Silver soldering boiler

Made the boiler end support plates. I decided to make them from stainless steel perhaps could have been a little thinner material, 1.2mm, but I managed them in the end although I had to put a groove down the fold line to get a nice bend.

Rotary mill end top radius.

Bore hole for boiler.

Bent ready to try.

These are finnished now.

David

Made a bit of progress on boiler and made a small drain cock for condensate in chimney, made chimney and started mounting boiler and engin.

David

Edited By David George 1 on 26/05/2020 23:01:24

Edited By David George 1 on 26/05/2020 23:02:18

That looks really good David.

Yes, agree with Pete, looks great.

The smoke stack puzzled me but having looked at the drawings on steves website I can see that it is for the engine exhaust.

Have you made a burner

Geoff

Hi Geoff. I have ordered the burner from Forest classics and the safety valve as I thought it would save time but it hasn't come yet.

David

I made a jig pattern to bend and hold the heat shield brass plate. I made it in wood so I can clamp the brass plate, when it gets here, and bend it round and drill and flange for brackets.

I drew the radius on the end and used a ball nosed cutter to shape the curve small step by small step then rip off small cusps with sand paper. The groove in the centre is to clear the centre bushes and the brass will be bent down to fit the boiler. It did make a bit of a mess which took about an hour to clean up.

David

Decided to pressure test the boiler. As I didn't have a pressure pump I had to make something and with a piece of 1 1/2 mild steel drilled and reamed a 1/2 bore and cut a 3mm o ring groove to make a seal for a dowell for a plunger. Then I drilled a cross hole 4mm though and tapped them 8mm about 10mm deep. I then made two non return valves from a piece of brass two 5mm balls and a couple of springs one suck and seal, one pressure and seal, just make sure the spring is on the right side. I Soldered a couple of pipes into the non return valves one with a connection to boiler and a suction pipe to pick up water.

David George 

When I conected the pump to the boiler which I had pre filled with water the pump worked great and found a couple of leaks one on the level plug which needed a new washer as the copper one I made didn't seal but a bit of PTFE fixed that for now and the seal on the fitting which holds the pressure gauge had a slight leak at pressure a bit of solid locktited thread seal fixed that.

The boiler was ok in itself and holds pressure up to 60 PSI that is as far as the gauge goes. I replaced the grub screw with the safety valve and tested it and it released at about 20 PSI I hope that is enough to run the little wobbler.

David

Edited By David George 1 on 02/06/2020 19:42:20

Edited By David George 1 on 02/06/2020 19:43:23

Edited By David George 1 on 03/06/2020 20:03:54

Edited By David George 1 on 03/06/2020 20:05:17

David did you spin the boiler end caps yourself? It all looks very neat & impressive!

Chris.

The boiler ends were spun on a piece of steel turned with the correct diamiter to just give a few thou clearance on the boiler tube with the radius on the corner. The end of the bar was tapped to hold a heavy washer of a smaller diamiter to clamp the copper flat on the end. I firstly anealed the plate and with the jig in a vice and using a hide mallet bent the side down but by bit and repeating the annealing quite a few times. When it was getting nearer I put it on the lathe and using a piece of steel with the end smoothed into a toolholder and pressed whilst rotating and with some grease to lubricate as well. The final part was to skim the end of the cap to a nice finnish and debur.

David

Edited By David George 1 on 28/02/2021 07:57:51

Edited By David George 1 on 28/02/2021 07:58:58

That's a lovely piece of work David.

Brian