At 10:41 AM 4/2/04 -0800, you wrote:
I have never built a boiler. A scrap metal place nearby often has thick
walled copper pipe the right diameter for a boiler.
Gary,
It doesn't need to be all that thick, in 2 diameter copper
either a Type L (@ .070 wall) or Type M (.058) will be sufficient for any
Ga1 application I could imgaine. Good design typically means such things
as using proper materials, in sufficient thickness, correctly proportioning
flues, and bushing all penetrations for instance. Good technique or
execution would mean making joints and seams fit snugly, making bushings
and tapped holes square and aligned, cleaning surfaces to be soldered, and
using the right flux and solder, and insuring sound soldered joints, etc.
It really isn't as clinical as I make it sound, except that I don't know
any other way to describe it.
Most of most useful, informative, and available books on the
subject will be British, Model Boilers and Boilermaking by KN Harris,
Locomotive and Marine Boilers (and variations) by Martin Evans, Model
Locomotive Boilermaking by Alec Farmer, and older books by Henry Greenly
and LBSC. The locomotive books by Kozo Hiraoka also contain marvelous
illustrated treatises on boilermaking. Although small scale is a slightly
different animal, and all the foregoing predominantly focus on larger
scales, 3-1/2 ga and up, most of the basic principles are the same. In my
experience though no one book contains everything you would benefit from
knowing and certainly not all you'd need to know when working in small scale.
Regards,
Harry
