Thread: Commercially available steam generator box in Australia

2 minutes after posting this I found the answer......

Wallpaper remover from bunnings if anyone is interested!!

xxWHale

Read your post, followed the link, first thing that struck me was that it's based on a generic wall paper remover. Never needed one, so have very little understanding of what is available in Oz though, but yeh, based on a wall paper remover common in US.

You can hire these cheaply at places like Kennards.

I looked at this a fortnight ago.

Gave up!

After thinking about it a bit, I considered getting a massive pot from the junk shop and putting a burner underneath it.... like a Coleman camp stove, or even on the BBQ

Drill a hole, poke in a pipe....

The other thought was a commercial hot water urn, like used at conferences.

The wall paper steamer looks like a good one though. I wonder how much steam it cranks out..... Id be interested to hear if it works (I haven't bought my pot!!!)

edit - Its $30 cheaper on Amazon @ $86.34

e565b408-c1b4-4027-9f19-cd15c7ad36f4.jpg

I use two of them, they run for a bit over an hour.

Originally Posted by woodPixel

I looked at this a fortnight ago.

Gave up!

After thinking about it a bit, I considered getting a massive pot from the junk shop and putting a burner underneath it.... like a Coleman camp stove, or even on the BBQ

Drill a hole, poke in a pipe....

The other thought was a commercial hot water urn, like used at conferences.

The wall paper steamer looks like a good one though. I wonder how much steam it cranks out..... Id be interested to hear if it works (I haven't bought my pot!!!)

edit - Its $30 cheaper on Amazon @ $86.34

e565b408-c1b4-4027-9f19-cd15c7ad36f4.jpg

I have used a Wagner Wall Paper Stripper for steam bending for about 5 years. Works well and needs to be refilled about hourly; reheats quickly. Mine cost about $80 from Mitre 10; should have bought two!

Tried both a big pot and a conference urn. Neither successful as I could not seal the lids adequately. Steam escaped everywhere and only a little bit went down the steam tube.

A pressure cooker worked better; just attach a rubber tube to the steam pressure nipple. But you could not see when the steam was about to run out - worked, but annoying.

The Wall Paper Stripper steamer is far easier to use and I no longer use a steam box. The soft polythene bag technique is far easier. You continue steaming while you bend the wood, flexing the wood in both directions while you sneak up on the required curve, then clamp, then disconect the steam.

Steaming in a Bag.jpg

Clever!


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This is my home made steam generator that I use for metal bluing.
Powered by an old 2000W electric frypan into which I place a deepish SS sauce pan that can hold a couple of L of water.
The cap/lid is a tight fitting piece of 2mm Al and the stack/chimney is a length of galv downpipe.
Steampower.jpg
The reason mine is vertical is the I suspend deliberately fine rusted pieces of of steel (rod or tube).
The steam converts the red (oxide) rust black which is much more rust resistant than bare steel.

I bought a sauna steam generator for about $200 on Ebay a couple of years ago. The power demand was outrageous but a mate kindly disconnected two of the three elements to reduce the power demand to something which could be connected to a 15A circuit.

The cheapest unit is available on Ebay for $58.

mick

As a kid my father converted a public incinerator into a firebox and jammed a 6m length of 12" steel pipe into it. It was welded up on one end and we simply filled the bottom with a few liters of water and lagged the outside with (probably asbestos) blankets. Used it to steam ribs for restoring a shipwrecked 60' wooden trawler in the early 90's. The trawler was also in the park and the council wanted the boat gone.
Everything was built from scrap back then.

Later on we built a custom steam generator one that used a gas torch, some copper pipe twisted into a coil and a couple of tap fittings all inside a 100mm tinplate downpipe. That steam was transferred to the larger steel tube (lagged with non asbestos stuff by then) and I can remember days and days of steaming ribs and planks to install in old wooden boats.