It's been 6 weeks since my last update, but believe it or not, I’m still focused on getting this done! And I’m getting close! (we’ll closer than I was a year ago at least!
)
I’ve been out camping with the family, visiting relatives and, during what would have been my shop time at home, I’ve been doing house chores. The main one being completing a re-do of our fence. Most of the top boards on the fence were in various stages of rotting, so I was hoping that if I replaced them, that I could get another 5-10 years out of the fence. As it turns out, not only were the top boards rotting, but some of the rails were too. So I ended up replacing ALL the top boards, and about 1/4 of the top rails and a few of the bottom ones too, along with a handful of fence boards.
Anyway, I think it looks 1000% better and should last a few more years till I need to address it again!
So, back to the Steam Dome!
Steam Dome Cover Take 1: From Sheet AluminumActually, its back to the Seam Dome Cover. A month ago, you all were giving me excellent advice on how I could create this piece:
I decided I’d try to form it out of Aluminum, then make a little piece out of sheet steel to act as the spring clips, like Dave’s design he posted in reply #1090 of this thread.
First, I cut a circle out of 1/64” Aluminum. Then I made a pattern from wood with the appropriate radius on it. My idea here was to attempt to pound or spin the Aluminum into shape on this wooden pattern. To make sure it would hold in place, I put some double sticky tape on it, and then held it in place with a short wood screw. Like this:
However, try as I might, I couldn’t get the thing to shape. The best I could do was a bit of a Pringles shape. If I tried pounding on one side, the other sides would pop up.
So I tried annealing it. I used the soap idea to try and make sure I didn’t overheat the aluminum. But even with several rounds of heating, this is about all I could get:
I thought about going to copper, but I didn’t have any. Or trying brass. But I decided to go with carving it out of the solid, which was another popular suggestion. I found this route to be quite involved, but it worked, and I’m fairly pleased with the results.
Steam Dome Cover, Take 2: From the solidI had a short piece of 1.5” 12L14, and that’s what I used for the steam dome cover.
First, I cut a 1/4" flange to fit inside the steam dome column.
Then I brought another 3/8” down to the outside diameter of the steam dome, and started to cut if off on the lathe. But this was hard. It was going slow, and it kept catching and giving me a real thrill. So, I decided to take it to the 4”x7” band saw and cut it off that way. Very fast and much less anxiety producing!
After cleaning up the sawed face, here’s what I had:
It even fit in the steam dome column, just as designed. How cool is that?
Next, I mounted it in the mill, and went to chew out a bunch of the underside to make it fit around the throttle and what-not, that hides in the steam dome.
Once I got that done, I used a 1/8” mill to dig a slot for the throttle lever to poke out through. This was a little worrisome, since I had it clamped in the vice like I did. I probably should have comped it differently, but I used this method – took it slow and careful, and it turned out OK.
Next, I had to figure out how to shape the dome on top. So, I used Excel to create a step-off table for shaping it the way I wanted.
And here’s what it looked like wnen I was done with it – kinda ugly, eh?
But once I got done attacking it with files and some sand paper, it cleaned up really nice!
Then I realized I had forgotten to put a 10-32 hole in the top for the faux pressure gauge. So I did that:
And here’s the completed Steam Dome Cover. Top:
And bottom:
And the beauty shot with the completed steam dome in place. You can see how the throttle level peaks up through there.
Thanks for taking a look and thanks for all the advice on making this somewhat tricky piece!
Kim