Being out of school for a few weeks allowed me to go to Mid Continent and Milwaukee Boiler for some R&R during the last three weeks. I bought a digital camer to document some of the cool stuff I get involved with. Cool to me anyway. I bought a memory card that has given me nothing but grief. Last week I took about 25 photos of the Polson #2 boiler in respect to the work being done at Milw Boiler. I was able to have prints made up, but unable to download or put on CD. So today it was supposed to work and didn't again. This time I lost all the pictures, unless they are hiding somewhere in my computer and if they are I don't know where. I wanted these pics for myself as well as to share here. I feel pictures give a much better understanding of the scope of any boiler work. ARG.

So anyway the two days I spent at Milw Boiler was mostly doing grinding on the belly patch and surrounding area. The weld will be 100% penitration so a beveling we went. We also straightened a few pcs that will become a complex weldment. Mostly a new throat sheet/belly patch combined into one weldment. This will eliminate at least one rivet seam. I really want a picture of this. The prep work, fitting, welding, grinding, riveting, Xraying and ultra sounding seems to go on forever. But hopefully in the next few weeks big parts will be going on and the boiler will look whole again. Of course with out pictures you can use your imagination. I am pissed about the camera thing. Gary Bensman is shooting for Spring 2007 for getting the boiler done and ready to ship home. We did have another set back with a new belly patch {small} that hadn't been planned on. There had been some pad welding done earlier near the bottom of the rivet seam between the two boiler courses. There was also a small section of ugliness, that even though was within legal limits will be cut out and replaced. The old pad welding and sad area around rivet seam will be cut out. Now is the time to fix it right, so a little extra work in now involved, nothing to serious, just more work.

I hope your imaginations work better than my camera's memory card {if this turns out to be operators error, it will remain my own little secret}.
Cheers, John.