Lancashire Boiler

The Lancashire Boiler is the steel tier: twin flues, 1200 L of water and steam together, 48 L/s of steam out, and a choke pressure of 12 atm, which is the pressure a Cornish Engine wants and a Cornish Boiler cannot reach. It is built as the smaller vessel is, in a box 3 wide, 3 high and 10 long, and in steel wherever that one takes iron. This page is the build and the first firing; the operating numbers are on Boilers.

#	Colour	Name	Matches
1		Lancashire Boiler (block)	ppex:boilerlancashire*
2		Pipe Passthrough (Straight)	ppex:pipe-passthrough-fire-*
3		Pipe Passthrough (Bend)	ppex:pipe-passthroughbend-fire-u*
4		Fireclay bricks	game:claybricks-good-fire
5		Empty (air)	game:air*
6		Empty (air, or a pile of coal)	@(air|coalpile)
7		Reserved space (kept clear)	exlib:structurefiller
8		Iron hatch door	game:cokeovendoor*
9		Pipe Outlet	ppex:pipe-outlet-fire-u

Every block is drawn in its default orientation: the layout carries no facing data, so the build order below names the facings.

Materials

Block	Cells
Lancashire Boiler (block)	1
Pipe Passthrough (Straight)	2
Pipe Passthrough (Bend)	1
Fireclay bricks	39
Iron hatch door	1
Pipe Outlet	1

The site

Clear a box 3 wide, 3 high and 10 long: 2 cells at the near end for the firebox and its door, 6 for the vessel, and 2 at the far end for the exhaust and the back wall. It is the Cornish Boiler's footprint with two more cells of vessel in the middle, and the firebox, the door, the passthroughs and the outlet are laid out exactly the same way. The floor of the firebox is one level below the boiler block.

A snow layer over any cell reads as a block, not as air, and holds the structure incomplete.

Orientation

Stand where the firebox is to be and place the block in front of you: the vessel rises away from you, the two cells you are standing in become the firebox, and the hatch door closes the end. There is no rotate. Hold ctrl and shift and right-click the block to outline the missing cells and list them in chat by name and count.

Build order

1. Lay the water line first, under the firebox floor: a fireclay Pipe Passthrough (Bend) turned up directly under the boiler block, straight fireclay passthroughs running out under the coal slot and the door, and the pipe carried on from there.

2. Wall the firebox in fireclay bricks with the hatch door in the middle of the end wall, and leave the cell between the door and the boiler free for the coal pile.

3. Set the exhaust: a fireclay Pipe Outlet facing up at the far end in the vessel's upper row, with the cell directly below it left as air, and a chimney on top of it or a pipe to a smoke stack.

4. Brick the plinth under the vessel and the back wall.

5. Raise the vessel, right-clicking the boiler block with each stage's materials in your hotbar. This is the steel tier: the plates and rods are steel only, and no iron will do.

   stage	materials
   base extension	10 steel plates, 8 nails and strips, 12 fireclay bricks
   flues	8 steel plates, 4 steel rods, 8 nails and strips
   casing	16 steel plates, 8 nails and strips, 6 steel rods, 48 fireclay bricks

   The fireclay bricks here are the item, not the wall blocks of the firebox.

6. Take the steam off the top, from the connector cell four along from the boiler block in the upper row; the pipe goes in the cell directly above it.

The reserved cells around the vessel are claimed by the construction itself, not placed by you.

The three sides

Feedwater enters underneath through the bend passthrough. The boiler draws up to 10 L/s of its own accord and stops at 600 L, half its capacity, leaving the rest for steam.

Steam leaves the top connector only. With no pipe in the cell above it the neck is open and the vessel bleeds steam to the air.

Exhaust leaves the far end at 16 L/s and must have a chimney or a stack route.

First firing

1. Hold right-click on the lid, one cell along the top from the boiler block, to open it.
2. Pour in water one container at a time. Nothing happens below 200 L, and the vessel will take 800 L by hand.
3. Close the lid, lay a coal pile in the firebox slot, light it.
4. First steam comes about three minutes later.

A Lancashire earns its steel on the steam line, not in the vessel. It chokes at 12 atm, which is above the 10 atm rating of steel pipe and well above the 5 atm of iron, so plumb it in steel and keep a consumer or a Piping (Pressure Valve) on the line. A Lancashire left boiling into a sealed run bursts its own pipes first and then itself.

When it goes wrong

Incomplete with everything built. Show the outline. The cell under the exhaust outlet has to be air, snow is not air, and a passthrough can be turned the wrong way.

It heats and never boils. Water below 200 L, or exhaust with nowhere to go. A choked boiler says so and snuffs its own coal pile after 10 seconds.

The steam line reads far less than the boiler. They equalise rather than the boiler emptying into the run, and 1200 L of vessel against a long pipe run takes time. An open end anywhere on the run bleeds 8 L/s and stops it for good.

It exploded. See Boilers. At 12 atm the blast reaches 4 blocks and takes the pipes and ports with it.