Water Treatment

A special section just for steam engines and boilers, as without these you may as well fit a sail.
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fredrosse
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Re: Water Treatment

Post by fredrosse » Sun Mar 29, 2015 9:15 am

"I flush and fill with welding gasses." WOA! for me, welding gasses are Oxygen and Acetylene!
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Lopez Mike
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Re: Water Treatment

Post by Lopez Mike » Sun Mar 29, 2015 3:05 pm

Let's see. I have, as well as oxygen and acetylene, hydrogen (for low temperature flames), helium, Argon/CO2 mix, MAP and (not welding) dry air and nitrogen for filling optical instruments. Looks like a damned gas supply house around here sometimes.

I wonder if acetylene would work as an anti corrosion blanket if you kept the pressure down? I'm not much of a chemist. And CO2. You could flush by dropping a bunch of dry ice in the boiler and let it vent until the pressure stabilized. If I remember right, dry ice when contained can get up to something like 800 psi before it starts liquifying! A whole new meaning to the notion of blowing down (up) cold.
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Re: Water Treatment

Post by Jack Innes » Sun Mar 29, 2015 4:57 pm

Mike,
I would be cautious with acetylene, it is very explosive & easily lit. I have removed truck tires from impossible split rims by introducing acetylene through the valve stem, put chains around the tire & rim in several places then with a lit rag on a long stick you just need to get near the stem & a massive explosion results, often with the split rim separated & the tire loose. The tire is often ruined & the tube will be definitely destroyed. I would not endorse this as anywhere near safe or advisable. (Remember Red Green & I are both Canadian!)

Around here Bell Telephone often will attach a nitrogen bottle to large, sealed lines & regulate the pressure very low to purge water from the lines. The slight pressure prevents more water from entering as well. Sometimes you will see a bottle & regulator chained to a post for months. Could a good tight boiler be treated the same way?

Jack
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Re: Water Treatment

Post by Lopez Mike » Sun Mar 29, 2015 5:14 pm

Yeah, I know about acetylene explosions. One day, in a fit of boredom I was making acetylene bubbles in a pan of soapy water and lighting them. Nothing much happening. Just a quiet 'foop'. Then I got creative and snuffed out a neutral oxyacetylene flame and lit a nice big bubble. God snapped his fingers. Ringing in the ears. Salty taste in the mouth. A cracked window. The cat came back in a few hours. Don't do it.

Of course I grew up with friends named Four Fingers, One Eye and Gimpy. Those were the girls.

Those bottles that the phone company uses are, indeed, for flushing. There is also a system in major cables where the cable is pressurized at the central office and there is a dedicated pair of wires within the cable and pressure switches every few hundred feet along the way. If there is a cable cut, all the tech has to do is measure the resistance to the switch that is closed and calculate how far along the route the failure has happened. It known in the trade as Backhoe Disease.
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Re: Water Treatment

Post by cyberbadger » Sun Mar 29, 2015 9:54 pm

This is fun one on acetylene and an idiot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fWBINa7cxI

:shock:

-CB
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Re: Water Treatment

Post by Lopez Mike » Sun Mar 29, 2015 10:22 pm

Yeow! And my stupid soap bubble was only maybe three inches max. No wonder my ears were ringing. The other thing I had forgotten was all of the dust and dirt from the shop rafters raining down.

There are other equally retarded ways to mess up. I was visiting my aging parents 25 years ago on a trip home from overseas (a break from sailing about the Pacific ocean). I was in the basement under his shop building when all hell broke loose. Big thump and the building jumped. I ran upstairs to find the shop full of stinky smoke and a small area of the wall behind the propane floor heater on fire. I put out the fire with a mop and surveyed the scene.

After some sleuthing I figured out that he had set a rattle can of red paint down on the heater and wandered away. After I finished cleaning up, there were nice white outlines of everything that had been hanging on the walls nearby. The big sliding shop door was off its track. Some of the fluorescent tubes were red on the bottom. Big mess.

I suggested to my mom a wire mesh pyramid on the stove to prevent a repeat performance. She suggested that the pyramid be on him.
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Re: Water Treatment

Post by DetroiTug » Mon Mar 30, 2015 12:40 pm

"Steel will rust quickly if exposed to the oxygen in air"

Steel simply exposed to air and even humid air will not rust quickly or at all in my experience. In an unheated storage where the steel is cold from evening temps and then subjected to warm damp morning air, the moisture will condense on the surface. That will rust it quickly.

I have blocks of steel that are bare and different grades that have been in my shop for close to 20 years, no rusting at all. Steel only rusts when exposed to moisture repeatedly over time. As I wrote though, that is based only on my anecdotal experience with it.

In an unheated storage, it would probably be best to put a drop light in the firebox if the valves are left open.

Repeated or continued water on the surface rusts steel very fast. Bury a piece of common low carbon steel (like we use in our boilers)about 2" deep in soil where it stays damp, it will rust very quickly. Some building codes have provisions for steel that comes in contact foundation walls, because the masonry holds water if exposed to it, same as burying it. It will rust it right out. Leather holsters, sheaths for guns etc, same deal, keep it oiled or it will rust because the leather can retain moisture.

-Ron
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Re: Water Treatment

Post by cyberbadger » Fri Apr 23, 2021 2:24 pm

I just received my second case of LSB8000.

It is very easy to use, I just use an oz when filling the boiler.

You can also add it to make up water, but the majority of it will stay in the boiler as long as the boiler isn't drained. (8 oz is enough for 1000 gallons of makeup)

My boiler is 6 years old, I don't have an endoscope but the little I can see inside the steel is passivized as black magnetite from the LSB8000.

One (1) Case of 12 Pint Bottles……………..…. $135.00 plus UPS shipping ($22 to Ohio)

I find LSB very cheap for all it does. I throw hard water in it at home, and I suck up lake water, it comes through 2 filters to keep out algae and seaweed.
A chemistry set is unnecessary with LSB8000, if you over dose it it will not damage the boiler.

http://www.terlyn.com/locomotive-steam- ... treatment/

From what I've heard this amine based water treatment is used by US Navy vessels.

For full details and instructions check Terlyn's website.

-CB
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