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