Supporting > Boilers
AOG’s PMR BLR-1 V2 build
AOG:
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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AOG:
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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crueby:
That is coming along great. Did you silver solder everything rather than the soft solder pmr uses?
AOG:
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
AOG:
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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