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

Not the brightest of manufacturers having a tin/steel bottom
 I have one that when last run was solid so i dried it and put some engine oil in it to prevent rust .

Cheers
Dennis

Bruce, not many could pull off such a successful repair....congrats (but dry that boiler when done!)

Rog

Thanks Rog.
I tested it for soundness really thoroughly before I spent any significant time repairing it, the remaining shell is quite thick & I bead blasted the inside of the boiler thoroughly as well, I'm not concerned about the rest of it.it now has a 2mm thick copper bottom underneath it slightly larger than the original heater. 275 ml. seems to be the empty fill capacity to keep the water level just below the intake for the cylinder assembly.

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.

Bruce, just noticed this... Excellent work to bring that engine back. Apart from the steel boiler, that seems like a well-designed little engine, and very cute to boot!

Paula

Bruce, just noticed this... Excellent work to bring that engine back. Apart from the steel boiler, that seems like a well-designed little engine, and very cute to boot!

Paula

Thanks Paula
This fell into my lap on facebook marketplace and I know all to well the draw back to the steel boiler, thought I'd take a chance and hope it was sound, as with most of these it was not. But it was only the center of the bottom that was week, after replacing the bottom with a copper plate I thought about repainting the whole thing...but decided it looked good enough as is.