so you might loose some heat off to the sides. Like you suggest, its the steam box that needs to be full of holes to let the pressure out, not the water container.

[formerlyknownasprince]

I've been thinking of doing the same thing.

Sometime within the next 6 weeks, I'll need to have it working.

Ian

[Kim Ward]

Yes Bob, I've just done it! Works great. Not wanting to create a pressure vessel I removed the valve and threw it far far away. Filled it with water twice to remove any propane and then drilled and filed a 3/8 X1 1/4 inch hole low down to accept a 240 volt water heater element. With the rubber gasket sealing it I wrapped 2 long hose clamps on the exposed element and sucked it down. Hooked up the wires, wrapped a bike inner tube around the element to keep the contacts from being exposed. Out the top comes a T affair made up of iron fittings screwed into the treads at the top of the tank. One side of the t is connected to 3/4 inch by 12 foot auto heater hose which goes into my 8 x96 inch sewer pipe remnant as a steam box. The other side of the t goes int a garden tap valve. Hook up the hose to to fill and then leave a a small trickle going to continually replenish the water lost as steam. This even when the trickle is going is not a pressure system. It takes 45 minutes to boil from cold and produces large amounts of steam. Problems? This is very illegal, exposed electricity to wet, the hoses are hot, balancing water in to steam out is guesswork and the odorant used to make propane smell permeates the metal and your clothes and the steam and the wood for a while. This I hope will go away with time.

[Kim Ward]

Yes Bob, I've just done it! Works great. Not wanting to create a pressure vessel I removed the valve and threw it far far away. Filled it with water twice to remove any propane and then drilled and filed a 3/8 X1 1/4 inch hole low down to accept a 240 volt water heater element. With the rubber gasket sealing it I wrapped 2 long hose clamps on the exposed element and sucked it down. Hooked up the wires, wrapped a bike inner tube around the element to keep the contacts from being exposed. Out the top comes a T affair made up of iron fittings screwed into the threads at the top of the tank. One side of the t is connected to 3/4 inch by 12 foot auto heater hose which goes into my 8 x96 inch sewer pipe remnant as a steam box. The other side of the t goes into a garden tap valve. Hook up the hose to to fill and then leave a a small trickle going to continually replenish the water lost as steam. This even when the trickle is going is not a pressure system. It takes 45 minutes to boil from cold and produces large amounts of steam. Problems? This is very illegal, exposed electricity to wet, the hoses are hot, balancing water in to steam out is guesswork and the odorant used to make propane smell permeates the metal and your clothes and the steam and the wood for a while. This I hope will go away with time.
Don Dannenberg in his restoration book has plans for a similar but more complex steamer. More work and needs unscavengable parts. The cost for this was 40$ mostly the element. Hope this helps. Kim

[Kim Ward]

oops double posted. The second one is more complete. Ki9m

[Tom Wilkinson]

Maybe I'm crazy but I use a 40.00 electric wallpaper steamer I bought at home depot. Will run for 2 hours on the supply in the tank though it would be easy to set it up to run longer. Seems to put out plenty of steam for me and is a lot simpler than these fuel powered contraptions.

[Ed Harrow]

Bob, I believe I have been involved in making steam using a 100 lb propane bottle. It was some time ago, and I'm not certain what it was in its prior life. Seemed to work just fine.

[Gerald]

I have seen a number of post about steaming wood. Personally I would only use steam under pressure. As you all know steam under pressure is hotter than steam from a tea kettle. If you add a tap to the top of a pressure cooker you will have a safe system and you will not be required to wait for ever for your bent wood to dry out. There are a number of places to buy pop off valves. Air compressors have them and they also sell pressure cooker pop off valves.
Careful on the illegal part though!!!! Welding on a fitting for that pop off valve is probably against the law in the USA. Then again so is tearing the tag off your mattress.
Gerald Niffenegger

[hacd]

the safety gods would have a fit but is is possible as long as you dont let it build any pressure.
if you take the valve off and leave the cylinder in side it may stink out the house as there can be a very stinky residue left inside the cylider.
i mean stinky.

[Paul Scheuer]

Kim: Sounds like an elegant set up. What is/was the heating element wattage ?

