Great care must be taken in expanding flues not to expand them so hard as to stretch or enlarge the hole containing flue in the flue sheet, thereby loosening the adjoining flue. After all the loose flues have been carefully expanded, take the beading tool and place the long or guide end within the flue, then with the aid of a light hammer the ends of flues can be gradually beaded or calked against the flue sheet, rendering them perfectly tight. With a little practice, a careful man can do a neat job of calking, thereby avoiding loss of time and expense in being obliged to call a boiler maker. An expander and calking tools should be among the tools of every engineer, as many little leaks that may occur in a steam boiler, although they may not be dangerous, give it a bad appearance and should be calked and stopped by the engineer.
CLEANING FLUES.
Q. How are boiler flues cleaned?
A. There are two ways of cleaning flues, viz: with a steam blower and a scraper. The latter is more commonly used and when properly applied does its work most efficiently.
The scraper is screwed on the end of a rod of sufficient length to allow it to pass through the flue, and when cleaning, the scraper should be passed forward and backward through the flue or least two or three times, to insure all the soot and ashes being removed.
Wilson Pat. Flue Scraper.
The cleaning of flues should be done systematically, as often as required to keep them clean, as clean flues not only add greatly to the steaming capacity of the boiler, but make a great difference in the amount of fuel used.