Lagging....

[barts]

I've been spending some time working on Rainbow, and needed to cover the insulation on some the steam piping. I read about Arabol and other casein-derived goo that could be used to protect pipe insulation. It occurred to me that a more modern wood glue might work as well, so I tried Tite-bond III with some reasonable success. I used some 4" wide cotton lagging tape as I had some I was given many years ago; the cloth is readily available but not in tape form anymore.

I had a receiver that needed some help as it tended to get dirty quickly. First, as it was when I bought Rainbow:
Second, after a coat of slightly water thinned Tite-bond III and some initial application of cloth:
And lastly, with more cloth and a coat of Rustoleum white gloss enamel.

Anyway, this works and the glue really prevents the rope from soaking up the paint.

- Bart

[TahoeSteam]

Hi Bart,

When I was working on one of the Stanleys for 'that collector' we did a smoke hood simply using 1/4" fiberfrax mat, fiberglass weave cloth, and latex paint to wet the cloth. The insulation was good enough to keep from affecting the paint, even with the hellacious heat the smoke hood saw.

[barts]

One of the reasons I like the glue before the paint is that it forms a hard skin. Under the Stanley's hood you're unlikely to get much mechanical damage, but in Rainbow with the people sitting around the boiler and engine we're more likely to see the insulation disturbed. Also, we feed the boiler w/ wood, so getting stuff rugged seems like a good idea.

I'd not played w/ 1/4" fiberfrax before; I have the 1" stuff around Otter's watertube boiler and it works very well indeed. I'll try some - thanks.

- Bart