THIS CHAPTER DESCRIBES ALL the tools and basic ready-made items that can be purchased, as well as the raw materials that will also be required to build the burners described in this book. It also covers the workshop facilities, including machine tools, that are likely to be needed. It does not include what is needed for silver soldering, which is covered inChapter 2.
Building ceramic burners is not a difficult task, but does require a few items not normally found in many modellers’ workshops. One unusual tool is required, a ceramic saw, as well as high-temperature adhesive/ filler and high-temperature paint. These are easily obtained either from DIY or specialist suppliers, or on eBay. Building burners also requires a range of machine tools, some of which are fairly normal such as a lathe, and a few that are slightly less common, but that you may need depending on which burner you decide to build, such as a vertical milling machine and a rotary table. Likely to be found in the scrap box are short lengths of brass rod and possibly some pieces of copper tube.
COPPER AND BRASS
Two metals are predominantly used in the construction of all the burners in this book: copper and brass. Copper is not simple to machine or drill but is very malleable and easy to bend into shape. Drilling is best done with a special copper-drilling bit that looks similar to a wood drill. Brass, on the other hand, is straightforward to machine, though drilling can be awkward at the point of breakthrough. Brass is readily bent but not as easily as copper. Annealing either metal makes bending relatively simple. Brass needs an etch primer if you wish to paint it, but to date there are no heat-resistant etch primers.
It is important to realize that lengths of copper pipe from plumbing suppliers will be a different size from those purchased from model engineering suppliers, so it is important that where end caps and short lengths of tube are needed, they will fit into each other.
Cutting Lubricant for Copper
A number of lubricants are recommended for use when machining copper: sulphur-free cutting oil, dry soluble oil, lard oil, and paraffin or mineral lard oil. A practical tip I learned from Martin Gearing in hisModel Engineer articles on the ME vertical boiler is to use original bright-green Swarfega Classic as a lubricant when drilling copper. A can is illustrated inFigure 15. It cleans off easily and has no negative effect on silver soldering. It is an excellent cutting fluid, or rather a jelly, for copper. It is still widely available both from Screwfix and Amazon. For drilling and milling, the bit can be dipped into some Swarfega, whilst for turning, a brush will prove ideal for applying it. Although it is also ideal for cleaning hands at the end of a session, do keep two separate containers to prevent polluting the hand cleaner with swarf.
FIG. 15
Swarfega Classic, the original hand cleaner, is a fine lubricant when machining copper.
BURNER BODIES
The bodies of the round burners described inChapter 3 are made from copper plumbing end caps of different sizes, and short lengths of copper plumbing tube. Likewise, all the round burners inChapters 4 and5 involve the use of plumbing end caps. A number of different-size end caps can be seen inFigure 16. It is essential that these end caps are not the Yorkshire type, as these contain a ring of soft solder that will make silver soldering impossible. As all copper plumbing materials are only available in metric dimensions, imperial sizes are not normall
