All,

At the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum, we are getting prepared for a boiler ultrasound on our Coos Bay #11.



We're supposed to be getting some outside help with this, but that help seems to have been held up for now. In the meantime any tips/tricks we can do for preparation would be greatly appreciated.

Here's where we are :

Tubes/flues gone except for 3 of the superheater tubes in a vertical line that help us get in/out of the boiler (and possibly for structural support, though Dave Griner says that really doesn't matter).

We had the boiler interior sandblasted a few months ago so now the interior metal looks pretty good. Obviously the areas/sheets surrounding the firebox are difficult to get cleaned with any method.

We need to remove the ends of the 2" tubes that are left in the front/rear tube sheets from cutting out the tubes. The smokebox side should be the simpler end since the tubes were rolled/expanded there, whereas the firebox end was welded. On the smoke box side, the tube ends can be notched and collapsed and forced out from inside the boiler. Also have some notes and a drawing on making a "flue-bar" tool to help force the tube out.

On the firebox side, we'll ideally need a tool to grind down the welds around the tubes so it's flush with the tube sheet and then extract the tube end from there. I've seen pictures of this grinding tool on the New Mexico 2926 web site. Either we'll buy, rent or borrow one. So if anyone has a line on that tool it'd be much appreciated.

Should we remove the cab from the frame for ease of access ?

Drawing the grid lines for the ultrasound. We're thinking to snap chalk lines, then paint the lines on. What type of paint should be used ? Is there some kind of paint stick or pen to use vs a brush ? Chances are the engine will be sitting outdoors so the paint should be able to hold up in a desert southwest climate (east of San Diego, CA)

What's the best way to track the grids ? Ideally a CAD drawing would be great using AutoCAD or the like, again looking that NM site. A spreadsheet would be the simplest way. Number/lettering scheme ? Letters for horizontal, numbers for vertical ?

I know there's a LOT of expertise here, so any suggestions/help is much appreciated !!

Thanks !
Mike Lucek

Mike,

If you have Dave Griner involved, you have all of the expertise you will ever need. Dave is far to humble when it comes to his back ground and credential. Many of you may not know, but Dave has his own Engineering Firm where by he will produce a form 4 and do inspections like the one you speak of.

I will leave it up to Dave to tell you more.

If Dave can't help you, we here at Wasatch are more than happy to point you in directions that can help!

All of the methods you mentioned are things groups have done in the past. I know many groups have simply used soapstone for marking the boiler grid while others have used paint. The important thing is to be consistent with your measuring procedures and document all of your measurements and calibrations. Don't get crazy with abrasive grinders when cleaning the metal for your UT readings because will be wearing away your precious metal. You want to use the least abrasive method you can that will get your reading. Dave Griner is a great and well respected resource.

[quote="choochoomike"]All,




On the firebox side, we'll ideally need a tool to grind down the welds around the tubes so it's flush with the tube sheet and then extract the tube end from there. I've seen pictures of this grinding tool on the [url=http://www.nmslrhs.org/]New Mexico 2926 web site[/url]. Either we'll buy, rent or borrow one. So if anyone has a line on that tool it'd be much appreciated.

The tool used for seal weld removal by the New Mexico 2926 group was not a grinder. This is a boiler flue facing and beveling machine. There are different companies out there who rent these. Basically it is a lathe that indexes/clamps inside the flue. This also centers the carbide cutter head. This is a pneumatic tool. You can use a spot face carbide cutter set and set the OD of the swing to match up with the seal weld. Turn the machine on and crank it down and it will peel the seal weld down to where you need it. Don't go too deep as this tool will go right into the sheet. Just leave the weld slightly proud and then this is easily taken away by grinding. It is better if this is done before the flues are cut as you need some length of tube for this machine to clamp into. Then one other thing you can do with this machine. Set the OD of the swing just inside of the diamter of the flue hole then you can cut down into the flue wall thinning the flue so that the stub is easily knocked out. This operation makes flue removal so much easier and faster. These tools as I mentioned are really end prep tools but will work as I used it. They have a bunch of different carbide cutters depending on what you wish to do.

One other thing I use a facing tool for. Instead of cutting each flue/tube to length by measuring between sheets is to cut all the flues to one length, the longest measured length. install all the flues and roll one end only. Then on the other end use the facing tool to trim to the needed length. This is a giant time saver. You also get a cleaner cut than you do with a cuttoff saw.

