Author Topic: AOG’s PMR BLR-1 V2 build  (Read 19170 times)

Offline AOG

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AOG’s PMR BLR-1 V2 build
« on: December 31, 2018, 08:59:56 PM »
Back in 2017 I built a steam powered iPhone charger. ( http://www.modelenginemaker.com/index.php/topic,7548.0.html) that used one of these PMR vertical boilers.



I was my first boiler build and while it worked it wasn’t pretty. That boiler along with the rest of the steam powered iPhone charger currently live in the center of the conference table in my chief engineer’s office as a display piece. I have been wanting a boiler to test my engines on steam so I figured I would give this one a second shot. I also figured that this would make a good stand alone build log. Being the pack rat that I am I saved the tooling from the original build so please refer to that thread for how the tooling was made. Now let’s get started. The first thing done was to cut the fire tubes and trim them to length in the lathe.



The tubes were then deburred. Now is where experience comes in. The last time I did this I had problems swaging the tube into the end plates because the lathe operations work hardened the ends of the tubes. To combat that I annealed the tubes.



The tube plates come drilled and mostly formed from PMR. All I had to do was trim up the outside to make them a slip fit in the shell.



The next step was to drill a hole for the relief valve bushing on the top tube plate.



So with that done I spent a couple of hours cleaning up the fire tubes and end plates to get them ready for assembly. I’ll leave you with the first family shot of this build.



Till next time

Tony


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Offline b.lindsey

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Re: AOG’s PMR BLR-1 V2 build
« Reply #1 on: December 31, 2018, 09:57:33 PM »
Nice Tony. I've got that kit hanging around here somewhere so I will be following along closely.

Nice start btw.

Bill

Offline Gas_mantle

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Re: AOG’s PMR BLR-1 V2 build
« Reply #2 on: December 31, 2018, 10:24:39 PM »
I look forward to seeing how you build goes Tony, I'd like to have a go at making one shortly  :)

Offline gary.a.ayres

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Re: AOG’s PMR BLR-1 V2 build
« Reply #3 on: January 01, 2019, 08:40:34 AM »
Time for The Big Heat soon...  :Mad:

 :)

Offline AOG

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Re: AOG’s PMR BLR-1 V2 build
« Reply #4 on: January 06, 2019, 10:46:53 PM »
Just a quick update this week. I got all 13 fire tubes swaged into the end plates this weekend. To be honest they look better then last time but I still don’t trust them to hold the tubes in. I think I will hard silver solder them in just to be safe.



Of course Murphy’s law being what it is, I’m out of propane so no soldering attempted yet.

Till next time

Tony


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Offline b.lindsey

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Re: AOG’s PMR BLR-1 V2 build
« Reply #5 on: January 06, 2019, 11:16:19 PM »
Looking good so far Tony!!

Bill

Offline AOG

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Re: AOG’s PMR BLR-1 V2 build
« Reply #6 on: January 13, 2019, 04:44:44 PM »
I spent this weekend soldering the tubes into the tube plates. In addition, the bushing and extension for the safety valve were soldered in. I used silverflow55 and tenacity flux. Having learned my lesson last time, I broke out the turbotorch to get enough heat. I don’t know why but I always have trouble with the amount of solder to use. On attempt one I didn’t use enough and I had bare patches. Naturally on my second attempt I overdid it. Here is a picture after pickling.



Till next time.

Tony


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Offline AOG

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Re: AOG’s PMR BLR-1 V2 build
« Reply #7 on: February 02, 2019, 09:55:20 PM »
The temperature in the garage was warm enough for me to get some more done on this today. The first thing I did was to glue a copy of the template onto the boiler shell and drill the holes for all of the fittings.



Next I slid in the tube assembly and held it in place with some sheet metal clamps. Then I drilled the four holes nearest the clamps and used my cleco clamps to hold the parts together.



Then I moved the clamps over one and drilled the next hole repeating until I got all of the holes drilled and clamped. The purpose of the clamp to to keep the tube plate from bending away from the outer shell as I was drilling the holes.



With the holes drilled I pulled out my rivet squeezer and put in the top row of rivets.



Here is the current state of the boiler.



