New Steel Boiler for under £200

next side weld

back head welded and dressed, stays welded

took me ages to design this, and the dog just paddles all over it!

thats all for now folks. spent the last hour getting clean. Its looking better than I anticipated. Welded at 170 amps with .6mm wire. 190A on .8mm would be better but this is the max my hobby mig will go. Its just on the start of spray transfer on max setting - need a new tip now. Hope you like the pix!!

That's some very nice welding Nigel

John

Well Nigel to say impressed is an understatement, It would be interesting to hear about the boiler tests.

Bob

Awesome work Fizzy!

How long does it take to learn to weld to that standard?

Joey

Unfortunately it takes a lot of trigger hours to get a diy welding set to do that...I would have been much more at ease with a boc 500! The welds would have been better aswell! I was a profesional welder for 6 years, bit rusty now. I recon that if you prepped, tacked and braced the job it would take no more than 5 minutes to do the lot on a professional welding set. It wont get finished for a couple of weels due to holiday but I will try to take pictures when it does.

What about the boiler tests...100psi wp, test 250psi, if 6mm steel wont hold that i will eat my hat!

Within PED Pressure tests are a test of workmanship and materials not design. If there was no design calcls to an acceptable standard then the proof test could be up to 10 times working pressure.

Bost boilers I have seen have had a Tig root then stick weld with a tig cap on top on a lot of traction engine boilers. Is mig allowed without a root run first? as it should cheapen the cost of construction.

Steve Larner

Rest assured that rigerous calculations were made prior to final design, all fully documented and proven.

Were you required to follow a particualr standard or just first principles?

Steve Larner

Used published formulae for model boilers

Looks good, hope all goes well with boiler inspector.

Steve

iTS FINALLY OVER!! I went into the workshop at 8 this morning abd came out nearly 12 hours later - 5 cups of water has kept me going all day! Ive silver soldered the tubes in today, but to be super sure of a good joint in the firebox I separated the firebox section of boiler from the main boiler tube, that way I could get at both sides of the joint. Managed to slightly burn a tube but nothing major. I then soldered the tubes into the end plate before weldint the lot back together - propper hot root run followed by a hot fill and cap run. I will need the joint testing and certifying but its a small price to pay considering I was quoted £2500 for a copper boiler with a two year waiting list. Ive had it up to 170psi with the odd weep around the bust plugs, just needs a bit of ptfe tape to sort. Going to get it to 200psi tomorrow, then weld cert and finally to the inspecter. Costs are: Plate £50, Tubes £60, silv solder £22, allow £20 for various gasses and wire, £60 for the weld test and cert and probably another £50 for 'stuff', and you can see It still cost under £300 all in. If I were to make another there would be so many things id do differently, ive learned a lot on this project.

I know that I was one of the people who said do not attempt it, I take it all back in spades

CONGRATULATIONS

Bob

michael, i guess im with you on this one, and whilst i admire 'fizzy's' unconventional approach, i reckon a 6mm inner firebox of steel on a medium sized 5"g loco boiler (where most of the heat is transferred to the water) is unfortunately going to be more than a shy steamer and therefore a complete waste of effort. i built a similar sized conventional all silver soldered copper boiler last year in 6 weeks for £220 in materials (copper and bronze) and say another £100-£200 in silver solder (cant say exactly the amount or value of the silver solder as i already had most of it in stock from many years ago). so not that different in cost to 'fizzy's' boiler.

cheers,

julian

I never said it would be a good steamer!!

If australians can build all-steel briggs boilers that make plenty of steam , why shouldn't this one?

Neil

Look Everyone

Stop knocking Fizzy I think he is doing a fantastic job, I will not put this in caps "but could you do it" as my father would say "put your money where your mouth is" he taught me how to use a myford when I was 9 he new Curly but never would take me down there, Dad said he was a very strange person but very interesting. What he would say was saw this very interesting design Hmmm
and leave it that that.
Look Fizzy
Steam on and leave the armchair pundits behind
Bob