Archive for The Unofficial Mamod and Other Steam Forum The Original Unofficial Toy Steam Forum Established 2006 The biggest, most popular global steam forum around! Accept NO imitations! We have a growing community of regular posting members who chat about all aspects of toy and model steam.          The Unofficial Mamod and Other Steam Forum Forum Index -> Technical tips, Details, Home Builds and Help Me!! 27ace27 end cap vs. end plate I'm thinking of making my engines with end plates as I can't find anything like an endcap. would you guys buy an engine with a boiler with end plates and a boiler stay rod? scorpion2nz what are you going to make your endplates out of ?Brass if so then it is a simple task to make endcaps  and i think endcaps are safer . in answer to your question ?would I buy an engine with an endplate. NO tmuir I would have to say no ace as is you just solder a plate on the end you only have the thickness of the boiler tube holding the plate on. If you use plumbing pipe that will be about 1mm whilst if you used thinner stuff than Jensens or even thinner modern mamods I doubt it would even hold for more than one or two steamings. Endcaps give you a much larger area for the solder to hold onto and stop the boilers springing a leak. I use the end plate method on meths burners but not boilers. It is ok on the burner for 2 reasons. 1) I silver solder them, 2) The burner has a vent hole so no pressure builds up inside it like a boiler. Toy boilers have been made the same way for more than 100 years now because its the safest way to do it. 27ace27 tmuir wrote: I would have to say no ace as is you just solder a plate on the end you only have the thickness of the boiler tube holding the plate on. If you use plumbing pipe that will be about 1mm whilst if you used thinner stuff than Jensens or even thinner modern mamods I doubt it would even hold for more than one or two steamings. Endcaps give you a much larger area for the solder to hold onto and stop the boilers springing a leak. I use the end plate method on meths burners but not boilers. It is ok on the burner for 2 reasons. 1) I silver solder them, 2) The burner has a vent hole so no pressure builds up inside it like a boiler. Toy boilers have been made the same way for more than 100 years now because its the safest way to do it. so now the question is getting/making endcaps... redryder Re: end cap vs. end plate 27ace27 wrote: I'm thinking of making my engines with end plates as I can't find anything like an endcap. would you guys buy an engine with a boiler with end plates and a boiler stay rod? No I would not buy such a piece.      If you truly want to go into the steam engine manufacturing business, you have my encouragement.....     IF....... you are willing to do this right. That does not mean asking a few questions on this board as that will not give you the needed background.  Look at all the known manufacturers. Most or all were engineers and many were engineers and machinists and tool makers.      You will need to become an engineer and machinist and even a tool maker. For example, Tom Jensen Sr designed and made thousands of tools over the years just so he could build what he designed. There isn't enough of a market that you could hire out the production and be the executive. You will be designing and building these yourself and cleaning up the shop yourself.       I am also not interested in buying a knock off of someones existing design. I will not buy a cheap heap of plumbing fittings cobbled together to resemble a steam engine.       One day in the future I would love to buy a good quality new piece from you if you can produce such a thing. I do believe you can do this and please allow yourself the necessary learning curve. Gil WeedenSteam You really need to spend a bit of time in the Steam Reference Library section of this forum, for a start there is a post about hand bashing end plates: http://modelsteam.myfreeforum.org/about15817.html There is another on making a dies to form them along with a lot of other information about steam in general that one should know before even considering to make a product to sell. johnreid IT takes time, tools, money, and lots of effort. 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. Keith S BK's "big jim" engine has an end plate. MacSteam's gauge 1 locomotive boilers use end plates with stay rods.  They sort of look like butterly boilers with enclosed fireboxes. Of course both of these examples are built of thick copper and silver soldered. Might actually be easier to make endcaps. The extra work of forming an endcap would be nothing to the nightmare of trying to do a good enough job silver soldering an endplate. newsteamer123 Re: end cap vs. end plate 27ace27 wrote: I'm thinking of making my engines with end plates as I can't find anything like an endcap. would you guys buy an engine with a boiler with end plates and a boiler stay rod? -in cough- bras freeze plug metalhead100 Check out the beefy job on this PM boiler kit I built Ace... Rivets Silver Solder Stay rods And flared and crimped tubes Tested to 100 PSI Picture is before i added the remainder of the solder in this area. I built it right and trust it with my LIFE..... Start with a kit boiler/engine and learn why things are built this way and what the reasoning behind them is... Read my friend ! I have learned everything I ever wanted to by doing research and reading technical books ect. Jim redryder Now that is the beginning of a nice sturdy boiler ! Gil AzRob Nice looking boiler there metalhead! metalhead100 That boiler is what runs Junior! I did a build thread....on the forum. Hope I'm not messing up your thread Ace... Jim AzRob How is that fired? With tubes, I assume internal alcohol firing, yeah? scorpion2nz [quote=" Read my friend ! I have learned everything I ever wanted to by doing research and reading technical books ect. Jim[/quote] that sums it all up read ,read and when you think you know it all go and read another book you can never have enough technical and reference books Keith S Jim, could you post the link to your build thread on that boiler? I searched for it and couldn't locate it. I'm interested in how it's fired. I'd like to make a flued horizontal boiler someday. metalhead100 http://modelsteam.myfreeforum.org/about17114.html&highlight= http://modelsteam.myfreeforum.org/about17439.html&highlight= Jim        The Unofficial Mamod and Other Steam Forum Forum Index -> Technical tips, Details, Home Builds and Help Me!! Page 1 of 1