Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

Getting closer to calling it done on this little guy.  The rivets bits are getting close, so I am excited to see how well that goes.  With me using screws for the moment, I can see why they used rivets on the stand-offs instead of screws.  The little engine really works them loose - so I put some blue Loctite on them.

My playing with the engine over the weekend and getting it to max stream a new leak popped up.  I knew I had a very small one at the water stack but the new one popped up on the lower sight glass fitting.  At first I thought my Blue Loctite failed on the pipe threads to the tank (used Blue, as that is what I had on hand).  While I couldn't find Loctite 542 around town that Paula suggested, I was able to pick up Permatex 59235 High Temperature Thread Sealant yesterday.  I don't know if the Loctite 542 is red (it does come in a red bottle) but the Permatex 59235 is white and I prefer that to red.  Either way, in the end that wasn't my leak!  These strapped tanks have a brass insert for the pipe and under my desk magnifying lamp I could see pin hole compromises in the sweat seam for the brass fitting.  Pretty much the same kind of holes around the water stack that I found earlier.

So I used Gorilla Glue gel, using a toothpick to agitate the gel into the holes and forum a nice even seam around both fittings.  No telling how long it will last but so far so good under heat and steam today. Now only steam/water is coming out where you'd expect it to come out!  Man, this little engine can go ;-)