Till next time

Tony

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« Last Edit: February 02, 2019, 11:44:12 PM by AOG »

Offline b.lindsey

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Re: AOG’s PMR BLR-1 V2 build
« Reply #8 on: February 02, 2019, 11:08:02 PM »
Good to see an update Tony.  Still watching as I have this kit in the queue for someday in the future  ;)

Bill

Offline crueby

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Re: AOG’s PMR BLR-1 V2 build
« Reply #9 on: February 06, 2019, 01:35:37 PM »
Well done, those clamps really did the trick.
 :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

Offline AOG

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Re: AOG’s PMR BLR-1 V2 build
« Reply #10 on: February 10, 2019, 01:53:19 AM »
Thanks guys, more good progress today. The first thing I did was attempt to drill out the lower holes. That’s when I realized I screwed up. The holes in the pattern were below the tube plate. After checking all of my dimensions and the placement of the tube assembly I realized that I misread a dimension and made my tube assembly 1/2 inch to short. It’s to late to do anything about it now but move the holes. I picked up the marks on the pattern and translated them 1/2 inch before drilling the holes. With the holes drilled 4 rivets were installed 90 degrees apart. I had a heck of a time getting my squeezer on to the rivets. As I started to fill in the rest of the rivets I figured if I cut out the hole for the fire door I could get a better angle on the remaining rivets. First I drilled the  corners 3/32.



Then using a jeweler’s saw I cut out the opening.



After some quality time with my files, we have one completed door opening.



After that, the remaining rivets were installed and the template removed. I also annealed the areas where the rivets were installed.  Here is the riveted assembly cleaned up and ready for the next round of soldering.



Till next time.

Tony


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Offline AOG

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Re: AOG’s PMR BLR-1 V2 build
« Reply #11 on: February 16, 2019, 11:56:43 PM »
Today started with a bit of a weather delay due to rain. That gave me the opportunity to clean up the boiler base casting and turn it to a slip fit on the boiler.



When the rain stopped, I soldered up the ends and soldered in the boiler bushes.



Here it is after pickling and a cleanup.



I need to do some work on my pressure testing rig so I’m going to call it for this weekend. Hopefully next week I can get it pressure tested.

Till next time

Tony


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Offline crueby

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Re: AOG’s PMR BLR-1 V2 build
« Reply #12 on: February 17, 2019, 12:01:53 AM »
That is coming along great. Did you silver solder everything rather than the soft solder pmr uses?

Offline AOG

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Re: AOG’s PMR BLR-1 V2 build
« Reply #13 on: February 17, 2019, 12:38:05 AM »
I hard soldered the tubes and used the PMR stuff for the fittings and to seal the tube plates to the shell. On my last one I hard soldered everything and I ended up with problems with porous joints and pinhole leaks because I unintentionally remelted the solder on the tubes while I was trying to solder the tube plate to the shell. I ended up sealing the leaks with the PMR stuff and it worked fine. This time I decided to go with it from the beginning. The only reason I hard soldered the tubes was because I didn’t trust my swages on the ends to hold the tubes. It turned out to work well because the tubes never came close to remelting while I was soldering the ends.

Tony

Offline AOG

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Re: AOG’s PMR BLR-1 V2 build
« Reply #14 on: February 24, 2019, 10:02:03 PM »
Good progress this weekend. After replacing the check valve in my pressure test rig, I pressure tested the boiler. I had a few leaks around a few of the tubes. They were sealed up with solder and the retest passed with flying colors.



Then I started work on the top cover assembly. I turned the inside of the base enough to get a good grip. Then the part was flipped and I turned the outside of the top of the casting to allow for a good grip.



The top was then bored to take the chimney.



The casting was reversed and the lower part turned to be a slip fit on the boiler shell.



Then it was over to the mill to put in the hole for the safety valve extension. Because of the angled cut I used an end mill for the job.



Next up was the chimney cap. First I turned down one end to fit the chimney.



Next I step drilled and then bored the inside.



The cap was parted off and reversed in the chuck. Then I used the form tool I made for the first version of this boiler to turn the outer profile.



That’s it for this update. I will leave you with a current family pic.



Till next time.

Tony


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