Boiler repairs

[ettingtonliam]

Looking through some old Model Engineers, in No 2587 of Dec 21st 1950, I came upon an article mainly dealing with boiler repairs. The first dealt with a leaking tube in a combustion cahmber, and was done by cutting out a 1 1/8" hole in the barrel adjacent to the leaking tube, cleaning the tube plate and selaing the leak with soft solder. The hole in the barrel was closed with a copper patch held on with 10 4BA brass screws, and then the whole sweated with soft solder.
The next dealt with the same problem by cutting out a complete ring of the barrel 3" long, level with the end of the combustion chamber, cleaning and silver soldering the leaking tubes, then silver soldering a sleeve over the barrel to restore that.
The writer reported that he had recently looked in the firebox of one of his boilers recently, and noticed bulges on both sides of the combustion chamber. He commented that they didn't seem to affect steaming, and that next time he built a combustion chamber boiler he would use the correct gauge of metal!

No mention in any of this of pressure testing or comsultation with the club boiler inspector.
Unfortunatly, I don't have the following issues to see if the letter pages contained howls of protest, as it most certainly would these days.
Presumably the editorial team of the time didn't see anything wrong with this article or they wouldn't have published it.

Richard

[Shawki Shlemon]

I don't know when boiler code started in UK but here in in Australis many many years after that and therefore no boiler inspectors .

[Deleted]

Our local track opened in May 1950 in a public park, with significant financial and practical support from the City council. The operating agreement with the society required that all locomotives should be "boiler inspected" and insured to the approval of the Corporation. Boiler testers were appointed from experienced members of the society and have been up to the present time, with boiler test certificates being issued as a matter of routine. Requirements have been reviewed on a regular basis and kept in line with evolving standards, so the more formal regulations which have developed over recent years have been accommodated without difficulty.
I think that we had the advantage of an enlightened 'landlord', who recognised that we had the expertise and just let us get on with it.

Regards