Thanks for the info Bro. I'll be interested in hearing how the methane forge goes. I would think it would work for heating as well as, or nearly so, as propane. We used propane for most of our hot iron work, but because it was quick to get going and shut down for smaller projects. IF we had a bigger one, we called my uncle to do it on his forge. That man was very good with metals. He welded a broken head off a cast iron hydraulic ram on. Took him almost two weeks I guess, and he slept by the forge between jobs. Saved the county big bugs, it was in the 30's. Don't know if you've worked cast iron, but he knew the heating tricks. If I could be 10th as good as he was.. ah well.
And for the train water. I helped demolish a water purification plant on the Great Northern (no BNSF) back in summer of 66. The had to treat all the water for the steam engines. It was an interesting job. I recall 'collecting' some interesting maps and papers from the office. The place hadn't been used in over ten years when we went into tear it down, board by board. HARDWOOD T&G walls and floors, with TWO tanks that held 30000 gallons each easy made from T&G redwood. The RR spared no expense when the plant was built back sometime before WW1. But like I said, water is the key element to steam operations. Good water, which is hard to find. I do know enough chemistry to know the minerals can be percolated off with addition of other chemicals, but dang if I can remember what those other chemicals are.
Head scratching,
later,
Grae
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