Want to see some nice stainless headers?

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the ThermoFin folks in Bozeman, Montana sent this picture of some custom manifolds and boxes they built. For a snowmelt I believe.

They do some neat stuff up there. I did a story for PM mag back in Sept. 96 on an entire western town that they heated with a couple large oil fired Viessmann Biferral. Quite impressives.

Sorry about the Scorched Air statement. I've gotten much more accepting in my older age :)

hot rod

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Shelby

Stainless headers?

Must be that new copper colored stainless steel. I got a pic of that same kind of stuff. Just kidding. Nice job though.

DanHolohan

Might be

a good product to review for On the Job. You think?

Rudy

Stainless steel

After working as a welder/fabricator ten years overlapping to the heating trades I must confess............Stainless Steel is my favorite exotic metal. What a beautiful alloy. Way to go, Dale.

Dale Pickard

More SS Manifolds

Hey HotRod,

I didn't know you would post that old photo. Here are some that show the manifolds a little more closely. We started making these back in the old days when we were using Polybutylyene and we were concerned about oxygen diffusion. We've built the copper ones forever but didn't think they were stout enough. The copper didn't lend itself to what we were doing with the slab enclouse which is design set flush with the top of the slab. We have custom made these for our own projects but haven't offered them for sale.

The body is a Tig welded type 304 SS Tube 1-1/2" x 1-1/2" x .049"
It's pretty stout. For snowmelt we are building 2" x 2" x .0625"
We Tig weld SS end caps on which we have laser cut for us. The connections are SS half couplings that we turn a step on in our mill to insert in the holes that we bore in the mill. The half couplings are silver brazed into the body with a 50% silver brazing alloy. The brazing alloy is very thin, the maximum gap we create in the joint is .007"

Then we braze them in with oxy/acetyl equipped with a gas fluxer that puts liquid flux into the gas flame, keeping the flame wet and lowering the brazing temperature. Anybody who brazes should get a gas fluxer. These joints are super strong. We don't put as much heat into the manifold bodies by brazing them in this way rather than tig welding.

The enclosures are designed to allow the manifolds to be taken out. It's also designed so that all of the tubing comes into the face of the manifold at the same elevation. We have them CNC punched and assembled for us in galvanized steel and in aluminum. We can end feed, top feed or face feed.

These manifolds are great for slabs. In large slabs, like aircraft hangers, we install discrete tube layouts in 1/2" or 5/8" and then then end feed with 1" , 40mm or 5mm PEX (1-1/4" fittings) We can place several manifolds in the slab around the perimeter of the building and then daisy chain them together IN THE SLAB, bring a single set of PEX supply and return lines up from the slab in the mechanical room. The whole slab can be pressure tested from one place. Beats hanging miles of copper from the walls and it's a lot cleaner. No tubing is exposed.
Similar things can be done with snowmelts only the 2" bodies are fitted to serve 3/4" tubing.
I posted some photos. Some of unfinished and finished. We've taken to having them powder coated because they look so cool. (and we don't work as hard at cleaning them.)

Dale

Mad Dog

cool

mad dog

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Guy_5

Real Stainless

Here is a photo sent to us by a customer. His work speaks for itself.

Rudy

Boy.......

THAT looks familiar! I guess we'll all have to buy tig welders now that the bar is raised.

jerry scharf

> Here is a photo sent to us by a customer. His

> work speaks for itself.