A little more progress....
I am almost at the stage of soldering the boiler, I thought I better try on a less important one first to get a bit of experience. I have started building the little Midwest Fantail, the construction has not progressed beyond laser cutting all the parts but I did start with the two boilers. The flanges were made some time ago along with most of the other parts, yesterday I got to soldering them.
A few lessons were learned:
1. The longer the solder rod the better.
2. Wear a glove, I don't need to shave the hair on my hands anymore.
3. Never too much flux.
4. The radiated heat was far more than anticipated.
5. Keep the part hot while flowing the solder.
Probably a few more lessons in there. My blow torch kept bursting into flames too and I had to blow out the flames while working. I think I have fixed it now (I hope).
The first photo is of the joint inside the boiler (top), the solder seems to have flowed nicely around the joint. The first crack at soldering this I felt that there wasn't enough solder on the outside to form a nice fillet, so I fluxed it up again and re-flowed while adding solder. I might have put a touch too much solder but I think its OK. The bottom went OK along with the second boiler. These are 2" diameter and about 21/2" long. What looks like solder on the surface is a very thin layer (paper thin) that i might scrape off. These parts will go in the bead blaster tomorrow at work.
The boilers are then wrapped in a 1/16" ceramic 'paper' jacket for insulation with a brass 0.015" sheet wrapper. The wrapper is made from shim stock which is quite hard. I "xxxxx" around with it until deciding to anneal it. I thought that the annealing would turn the brass black or dis-colour it but it was far easier than I thought. The first I dipped in the pickle and the copper floating on top left it with some stains that will rub out easily. The second I left to air cool and there was no dis-colourisation at all. Its nice and soft now and rolls very easily, you can see the parts I have started making for the boiler bands. The top half of the boiler will get a mahogany cladding.
The third photo is the AQ boiler, about ready for soldering. I have fitted three ports on the top and I might add two on the side if I want to add a level gauge at some time. I haven't decided how high to make the inside flange, the flue is 7/8" diameter, the boiler is 3" diameter, about 4" high. The brass base ring was made from two pieces, a piece of tubing soldered to a ring cut from sheet. They were then placed in the lathe and turned down until it looked about right. I haven't decided if I will solder this ring to the boiler or screw it on???