Superheater elements

cheers

Hi all

Is it possible to buy elements(2tubes welded together) professionally?

If so where from?

Polly models do a range of superheaters, at a price.

Michael

Has anyone ever managed to melt a silver soldered one? I've used sifbronze on one and high temp silver solder on another. Not had much use (driving them is soooo boring, and wears them out!) but long enough to identify any problem I think. I know of many other silver soldered ones, no problems. Worst case is steam test, blower hard on, vert hot fire, no steam flow to cool it down.

Don Young's original Railmotor sat underneath Don's desk for 25 years out of use. Don said the trunnion brackets were shot. this took 5 minutes to rectify. the actual problem was he had silver soldered up the return bends in the super heater elements rather than sifbronze them. they were shot. a new set of superheater elements and return bends sifbronzed on for the new owner in an evening and the loco is still running with them 20 years since i did the job.

never ever use ordinary silver for return bends!

ive always sifbronzed my return bends so have no experience of using higher melting point silver solder, which i dont think will last long. my last 2 locos have welded stainless radiant elements.

cheers,

julian

The ones I've made so far have all had the return bends silver soldered with Silverflo 24. No problems with them yet, touch wood! I've now got some Silverflo 20 so will use that next time. I use fully radiant superheaters with the return bends right at the back of the firebox so they keep a bit cooler. Would be nice to be able to TIG weld them though.

John