We had a crew working on White Pass #73 this last week. They performed a general inspection, installed the pistons, the overhauled mechanical lubricators, new injectors, and new pop valves, then fired up and test ran her (lucky bastards) to confirm that she can be ready for service when needed.








Yesterday, Paul, Steve, and Brendan attempted to fly from Juneau to BWI while holding their breath (kind of makes up for getting to take that test run)...

Which guy is Yesterday?

That would be me.

Novice to steam plumbing here;

Is that just 'regular' teflon tape on the threaded connections?

Very nice plumbing job and awesome the crew got to take the loco for a test drive.

I'm not sure what WP&Y has in stock in the way of Teflon tape, but our standard is to use the high density military grade tape such as McMaster Carr sells.

If by "regular telfon tape" you mean the crap that Harbor Freight or Walmart sells to seal your shower head with, absolutely not!

Personally I was thinking of the junk Home Depot sells....lol.

Thank you for the answer! Learned something new today.

Thanks Kelly, I didn't know there were different grades, but than I only do household repairs. Good to know!

some steam shops will not allow any teflon tape in them, because if some of the tape is exposed to the steam, it strings out and can muck up things badly. Teflon never "hardens" even solid teflon deforms as it is basically a "super-cooled liquid."
I prefer Rector-Seal compounds myself for steam fitting, that and Anti-sieze on bolts.
But--just my opinion!

I prefer whatever works and is available.

It must be nice to work on a "new" narrow-gauge engine.

BTW:

Skagway: Saturday Rain likely. Highs in the lower 60s. Southwest winds 15 to 20 mph.

Strasburg: Saturday A chance of showers and thunderstorms after 2pm. Areas of fog before 8am. Otherwise, partly sunny, with a high near 89. Calm wind. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

Phil Mulligan

Very nice work by the Strasburg crew.

In some RR shops Teflon (tm) tape is strictly forbidden, it tends to get "grabbed up" by folks doing air brake piping and it can "tear off" leaving little pieces that get into the small control orifices common in brake valves. This advice was forwarded to us from former ALCO locomotive works technical folks.

And Teflon (tm) does indeed continue to "creep" while the pipe "dope" does indeed setup into a solid seal.

But with proper guidance in place Teflon (tm) is a very useful method to seal pipes.

I do wonder how steam loco's ran fine for a hundred years before the invention of Teflon ?

But, you NEVER use Teflon tape on air bake pipe and fittings.

I am told it was banished from air brake piping when it was found to break off pieces that then jammed up the action of the valves.

Ditto for hydraulic systems.

Gee, we never got that memo. We make a point of never letting it slip over the end of a pipe, and when disassembling, we make point of cleaning out all of the shreds in the female fitting before reassembling, and we have never had a problem with it. Remember, the military grade Teflon tape isn't the same stuff as the "do it yourself center" grade junk.

Yep.

I'm sorry, but teflon is teflon, the grade of it doesn't change it's qualities. It will string out and cause problems. Yes, if you are very careful with it's application, you are not likely to get it in the fluid stream, but when there are other products that are "safer" to use, and have decades of history of quality, why risk the accidental mis-step in application?
As to "what's handy and available" I prefer future folks to look at work I've done with approval.