Loctited Stays!

[ron]

I was reading W J Hughes' book on building the Allchin and in the chapter about staying the boiler he mentions that an article had appeared in the ME strongly advocating the use of Loctite for caulking stays. He said he had no personal experience of using it but the writer was very enthusiastic and had no reservations about using it. It's a new one on me, anyone ever heard of anyone trying it, it sounds a bit dodgy to me
Ron
PS The book was first published in 1977

[mutley]

works a treat Ron, however it is only used as a sealant. You thread the stays and firebox side sheets in the traditinal maner (pre silver solder days) and then put a nut on each end. You do need the right loctite though for it to work.

Andy

[baggo]

Hi Ron,

There are some letters in ME in the 1980's re the use of Loctite in boiler construction. I'll dig them out and have a read.

I presume the idea is to use Loctite for sealing threaded and nutted stays instead of Comsol?

In theory I can't actually see a problem if that is the case. The strength of the stays comes from the threads and the nuts rather than the sealing medium so anything could be used that will stand the heat. Whether this would work in practice is a different matter though.

I have seen Loctite advocated for sealing leaking boiler tubes in steel boilers where the tubes are just expanded in.

John

[durhambuilder]

By strange co-incidence I read the an ME article about this earlier today. 3-16th Sept 1976 No 3544 page 867.

[baggo]

The article referred to is ' An Experiment in Model Boiler Making' by Michael Smart which appeared in ME Volume 142 Issue 3544.

He firstly built a Rob Roy boiler using Araldite to seal the stays (threaded and nutted) which was still ok after 4 years. He then built a boiler for a 5" Midland Compound but this time successfully used Loctite Grade 40 (not sure what that refers to?) with a primer catalyst.

One of the later letters refers to three more successful engines using Loctite sealing.