Pin holes and leaky rivets

[Pete92]

Hello,

I reacently picked up a part built 3 1/2" Maisie on Ebay.

I have been doing a bit of work on the boiler, plugging up and fitting the longitudinal stays.

Anyway the time came to put some water in and test it. Well for a gamble off ebay it wasn't too bad generally. But there were a few issues.

The boiler has had some rivets fitted and hammered over, well nearly every one was leaking. From past experience these sometimes take up when hydraulic tested. But not this time. Does anyone have any tips for sealing these up?

Another issue, is there are a few places where the solder joint has a pin hole. there is one round the dome bush and another on a firebox stay. How would people go about sorting this out? I am reluctant to use heat. What about drilling and tapping for a plug?

Cheers,

Pete

 

[chrsbrbnk]

on a steel boiler I was told not to worry about them as they would rust seal right away copper maybe not so much?

 

[Jasonb]

Best to talk to your boiler inspector, at the end of the day he is going to have the final say not us.

J

 

[Dr Jo]

A Masie boiler is fairly small so when you cay "rivets fitted" are they silver soldered in or totally reliant on the riveting? One of the problems with using commercial copper rivets is that they come with a protective coating which needs to be removed prior to silver soldering or the solder won't take. If the coating has been left on then it looks like you need to replace them.

As for pin holes a gentle tap with a blunt punch can often solve it. Otherwise it will be a case of generally heating and then looking to reflow the offending joints using a locallised heat such as Oxy Acetylene.

Jo