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

A brave repair to attempt no doubt about it!

Glad to see that your rag-a-muffin dog finds the sound of a running steam engine as soothing as I do.

I couldn't make out the audio part of how you attached the copper plate bottom replacement ...... can you enlighten me please?

This is a photo of it pretty well opened up, I have not cleaned it yet in this photo, but the area to be soldered was cleaned down to the metal. I use the highest temp soft solder there is (Stay-Bright #8) melts at 430F & flows at 530F so double the temperature of steam. the copper plate was gleaned from a copper pipe, cut, split & heated flat, cleaned up on my lathe, center hole drilled & tapped 3/16" x 40 tpi with a 3/16"x40tpi brass 1" threaded rod soldered to the plate to hold down the heater. it is important to use plenty of flux to purge the impurities out of the join. I used a wet cloth around the perimeter of the boiler (held in place with a large radiator clamp) in an effort to save the paint & not cause to much discoloration. the hardest part was cutting the circle out of the boiler, I ended up using a small right angle drill bit holder with a Dremel cutoff disc mounted in the chuck, Dremel cutoff discs don't like going that slow...so I went through quite a few before the hole was made. I cleaned the edge up with a Dremel grinding wheel.