Steam & Excursion > Question on installing new tubes/flues

The tubes/flues pretty much fill the entire area of the boiler guts. When you are installing new tubes, you apparently feed the new tube/flue through a convenient hole in the backhead. Then someone inside the boiler helps guide the flue into the correct hole in the front tube sheet.

Eventually you get to the place that there is no place to stand inside the boiler except on loose flues or tubes you have just dragged into place. Walking on the new tubes doesn't sound like that clever an idea. What do you do now?

lwilton Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The tubes/flues pretty much fill the entire area
> of the boiler guts. When you are installing new
> tubes, you apparently feed the new tube/flue
> through a convenient hole in the backhead. Then
> someone inside the boiler helps guide the flue
> into the correct hole in the front tube sheet.
>
> Eventually you get to the place that there is no
> place to stand inside the boiler except on loose
> flues or tubes you have just dragged into place.
> Walking on the new tubes doesn't sound like that
> clever an idea. What do you do now?

Tubes and flues are nearly always installed from the
smokebox end, not through the firedoor. It's not
really necessary to have anyone inside the boiler
itself. Just inside the firebox to guide the rear
end of the tube into it's hole, and in the smokebox
to feed it in.

A chunk of round wood, like the hanger rod for closets works great in a pinch,
sort of like a clutch tool.

Out

And the one in the "Glory Hole" goes in last.