This past Saturday, January 30th, marked the first work session of 2016 for American Steam Railroad in Cleveland, OH. Present were Steven Harvey, Jason Sobczynski, Rachel Weibel, Gordon Hartschuh, Richard Cary, Matt Ash, Stephanie Bierley, Chris Howell, Jake Crayton, Eric Kapustin and Greg Brown.

This weekend, work continued to be focused on the firebox and preparations for the upcoming hydro test later this winter. Tasks completed are as follows:
1. Finished the project of ringing and logging all of the bad staybolts that need to be replaced. This will be as a result of tale tell holes being too short/not drilled out properly and ones that are broken.
2. Wire wheeling the inside of the firebox for preparation of the ultra sound grid to double the numbers and for a hydro after the ultra sound is complete.
3. Continued wire brushing the outside of the boiler to make way for rust preventative paint that will be applied for the hydro and later on will be blasted off after de-wheeling the locomotive to make way for clean metal to apply hi-temp anti-rust paint.
4. Jason machined five (5) new custom lapping tools to lap all of the washout plug seats in prep for hydro
5. All washout plugs were removed and lapping of the dozen or so plugs were started in preparation for the hydro test.

Upcoming Events:
The next volunteer work sessions are February 6 and 20th at the MRPS roundhouse at 2800 West 3rd St. in Cleveland, OH. Saturday, February 27th is our first annual safety training class to be held in Mt. Vernon, OH at the former PRR station which is now a meeting and conference center operated by the City of Mt. Vernon.

Remember, our work on the 2100 moves at the speed of money! Your contribution is always appreciated and welcome! Hope to see you this year down at the roundhouse or at a train show near you.

Sincerely,

Rob Gardner
American Steam Railroad Preservation
Fireup2100.org

February 6, 2015
ASR 2100 Work Session Report

The ASR 2100 work session on Saturday, February 6, 2015 at the roundhouse in Cleveland was a productive one. Ten (10) volunteers continued work on the firebox this past Saturday including: Steven Harvey, Brian Tusin, Perry Krzyzaniak, Gordon Hartschuh, Paul Volosyn, Rick Owings, Forrest Nance, Eric Kupusta, Jake Crayton, Chris Howell.

There are a total of thirty-six (36) washout plugs on the boiler and firebox. This week, the last of the 36 washout plug caps were removed; some requiring heat to loosen them up. Six (6) of the thirty six (36) seats are now completely lapped using Jason Sobczynski’s specially made lapping tools and lapping compound. Many of the seats are in relatively good condition and will take an hour or so to completely lap. A number of them, however, are so bad that multiple copper gaskets were found from their last installation. It is our intention to polish and lap all of the seats properly so no gaskets are required to seat the caps this time. Additional wire wheeling both outside and inside the firebox also continued. Roughly 75% of the firebox exterior has been wire wheeled and 60% of the firebox interior is now prepped for gridding. Once the wire wheeling is complete, all exterior surfaces will be painted with rust preventer paint to be applied in March. We are getting ever closer to the UT testing of the firebox which needs to be completed prior to hydro-testing the boiler.

Upcoming Events:
Our next work session is February 20th at the MRPS roundhouse on West 3rd St. in Cleveland.

Our first annual safety training class will be held Saturday, February 27th in Mt. Vernon, OH at the former B&O train station conference room. Last week, we reported that it would be held in the PRR station, but that is incorrect.

Volunteering:
Remember that in order to volunteer with ASR on the 2100, you need to be fully paid dues paying member in good standing in order to be covered by ASR’s insurance policy while onsite. You must also sign and complete the waiver. Both documents can be found online or can be filled out at the roundhouse in person with an ASR officer.

ASR is looking for volunteers to help in the following areas. If you have an interest in contributing to this restoration effort and have skills in one or more of these areas, we want you!:
1. Machining
2. Welding
3. Boilermakers
4. Pipefitting
5. Carpentry skills
6. Electrical work
7. Painting skills

We are looking forward to seeing you soon at an upcoming work session!

Sincerely,

Rob Gardner
ASR Fundraising Chairman

Would it be a good idea to use gaskets anyway? The gasket would protect the lapped surface. Without the gasket, water will penetrate the joint up to the sealing line, and corrode the exposed part of the joint.

I don't think he's saying they wouldn't use a gasket in the joint, only that you wouldn't require more than a nominal small thickness to get a seal, let alone stacked multiple thicknesses.

Technically I spoze you could put some kind of anti-seize material in the joint to give the effect of a seal between the lapped surfaces witout inducing galling when the plugs are tightened or allowing corrosion between the two hard surfaces. But it's hard to imagine that working as well as a hard-but-deformable metal gasket in the joint, relatively impervious to attack by the boiler chemistry and accommodating any residual issues with the surface finish or accidentally-introduced contaminants whenever the plugs are removed (as I expect they might fairly often be even with effective water treatment)

I realize there may not be as much need for an intermediate gasket or washer when you have similar metals (cf. the almost universal use of copper washers between aluminum oil pans and steel plugs). There might also be less need if the plugs were tensioned directly down, e.g. with bridges or using Superbolting, as opposed to being torqued to seal. But if the plugs are wrenched to what amounts to an interference fit I'd sure want something between those lapped faces!

How many washouts will it take before the perfectly lapped seats have galled or worn to the point to where there is no longer a good seal, nicked by the spray nozzles or impacted by an errant piece of scale stuck to the lapped surface and then torqued down on?

I too would think that a copper gasket would be a good thing to minimize the effects of regular usage.

You are going to want to use anti seize or some form of thread treatment anyhow. The original design of the plug and seat will show you whether a gasket is required or not.

What confuses me is the idea of removing and replacing a staybolt with a too short drill - why not just drill them deeper in place?

Knowing some of the other stuff found on 2100, maybe there is fear they used inferior materials/processes to make the staybolts. They found hardware store cast iron welded to the boiler, ya know.

Guys, as I understand it, the use of 1 or 2 gaskets is just standard industry practice, not an FRA requirement. What we are after, more than anything, is to correct the ones that had 5 and 6 gaskets, but all will get lapped to the greatest extent possible.

Jason, feel free to correct me if I am wrong here.

Rob Gardner.

Best practice is to do a quick clean up of the seat and the mating surface on the plug itself after any plug removal. This involves no cutting but keeps everything sealing up properly.

I've never seen a gasket on the surface between the plug and sleeve. I have seen a thin gasket used at the top surface the plug mates with, but that was usually just because the above had not been followed.