[Kim Ward]

Paul, its 3000 watts. A 120 volt would be more mobile as I have 240 only at the lake, but I wonder how long to boil if at all? There was no science used here, the 3000 watt was the only one at the local hardware! Kim

[nedL]

That is what I'm planning on using. I picked up an old tank last spring & "vapor freed it" by filling it with water & letting it sit. One word of caution as hacd stated, IT WILL STINK! :eek: I made the mistake of washing it out on a warm spring evening when the air was absolutly still. I was enen rolling the thing around the back yard as I was emptying it before I realized what was happening. It was the nastiest smell that I couldn't get rid of! (I wasn't popular with my family that night, or with the neighbors either I'm sure!) I kept wishing a friendly skunk would wander by to freshen the air (LOL) :rolleyes: .
Well, anyway, I have my boiling tank now. Just remember as has been pointed out make sure there is no chance of pressure building up.

[hacd]

im glad some one else stunk out the house and neighbor hood .
that stuff stinks so bad it cant possibly be good for you .

i dont know if its flammable ,doubt it ,but if diddling with the cylinder after you remove the valve be aware that with the right air gas mix you could get quite a bang.

i had to steam a small piece of wood a while back and used an old gallon solvent tin,and found a bit of pipe that i forced into the nozzle for a good fit .
found that when the water ran out the solder holding the tin together melted .

[NormMessinger]

Ah yes, the stink. It is so powerful that one smells it long before there is enough gas in the air to be dangerous. I understand the chemical in in a class called mercaptins to which also belongs skunk perfume and the odor one gets in ones urine after eating asparagas. The ability to smell in ones pee is genetic, not all can do so, but than why would anyone want to really.

Yaall did want to know this, right?

Anyway, I'm glad the discussion on the use of a propane tank for boiling water has turned rational. Enjoy.

[Bruce Hooke]

Originally posted by Gerald:
I have seen a number of post about steaming wood. Personally I would only use steam under pressure. As you all know steam under pressure is hotter than steam from a tea kettle. If you add a tap to the top of a pressure cooker you will have a safe system and you will not be required to wait for ever for your bent wood to dry out. There are a number of places to buy pop off valves. Air compressors have them and they also sell pressure cooker pop off valves.
Careful on the illegal part though!!!! Welding on a fitting for that pop off valve is probably against the law in the USA. Then again so is tearing the tag off your mattress.
Gerald NiffeneggerI seem to recall reading somewhere (probably WoodenBoat or Fine Woodworking) that steam under pressure does not significantly improve the time it takes to steam wood or the bendability of the steamed wood and may actually overheat the wood and make it more brittle. MORE IMPORTANTLY, steam under pressure is dangerous stuff! First off, there is the bomb potential. Second, a jet of high-pressure steam will slice of a finger before you even know what's happening. I believe that in the USA you need a special license to work on pressurized steam systems. So, IMOOP using pressurized steam is a REALLY BAD IDEA...

[Gerald]

Bruce ....... You have brought up some good points.
You probably have read correctly that super heated steam will negatively affect wood fibers. I believe steam pressure and temperature go up together. More pressure the hotter the steam. No one could disagree with the fact that steam is dangerous and even more dangerous under pressure.
In the past I steamed a lot of ash. My steamer set up was as follows:
4" PVC with end caps (not glued in place). A fitting for a 1/2" hose going into the PVC. A $5 pressure cooker from a garage sale. After setting the pressure valve where I wanted it I removed the gauge and replaced it with a valve for 1/2" hose. Ran a 1/2" hose to the PVC and fired up the pressure cooker.
As I recall the maximum pressure the cooker could maintain was 15 psi but I do not recall what temperature the steam was? If for some reason the relief valve did not function there was a pop off valve that opened at, I believe, 15 psi?
So ......... I am not suggesting high pressures or super heated steam. The pressure cooker worked well for me and I liked the fact that you didn't need to keep an eye on it while doing other things. When it ran out of water it told you. It also told you when it was hot enough to open the valve.
The up side is that if you don't like using the pressure cooker as a steamer you will be able to cook un soaked beans in 50 minutes.
Gerald