There are a lot of new tools out there, just search for boiler tools and look through the catalogs. This particular machine was rented from an Esco distributor. The tool I used was a wart millhog.

http://www.escotool.com/default.html

Since there aren't many pictures from inside a locomotive boiler, I figured others might enjoy and/or benefit from seeing a few :)

The interior of the Coos Bay #11 (2-8-2T) boiler after it'd been sandblasted earlier this year.

Look at H2O side of rear (firebox) tube sheet). That's the throttle rod/linkage at the top center of the picture. We had to unwillingly cut it in the process of getting the throttle out (loooooonnggg story) going on the thought that that rod is easily replaced. Especially since we now have the blueprints to the engine :)

Similar view showing more of the ends of the cutoff 2" flues. We used a flue cutter on the majority of them (160+). Was a definite learning experience !

Looking towards the front (smokebox) tube sheet. You don't realize how many tube sheet stays are there till ya get up close and personal ! AND this is not a large engine.


continued in next post :

Closer view of the dry pipe and front tube sheet stays.
Firebox corner and staybolts.

Firebox sheet to boiler shell staybolts.


continued ....

More firebox staybolts. On the left hand side of the picture, the extra threads that are sticking out of the boiler wall (firebox sheet is on right) surrounding the staybolts are actually the flexible staybolt "cups" in which the staybolt head can align itself to the curved shape of the firebox sheet. Also as the firebox heats up the sheet will tend to expand, so this arrangement allows the bolts to move a little bit as the sheets move. (Hope I got the right ! I'm certainly no expert :D )

The crown sheet (i.e. the roof of the firebox) showing a number of the crown stays. The light at the end of the "tunnel" in the center of the picture is from a removed boiler washout plug.

Another view of the crown sheet. Top center is a boiler backhead stay, top left pipe is the pipe from the steam dome to the steam turret in the cab which supplies steam to the various appliances, e.g. the injectors and atomizer.

continued ...

Wider view looking back towards firebox. The sunlight at the top center is coming thru the steam dome. That's where you get into the boiler and also where the throttle sits.

Closer view of front sheet stays and dry pipe that runs thru the front sheet into the superheater header.

This is where the feed water 9from the injector) enters the boiler through a check valve

continued...

I see daylight ! Looking up into the steam dome. Most of the time the pictures you see are looking down into the boiler from the outside. The flange near near the center/bottom right and slightly visible at center/upper right are where the throttle sits. The board on the bottom right is covering up the throttle dry pipe connection (didn't want junk/grit/sand to get in while it was being sandblasted. The pipe in the upper left is the steam pipe to the steam turret in the cab that supplies steam to the various appliances.

Here's me using an ultrasound meter to take a thickness measurement of the boiler barrel. You need to use some sort of "couplant" between the ultrasound probe (beneath my index finger) and the material you are testing. This liquid (using oil here, there are many different couplants, even saliva -ask me how I know ....) "couples" the sound wave from the probe to the metal. The thickness is determined by how long the sound wave takes to reflect from the other side of the material back to the ultrasound meter. i.e. how fast sound waves travel in a given material. The meter need to be calibrated for the given type of metal, here it's the boiler shell, some sort of steel mixture. Yes, there are much fancier meters with nice graphing display. I completely lucked out and found this one on eBay very inexpensively. In fact it's the same model that Dave Griner showed us when he came out 2 years ago to do a quick check on this engine's condition. I'm sending it in to get calibrated as we speak.

Yours truly playing groundhog with the steam dome :P

continued...

Tube cutter - 2"

Pneumatic drive for tube cutter

Tube cutter ready for use.

continued...

Business end of the tube cutter. These tips are very similar to a lathe cutting tool. The more pressure you apply to the collar on the tool, the farther apart the tips spread, thus cutting wider (deeper) into the tube wall.

Whole shebang inside tube.

