Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Jensen steam powered toy

Anybody ever messed with one of these? Actually seen one work and know how to operate it?

This one has an actual firebox, not electric like some I saw while doing a little research.

Found this wile cleaning my grandpas basement up.

With stack attached.

That’s cool as all hell!!!! Bet it’s not hard to figger out!

I think it had a spanner wrench to open the end of the water tank, of course no telling where that is.

My main question is did it use a little fuel stick or what? It has a tiny metal trough that pulls out, looks like that's where you would lay your firewood.

Hell use twigs and such! Bet they would work!

I know you used to be able to get little fuel tabs for them, probably still can. Maybe some of that gel fuel in a can would work, or pieces of Zip fire starter?

I remember them as a kid. Pretty cool, but it needed accessories to actually do something with it.

Saw something similar to that when I was a youngin'

Light fuse and get away!

Dad has a small steam tractor. It is self propelled and had a 3 foot metal rod to stand over and steer the front wheel. He got it when he was a kid. He lost the firebox but welded up one about the time I was in high school. I think he burned alcohol in it.

I wonder how the gel fuel in one of those sterno food heater things would work.

Whatever makes heat and boils water should work fine.

A friend of mine bought one of those new in the box a few years ago, IIRC he used alcohol to fuel it but I can't remember much about except that it was really neat to watch it operate.
I don't think they would sell anything like that as a kids toy anymore, after all it would be just too dangerous,

drover

Esbit fuel tabs!

The pic brings back memories, had one as a kid, but not as fancy as that one..
We used Sterno in a can as I recall, scooped it out to fill the little hopper/fuel pan.
Light it it up and wait (with water in the tank of course).

I'd check the steam lines, piston, valve etc.to be sure they aren't plugged, oil where needed for lube.
Steam can create a lot of pressure so be sure everything is clear and moving parts are moving.

We had the real thing at work. Burned 800 to 900 ton of coal per day. 400 lb steam driving our main generator and we used the secondary steam to run the factory. Lots of cool stuff to learn out on the boilers. My job for a few years was helping to replace degenerated piping and economizor tubes.

ETA corrected tonnage. We burned about 3.5 rail cars per eight hour shift. About 80/90 ton each.

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Oil it up good with a thin oil such as 3in1, fill it up halfway with distilled water, and use Sterno for the fuel.

You used to see those in a Montgomery Ward, Western Auto and Sears catalogs many many years ago..

kwg

older brother had one of those before I was old enough to start school, maybe 65 years ago. Kicker is, our name is Jensen. No relation to the toy company

those are made near where i live. you got lucky finding that. they are cool little engines and not easy to come by. they are built in a very small, very manual facility. 2 or 3 people working there. long waiting list.