Hefted the boiler into place on the chassis to mark it up for
drilling the holes so I can bolt it to the petticoat. This is
a fairly straight forward task, if a little fiddly making sure
that it all lines up properly.
The the chimney. This needs to be straight up and down, but
over the blast pipe (which may not be in the center of the
hole drilled in the top of the smokebox.
I got one hole drilled before I took my boiler to a club meet
to get it inspected and hydro'd. The boiler has been hydro
tested by Maxitrak, but being they are the suppilers of the
kit, the AMBSC will not recognise their hydra test. Fair
enough.
I'm off playing guard on a train whilst the boiler inspectors
are having fun with my boiler until I get pulled from the train
to have a discussion regarding the boiler. The inspectors are
not happy.
So, why aren't they happy ?? Well the boiler doesn't match
the plans. (I have an old set of plans) The plans define the
stays as 3/16" but 4mm stays have been used. Under the AMBSC
code, these stays are too small for the specified preasure
(90 psi). They also can't see inside the boiler to check what
the state of the crown stays are. The plans say girder stays
which don't reach the inside of the boiler shell haev been used.
I asked if they could fit girder stays which reach from the top
of the crown sheet to the inside of the boiler shell.
Longitudinal stays are okay (phew). There is no flange where
the boiler shell meets the troat plate. Okay, well I didn't
ask for that,. but I can add that flange.
So what's the state of play at the moment. Well, the boiler
can be recovered. This is a good thing. The boiler has been
re-measured and the boiler inspector has these and is comming
up with a list of (hopefully small) changes to bring the
boiler up to spec and also we're looking at a preasure increase
from 90 psi to 100 psi.
I can't do too much until the problems with the boiler are fixed
as most everything else attaches to the boiler.
But what about Maxitrak I hear you say. Yes Maxitrak sent me a
boiler which doesn't match the plans. But they did ask for a list
of changes which I needed doing it the boiler so as to make it
meet the code and I did leave off the bottom flange. So blame can
be cast in both directions. Well I'm not interested in blame.
This is my hobby to relieve stress so I'm concentrating on fixing
the problem. I also haven't contacted Maxitrak to ask them what
they are going to do about it as the cost of shipping the boiler
backwards and forwards would make it prohibitive to both of us.
Oh,the quality of workmanship on the boiler is first class tho!!
