Further Boiler Question.

[kurplunked]

Hello,

Could i please ask, if a boiler, has been made with soft solder, and not tested... is it elligable for club testing in hydrollic and steam? This dosnt relate to my julliete I am just curious.

Many thanks.

[baggo]

I presume you mean a boiler with soft solder caulked stays?

There's no reason why such a boiler cannot be tested and passed so long as it has been correctly made. There are hundreds of locos etc. running around with soft soldered stays.

There are some clubs and boiler inspectors who might refuse to test such a boiler, although they have no real grounds for doing so. There is nothing in the 'Blue Book' that discriminates against soft solder.

John

[Shawki Shlemon]

In Australia ( my understanding is ) , if it is made prior to the code , it will continue to be tested and certified ( if it pass the test ) but if it is made after the code it should be made to the code .

[Deleted]

I agree with Baggo that there is nothing wrong with soft solder, as long as it is used only for caulking, not to provide structural strength. The stays must therefore be threaded and nutted to give the required support to the plates. After all, Mike Smart of Cheltenham demonstrated many years back, that threaded and nutted stays caulked with Loctite worked perfectly satisfactorily when he built his lovely Midland Compound.
Many perfectly sound boilers were built with all-rivetted and caulked joints. It's just a matter of getting the size, number and pitching of the rivets right, to suit the loads on the joint and the appropriate factors of safety - that's how full-size boilers were (and still are, in many cases) built. I remember that a significant part of my Technical Drawing course was taken up with designing rivetted joints. I think that it would be a bit tedious now, having once put several hundred rivets in each end flange of a 6 inch diameter marine boiler!

Regards