5 inch gauge steel boiler testing

[marshall5]

Michael,you have my deepest sympathy as I was in a similar position - and mine came with a (worthless) current certificate. Unfortunately I think you will have to accept that your boiler is scrap and order a copper one as I did. Even if you jumped through all the hoops of design accreditation,material and welding spec,testing and inspection all of which are going to be expensive you would still have a poor boiler. IMHO steel is not a suitable material for boilers smaller than,say,'Romulus'. The proportionally thicker plate (to allow for corrosion) means a loss of waterspace and/or grate area, they are hard to inspect internally for corrosion (which is why some club inspectors won't touch them) and you have all the trouble of water treatment and 2yr (rather than 4yr) hyros.
Sorry I can't be more help. Ray.

[ejparrott]

Jul 3, 2013 7:27:45 GMT jackrae said:

On the subject of material data sheets and why they are necessary for pressure vessel certification.

Some time past I bought a quantity of black MS flat bar from a very well known DIY retailer. No material spec sheets of course !
The job I was working on required a fairly sharp bend to be made in the material.
Upon bending (cold) the material literally delaminated into several layers.
The moral of the story - not all steels are equal and some are bl**dy awful.

...and its for that very reason that a steel boiler presented to me with no paperwork would be turned away..sorry!

Did have a chap come to us a few months ago, building a 4" Foster traction engine. He had great plans of getting his mate to weld the boiler, and was all set to go down the local steel stockists and some plate cut...unfortunately I know full well they don't stock boiler plate! He'd got a piece of tube for the barrel, no idea what it was. Luckil;y I got to him before he'd wasted a load of money buying En43a flamecuts.