Gallery, Projects and General > How do I??

Boilers - just picked up an old one.

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sbwhart:

--- Quote from: Darren on August 01, 2009, 03:03:53 PM ---Chris,

To expand, my concerns would be, quality of the original boiler and what it's made from. Quality of the solder joints, might have been fine when new, but what of now.

And lastly, general corrosion. You don't know what's been eaten away inside?



--- End quote ---

Chris just to expand a bit on Darrens link and without getting too technical Brass does strange things with age, it goes brittle, particularly in the presence of certain chemicals and stresses.

Stew

John Hill:
I would not get too paranoid about boilers but they are something that must, repeat must, be respected.  There are recognised ways of testing and asessing the safety of boilers and a local steam model club may be qualified to do this.

NickG:
I'm not sure about the rules on "Toy" (and I use the term loosely as they are far from toys) boilers of that size e.g. Mamods etc. I don't think they require testing, but in any case, I agree with everybody here - unfortunately, that is one for the scrap bin as you don't know any details about it.

You'd be better off researching the subject of boiler making and making one from scratch. I'm sure there is a book on model boiler making if you're interested I will try to find out. I think I may have seen that down at the club as well but don't hold me to it.

It's not an easy art to master, you'll probably end up making scrap and spending quite a bit on equipment if you don't already have it but I bet it's satisfying once you get there.

Rich (Firebird) has done a couple of interesting boiler projects on HMEM, with a steep learning curve. Have a look at those to give yourself an idea what's involved.

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=2092.0
http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=4779.msg62263#msg62263

Nick

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