Recently made what I hope will prove to be a good score!?!?
Picked up a good-sized horizontal STAINLESS STEEL Boiler that should be gas fired (or alcohol torch, like Saito) through flue with tall stack. The flue has nine thermic syphons in three sets of three different orientations. There are deep bushings at all openings into the boiler, but they are as yet unthreaded. There is a huge amount of welding in this assembly, and it all looks to be near perfect without a single flaw in flow anywhere to be seen. It should be noted that all eight of the mounting holes for the rather long chimney are symmetrically aligned so that it seems it could be oriented in any position without any problem. One thing that perhaps astounds me the most is that everything seems to line up so perfectly and square which is something I've always had great trouble with in welding, as the uneven expansion and contraction of the metal parts as the weld progresses typically causes "warpage" to occur on the finished assemble. This weldment shows none of that!!!
The only concern is the welds on the small diameter thermic syphon tubes that seal them to the flue, which I cannot see, but if what I can see is any indication, they should be excellent also.
I do know that stainless is a rather poor conductor of heat, but the flue tube is relatively thin walled, and with so many thermic syphons in place, I suspect that it will steam just fine, though certainly less efficiently than were it made of brass.
In any event, I thought it was worth the gamble of a very reasonable $36, but it will be a while before I know for sure as I must first find fittings of proper size to tap the holes to, before I can reasonably conduct pressure and steaming tests. The available depth for threading is substantial on the three different sized holes needing to be done, and I suspect that all the holes could be substantially enlarged to bigger thread sizes if desired.
By far all the hard work has been done on this rather beautifully built 10" x 3.2" boiler with a 1.3" flue.
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Well done, Daniel....Very Well Done...!!!
Certainly looks like a solid build.
That certainly is a solid build by someone familiar with stainless steel (not easy to work with) I hope your able to get it finished and up & running. You got it very reasonable 😊
You are certainly correct about stainless being difficult to work, as depending on the actual alloy, it is often sort of "gummy" for machining purposes, which makes it difficult to tap. Sure hope I don't go and break any taps on this beast.
More "bad news" is that this will require me to go and "visit" the PM Research catalog in order to select a few appropriate fittings and thread sizes for the various holes needing to be filled, so that I can find out if it will even hold water. Visiting PMR tends to be expensive I find, as looking through their catalog always has some of their items "finding" me!!!
I concur with you about P M Research . I have bought a lot of stuff from them at great expense ! That being said, they really do have top of the line products , and you really do get what you pay for. This a case where you remember the quality, long after the price is forgotten .
D. E. Jones