A 19th Century Machine Shop Diorama

[J.L.]

Hi Brian,
Excellent solution and a smooth operation with the leverage you can apply with the lever. 

A good prototype for a larger scale.

In 1/12 scale, my first trial did not go that well. Lever pressure required to slip the bullnose between the jaws stalls the line shaft belt coming from the rear line shaft. The  belt slips off the pulleys.

Back to the drawing board. I think I have a solution though. 

John

[Brian Rupnow]

Sorry if I steered you wrong on that John. I found that my first design did work, but not consistently. The arms were so much longer than the sliding shoes just bound up in the T slot.

[J.L.]

Hi Brian.
Not to worry. You helped me a great deal thinking through this whole process.

She works!!! 

Brian, you can see from the last photo that I almost made the arms too short. The nose of the actuator is hitting the boss of the clutch. You can see marks on it as well. This means the actuator need to come forward more to let those fingers ride up on its round portion.

Easy to tweak, but it means tearing down the whole line shaft to make the adjustment and shorten the boss, letting the nose come forward a bit more.

Success!   

[ddmckee54]

John:

When I first looked at the pictures of the stained belts I thought that you HAD replaced them with leather.  I wouldn't worry about the inside of the belts being black.  Back when Dad still had some farm equipment driven by flat belts we would periodically apply some sort of goop simply labeled as "Belt Dressing" to make things a little stickier.  The belts stuck to the pulleys better, but the dust and grime stuck to the belt better too.  You didn't want to re-lace the belts until you absolutely had to because that could be a real pain, so you'd use belt dressing until that wouldn't work anymore and then re-lace the belt.  Bottom line, unless they are brand new off the shelf, flat belts are going to be black on the inside.

Don

[Brian Rupnow]

John--It looks lovely.---Brian

[Sackett]

John, This thing just keeps getting better> I'm glad you decided to go with a flat belt for the main drive,,,much more realistic. A nice addition (as if you needed to add anything) would be a floating idler on the slack side of the main belt. They were used on drives to A provide more tension,,and B to release that tension when not in use to reduce stretch in the belts.

[J.L.]

Hello Sackett,

Thank you for the comment and the advice.

Your comment about switching to a flat belt from the three cables (photo 1) comes at a very good time. I have just completed turning a new bronze line shaft pulley you see below. With the pulley is a little jig I made to crown it. I saw that idea on the internet in a much larger scale. It works well with the softer metals. You will also see the new brown belt to be used.

Your advice is also timely. I mentioned earlier that the added stress of levering the clutch into action on the 4-step pulley on the front line shaft is causing the drive belt from the back line shaft to run off the pulleys. I'm working on that, but your idea might help here. An adjustable third idler pulley adding pressure outward inside the belt adds physical tension. I don't understand though how a floating pulley reduces tension. Isn't gravity maintaining tension?

[J.L.]

A parallel project is under way as well. These ceiling fixtures will form the basis of industrial lights to be suspended from the beams of the diorama.

I will assume that when they converted from gas to electric lighting, many of the gas pipes were kept in place and reused as conduit lines. Knob and tube surface wiring may have been used to get the wires to the existing pipes, so I hope to show a little bit of that in the boiler room where the wires would have entered the building.

By 1887, factory conversions from gas to electricity was well under way.

Kit bashing will give these lights an industrial look with the removal of the gold chain and painting the shades industrial green.

[crueby]

Those lights are going to look great!

[J.L.]

Thanks Chris.

Removing the rings that held the chain left a little round nub that looked awfully close to the ID of a 5/32" brass tube. Sure enough, as these photos will show, a little turning down produced a ready made fixture for mounting the light reflectors.

I think the lights will hang down about 2' from the beams (i.e. 2")

[b.lindsey]

John,

Those will look great with the modifications you describe. Are you still going to use the doll house "Plugs" that come with them?  Those are the only things I dislike about dollhouse lighting...the plugs simply aren't to scale at all. Hoping maybe they can be direct wired somehow.

Bill

[J.L.]

Hi Bill,
Point well taken. I agree. As mentioned above, conduit will carry the wiring except where it enters the factory with knob and tube. Yes, there are little plugs, but those are hidden on the outside of the boiler room wall with the other electronics. They will be plugged into a switched and fused power bar.

It may be of interest to know that before gas lines were installed in most factories, kerosene lamps were raised up to the rafters in the morning and lowered at night by rope and pulley. They are quite evident in vintage photos.

John

[b.lindsey]

Thanks John. Just in case they haven't completed the conversion to electric lights yet, you could always leave one of these hanging around somewhere in the rafters

Bill

[steamboatmodel]

You could paint the outside of the shades Green and dark/black the chains and hang them that way too.
Regards,
Gerald.

[Roger B]

Still following along and enjoying, your attention to detail is amazing