Building a Boiler for a 3 1/2" Gauge Locomotive

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Stilldrillin:
It`s nice when the head scratching stops, and the penny finally drops........ :scratch: :bang:

Well done Stew, for keeping it public. :clap:

Hope all goes more smoothly from now on........ :thumbup:

David D

NickG:
Stew, it's looking brilliant - fancy doing another 1? haha! That will pass with flying colours. Was going to say the loco's nearly ready now but you've got still got the tender to do!

Thanks for sharing this with us.

Cheers,

Nick

sbwhart:
Nick

If you're serious about making a boiler we're always on hand to help/advice, if you can get down for a day we can certainly get you started in the right direction.

But I wouldn't buy a kit I'd buy the material and form the plates myself it not dificulty at all and I've got the formers.

At the end of the thread I'll do a summary of the good and bad points of my experiences lessons learnt and what I would do different next time.

Stew

madjackghengis:
Hi Stew, I don't know about you, but it is always a relief for me when I find out I made a mistake, because then I not only get to start the piece again, but I also get to use the ideas I came up with in considering the problem, and ultimately end up with a better part than I would have, had I got it just right, but still had to deal with interferance and other issues. From the looks of your latest pictures, you've got a top notch boiler which is going to be a sturdy and strong one and will serve the engine it feeds, well for a long time. It's always possible to scab over a crack, and get by with a less than elegant fix, but such things always come back and haunt, so the re-make, always faster due to experience, and always more accurate, because you know all the tidbits of interference and issues of other sorts which matter, and can compensate as you go on the final round. I'm really looking forward to the finished boiler, post inspection, ready to put steam to the engine, and prove out its own value by performance. You've done a great job at showing all the details, and have made me forever forget the idea of faking a boiler for my steam engine, because making a real one is tedious, but not hard, just demanding care and close attention to detail. Great looking boiler there, thanks much for the lessons in steam engineering. :bugeye: mad jack

sbwhart:
Thanks Jack sorry if its bin a long time answering.

Got the last bit of soldering done this morning with John.

First up the foundation ring which is made from 1/4" square copper rod, just cut and file to fit, to stop the bits falling into the boiler when evering expands on heating we simply drilled 1/16 through the outside and into the ring and put some copper rivets into the holes, you don't hammer the rivets over just place them in so they act as pegs. Everything was given a short pickle and clean and a good fluxing and rods of solder placed over the joints with a double dose at the corners, and some flux on the solder, the fire box was filled with thermalite block to keep the heat on the foundation ring. I had a pic of this but deleted it by mistake :doh: . Then with two butane torches we applied the heat it took quite a while for it to get up to temperature then as the solder melted we added more solder to fill the joints, when it looked OK let everything cool a bit then a quench in water and a pickle, this is the results.

Next we did the two bushes on the side of the boiler for the feed clacks, sorry no pics.

And the last soldering job for the boiler was the boiler tube plate, similar procedure as before this is the set up before soldering, rings of solder arround the flue tubes and arround the outside of the plate.

Two torches again with more solder added as melting temerature was reached.

We had to reheat and resolder two of the flue tubes as the solder had failed to flow into the joint.

This is the final result.

Well hopfully that all the soldering done, I've got to make some blanking plugs and fit the longitudinal stays before I do a pressure test, that will be in a couple of weeks as I'm still waiting for a calibrated pressure gauge.

Fingers crossed for the pressure test.

Stew

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