> At my place of work (and most home shops), oil soak is much more
> prevalent than cat litter.
You mean there's something other than cat litter to soak up oil?
Man, living in the 21st century is amazing!
> On the subject of refractory (fireplace) brick, you might have a difficult
> time finding them anymore.
That's a discouraging report. I just bought a bunch three or four
years ago, and it seemed like just another transaction to them. (But
I did have to call a couple of places to find the one that carried
firebricks). I guess I'll have to lock them in the toolbox with my other
valuable and easily stolen tools!
On the topic of brazing hearths: often the dissipation of the boiler
(esp. large boilers) is too much for your torch -- even a big one. It's
often useful to have a helper with another torch (handheld plumber's
seems to work) to give it more therms. Someone over on the large-
scale steamers mentioned brazing over a barbecue grill, will the
burners on that turned up full blast to provide the auxiliary heat.
If you get your hearth or cat litter bed or whatever set up properly,
you may not need this, but keep in mind that you may need even
more heat than one torch can deliver.
Has anyone compared a fancy-pants rig like a Sievert with those
weed-burner monsters from the mail-order tool houses? They, too,
connect to your propane bottle. I recall that they delivered a whole
lot of BTUs through a rather large head -- which fairly describes the
rosebud heads generally recommended for boiler work.
-vance-
