why we have boiler regs

Im no fan of the current restrictive blue book regs (as the comittee members are well aware) but having just looked carefully at the completed boiler in this link I have to conceed a little - the welds are hideous!! Looks like it was welded by a partially sighted first year apprentice!! Scary stuff.

http://discoverlivesteam.com/discoverforsale/forsale/1_bartlett/index.htm

Thats why we have the 'Blue Book' ... To protect the innocent from the foolish !!!!

By the way, I don't find the current regs restrictive .... but then I don't have any steel boilers, only copper. (3.5" and 16mm Gauge)

Out of every 10 people that can build boilers, 9 can and they are quiet safe, but it is the other 1 that can't build a boiler but thinks he can, are why the reg's are there.

Dave

Edited By Steambuff on 29/10/2012 22:01:13

Note that the price in US$ . I do not know if the US has its own "bliue book" but litigation would sort it all out.

blue book regs are great if your stuck in the 1940's...since then we have invented the mig welder and the tig welder...woohooo!

There is at least 1 company supplying Tig Welded Copper boilers, I am assuming that these meet the regulations.

Sorry but I don't know about Mig/Tig Welding for Steel Boilers. (Not sure if the Blue Book specifies method of Welding -- My book is not to hand)

I am sure that when the Blue Book is revised, it will take account of the more modern welding technologies that are now available.

Dave

What did they do with boiler tubes before welding was common?

From 1850 to 1930 kinda thing

Ady;

Expand them in place. Sometimes use a copper ferrule between tube and tube sheet to help seal.

Welding really started with the Germans in WW2 from what I understand; stays were starting to be welded then, as it's a lot faster than tapping and threading and peaning the ends over.

I used to do a fair amount with full sized stuff in North America; although I still hold my provincial license for "Steam Traction Operator" have not bothered to use it in a good few years now.

I think rolling tubes is easier; when you take the tubes out, you of course have to use a torch to cut tubes just inside the sheets, then carefully remove the remainders. There always ("over here" practice, anyway) a king hole in the front tube sheet; all tubes come out of that hole, and can be "safe ended" and re-used, if ok. Safe ending is just welding on a bit more tube, maybe not worth it for the tubes, but the larger superheater flues it is/was usually done in "excursion" years. (IIRC, you can safe-end flues twice only)

Google "49 cfr 230 steam" should bring up the US rules, Canadian rules are identical, except for the spelling (again, IIRC)

Another JohnS