Tony Bird
Senior Member
Hi,
I have been trying to complete some unfinished models with some success having finished two copies of an Bowman Eagle steam launches I am now working on completing a model of a Bowman Swallow steam launch. I have already made one Swallow a year or so ago, the incomplete model is quite well on needing the boiler soldered together and a little work on the engine.
For some reason probably because I had the metal I stated making two boilers for the Swallow. the boiler is made from some thin copper sheet reclaimed from on old hot water cylinder.
Photograph of one boiler before being soldered.
As there are two boilers I thought I would see how much difference it would make to their steam raising performance by fitting hedgehog pins to one of them.
A simple pot boiler fitted with hedgehog pins used in a small locomotive which is fired using Sterno.
It is quite difficult to solder pins in a thin boiler shell without them moving. They can have a shoulder turned on them which works OK but thin copper wire doesn't like turning. Threading the pins works well but is quite time consuming. So I came up with the following I don't think it can be an original idea but I haven't seen it done.
'U' shaped hedgehog pins which hold themselves in place very well.
The result looks like this.
Both boilers nearly finished.
One of the boilers being tested.
It will be interesting to see how different the two boilers perform.
Other successful ways I have tried of improving the performance of simple boilers all of which work well.
I will post the results of the test after they have been done.
Regards Tony.
I have been trying to complete some unfinished models with some success having finished two copies of an Bowman Eagle steam launches I am now working on completing a model of a Bowman Swallow steam launch. I have already made one Swallow a year or so ago, the incomplete model is quite well on needing the boiler soldered together and a little work on the engine.
For some reason probably because I had the metal I stated making two boilers for the Swallow. the boiler is made from some thin copper sheet reclaimed from on old hot water cylinder.
Photograph of one boiler before being soldered.
As there are two boilers I thought I would see how much difference it would make to their steam raising performance by fitting hedgehog pins to one of them.
A simple pot boiler fitted with hedgehog pins used in a small locomotive which is fired using Sterno.
It is quite difficult to solder pins in a thin boiler shell without them moving. They can have a shoulder turned on them which works OK but thin copper wire doesn't like turning. Threading the pins works well but is quite time consuming. So I came up with the following I don't think it can be an original idea but I haven't seen it done.
'U' shaped hedgehog pins which hold themselves in place very well.
The result looks like this.
Both boilers nearly finished.
One of the boilers being tested.
It will be interesting to see how different the two boilers perform.
Other successful ways I have tried of improving the performance of simple boilers all of which work well.
I will post the results of the test after they have been done.
Regards Tony.