Boiler Summer

So this is the summer of the boiler. It was sitting in the corner, collecting dust so I wanted to finish it.

First to be finished was the smokebox:

That's not a fire in the furnace. The shop is humid so a heat lamp keeps the local dew point from condensing on and rusting the steel. As was typical, the smokebox door is hung on hinges and secured with dogs. It can quickly be unsecured and swung up to snug a tube, clean the tubes or whatnot. The unfinished water glass is to the right.

Here's another picture of the smokebox end with a temporary stack for fire up:

Next was to finish the grate bearers and the grates. The grates are solid bar, UK style. In this photo, the firebrick is visible lining the combustion chamber. For anthracite firing, fire brick is essential for retaining and reflecting the heat. For hardwood, they could be taken out except for the furnace end wall.

The grate area is two square feet with the brick in. Below's a picture of the combustion chamber before the reflective plenum is placed in. After the plenum was in, I sealed everything with a 5,000 F goo.

The refractory brick is shown before I covered all of the supports with cement.

Here's a shot of the outside:

Items of note: There's the combustion chamber seam cover strip to the left. Two angle iron supports, center and front behind the glass will support the jacket later. The insulation will be an inch thick. No one should have a cow about the piping. Except for the schedule 80 steel nipples, it is all class 300 bronze and brass.