The cutter tips are about 6" inside the tube. The tips rotate, cutting the tube from the inside out leaving a beveled edge, lots of lubrication required. As mentioned above, the more pressure you apply against the tube, the farther apart those cutting tips spread, the deeper they cut into the tube wall. If you get a good rhythm going with sharp cutting tips, and plenty of cutting oil, it'll cut thru the tube in about 10 mins or less. It can take longer with dull tips (can be resharpened on a grinder), lack of lubrication, cutting swarf getting in the way, not applying enough pressure on tool for cutting tips to dig in, insufficient air pressure (not enough torque on drive, RPM's too slow), etc. So takes a bit of practice.

continued ....

AND lastly, me, modeling that tube cutter and the latest in steam locomotive mechanic fashion...

Hope you enjoyed my passing along a few tidibts :)

Mike

Great photo essay! Should be viewed by anyone considering restoring a steam locomotive. I would suggest reposting it when the project is complete to remind everyone what it took to bring the old "Coosbanian" back to life. Studying the photos made me glad to be into electric railway car preservation. Steam boiler work is a task where claustrophobiacs need not apply.

Great photos. Couple of questions {couple means more than 2?}.

I am not up on this locomotive so I have to ask, when did it last run? Do you have any pre sandblasting pics? The reason I ask is the boiler looks rather clean and not a lot of scale, but it is hard to tell what it started out like. From your pics the boiler looks pretty decent so far. The stays look almost new compared to some I have seen. Does anybody know when the boiler was last overhauled or did the previous operators use good water and sound water treatment/preventative maint? Again I ask this as pics of the remaining tubes look very clean and the crown sheet and radial stays look very good yet. Very nice pics and thanks for posting them.

Sounds like you have some quality leadership on this project and of course that is a good thing. Your post about ultra sounding techniques reminds me of a failed ultra sound test that cost thousands of dollars in material and labor. It might of been lack of project leadership as well. But what happened is this boiler was ultra sounded a number of times by different people and the results were not accurate or believed by the people in charge, not sure which. A whole lot of money got sunk into this boiler because nobody caught the bad numbers that leaked through. Eventually a bright young mechanic caught the mistakes and the whole inside of the firebox was junk. Crown, side, door sheets all of it. The whole point I am trying to make is get a good company or trained people to do it right the first time. Right at the same time and place another boiler was being worked on, the owner chose to do his homework and he hired the testing by a professional testing company. Everybody laughed at him for throwing his money away on paying someone to U/S his boiler. It probably cost him about $2000 to have it professionally done, but his paperwork looks good and they found only a few surprises when they got into the boiler deep, none of it related to bad U/S readings.

Boilers are full of surprises good and bad, good testing helps and a qualified person doing the Form 4 will pay dividends in the end of it all. Don't care who you have and how qualified the boiler guy is there might be some surprises, but if you can overhaul or rebuild your boiler the first time, you can save a lot of money rather than going back at it 2 or 3 times until it is done right.

That is quite an engine you have there and best of luck on the work coming up. Cheers, John.

From the physical evidence in photos # 4, 9 & 11, there was a lot of mineral present, and circulating in the water. The scale looks somewhat soft and not baked-on hard,
so some treatment was apparently used. I'm guessing it was a carbonate cycle treatment, possibly soda ash and starch, or a Porta type treatment, soda ash and a modern polymer. Whatever it was, it was a valiant attempt under difficult conditions.
It appears that there was not enough blowdown, because of the amount of deposits on unheated surfaces, i.e. the buckstay brackets, pins and wedges. These are above the water line and got splashed with the mud that was circulating.

The possibilities are much better for future operations, if the decision is made to proceed in that direction; use softened water for sure and a touch of Terlyn LSB 4000. Two ounces per 1,000 gallons of makeup water, two ounces per hundred gallons on a boiler fill from empty. Use a pocket sized conductivity meter for $ 40 to monitor Total Dissolved Solids ( TDS ). Control blowdown to maintain TDS as high as possible, but not to exceed 3,500 Parts Per Million ( PPM ). Above all, do not let a boiler stand wet or damp and cold. Cold water holds 200,000 times more oxygen than steaming water.

Terlyn LSB is great stuff, but years ago, Bill Bondie of Iron Horse Water either didn't warn operators enough about incorrect improper cold wet layup, or folks thought they knew better and just ignored him. Cold wet layup is often done with utility and industrial boilers, but the water must be treated correctly and boiled to drive off the oxygen. After this, an inert blanket of nitrogen is applied as the boiler is cooling. This keeps the oxygen out and prevents rusting.