Author Topic: Chris' Build of a Lombard Hauler Engine  (Read 428346 times)

Offline Dave Otto

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Re: Chris' Build of a Lombard Hauler Engine
« Reply #150 on: November 08, 2016, 02:03:47 AM »
You have probably seen the rolling action with your brass and walnut shell media; this is what you need to see with your steel parts and what ever media you choose to experiment with.
I have been wanting to try using the walnut shell media that has the red rouge added to it for deburring and polishing tiny brass model engine parts; have you tried this?



Dave

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris' Build of a Lombard Hauler Engine
« Reply #151 on: November 08, 2016, 02:10:29 AM »
You have probably seen the rolling action with your brass and walnut shell media; this is what you need to see with your steel parts and what ever media you choose to experiment with.
I have been wanting to try using the walnut shell media that has the red rouge added to it for deburring and polishing tiny brass model engine parts; have you tried this?



Dave
No - just used it for the shells so far, don't have any of the rouge stuff, just the plain media.

Offline Flyboy Jim

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Re: Chris' Build of a Lombard Hauler Engine
« Reply #152 on: November 08, 2016, 03:02:54 AM »

How are you going to finish all those track pieces? I think a short ride  in a tumbler would give them a perfect texture and knock off all the sharp corners. They would look a lot like the original castings.

I was wondering about tumbling them to give them that cast look. I have a vibrating tumbler for cleaning pistol/rifle brass, but I don't think the normal walnut shell media would do more than polish them. What works for smoothing parts like these, some sort of ball bearing media? I draw the line at hand sanding each one, and the shop elves just laughed and rolled off the bench!

Chris,
How about using a portable sandblaster to give them a cast look: http://www.harborfreight.com/portable-abrasive-blaster-kit-37025.html

I've got a similar one that I've used through the years for larger parts. I'm going to try it on some small parts sometime, but I think it might work good. What kind of steel are you using for the tracks?

Jim
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Offline crueby

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Re: Chris' Build of a Lombard Hauler Engine
« Reply #153 on: November 08, 2016, 03:15:08 AM »

How are you going to finish all those track pieces? I think a short ride  in a tumbler would give them a perfect texture and knock off all the sharp corners. They would look a lot like the original castings.

I was wondering about tumbling them to give them that cast look. I have a vibrating tumbler for cleaning pistol/rifle brass, but I don't think the normal walnut shell media would do more than polish them. What works for smoothing parts like these, some sort of ball bearing media? I draw the line at hand sanding each one, and the shop elves just laughed and rolled off the bench!

Chris,
How about using a portable sandblaster to give them a cast look: http://www.harborfreight.com/portable-abrasive-blaster-kit-37025.html

I've got a similar one that I've used through the years for larger parts. I'm going to try it on some small parts sometime, but I think it might work good. What kind of steel are you using for the tracks?

Jim
Would that kind of setup do a good job of deburring too? The ball end mill left small burs every time it passed the edge of the fingers. I have a friend who has a small tabletop sandblasting rig that I can borrow time on. My compressor is too small a volume for it.

The steel parts, including the tracks, on this build will mostly be 303 stainless, a few 304 parts that come out of the plate stock I have.

To do some experiments, I am picking up some ceramic media for the tumbler to see what it does, if anything. If nothing, I can always throw in a shop gnome. Not any of my elves, a buddy has some gnomes that hang around his production shop!

Offline Flyboy Jim

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Re: Chris' Build of a Lombard Hauler Engine
« Reply #154 on: November 08, 2016, 03:43:55 AM »

How are you going to finish all those track pieces? I think a short ride  in a tumbler would give them a perfect texture and knock off all the sharp corners. They would look a lot like the original castings.

I was wondering about tumbling them to give them that cast look. I have a vibrating tumbler for cleaning pistol/rifle brass, but I don't think the normal walnut shell media would do more than polish them. What works for smoothing parts like these, some sort of ball bearing media? I draw the line at hand sanding each one, and the shop elves just laughed and rolled off the bench!

Chris,
How about using a portable sandblaster to give them a cast look: http://www.harborfreight.com/portable-abrasive-blaster-kit-37025.html

I've got a similar one that I've used through the years for larger parts. I'm going to try it on some small parts sometime, but I think it might work good. What kind of steel are you using for the tracks?

Jim
Would that kind of setup do a good job of deburring too? The ball end mill left small burs every time it passed the edge of the fingers. I have a friend who has a small tabletop sandblasting rig that I can borrow time on. My compressor is too small a volume for it.

The steel parts, including the tracks, on this build will mostly be 303 stainless, a few 304 parts that come out of the plate stock I have.

To do some experiments, I am picking up some ceramic media for the tumbler to see what it does, if anything. If nothing, I can always throw in a shop gnome. Not any of my elves, a buddy has some gnomes that hang around his production shop!

I've got some 303. I'll mill a piece so it leaves a burr and give it a try.
Jim
Sherline 4400 Lathe
Sherline 5400 Mill
"You can do small things on big machines, but you can do small things on small machines".

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris' Build of a Lombard Hauler Engine
« Reply #155 on: November 08, 2016, 04:53:46 PM »
Started on cutting the bushings for the center of the pivot rods on the tracks. Drilled the end of a longer rod, then parted off to length.


Few swipes of a file to remove the bur that the parting tool leaves at the edge of the hole, and ready for test fit. A little hard to see in the pic, the bushings are on the rods next to the tweezers, the rod above that has no bushing yet.


A little easier to see in this picture - the upper rods have bushings, the lower does not


I did not have the 5/32" rod that I want to use for the bushings, so this test was done with 3/16" rod, its a little large, so I have some 5/32" rod on the way. In the meantime, I will skip over to working on the pivot rod ends.

« Last Edit: May 31, 2018, 08:21:07 PM by crueby »

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris' Build of a Lombard Hauler Engine
« Reply #156 on: November 09, 2016, 01:09:20 AM »
As I mentioned in last post, I am waiting on some 5/32" steel stock, so I am skipping over to the pivot pins in the meantime. They need to be peened over on one end to enlarge the diameter, so for that I got out my pin holding block. This is a pair of steel bars, with two locating pins fixed on one side and a slightly loose fit on the other, and with a series of different size holes drilled through the joint to allow a good hold on different size stock.

The outside edges are stepped to let the blocks sit at the top of the vise jaws without slipping down as the pin is hammered.

To use, a pin is set in the appropriate hole, projecting up slightly - amount determines the thickness/width of the resulting head.

With the vise tightened down, the head is rounded over and flattened down with a ball peen hammer. Its a little hard to see in the photo, the camera will only focus so close, but it is still projecting above the top of the block and is widened out.

And here is the pin set in place on the track - again hard to see, but the end is about 15-20 thou larger than the rest of the pin, so it cannot slide into the hole in the track.

I still need to make a small disc to go under this head, giving a wider surface against the track. It looks to me in the photos of the real engine that this was how they made the full size ones so that is what I am going to try and duplicate. I am also going to experiment with putting the disc in place before peening the head over, and see if it will lock it into place, more like the rove on a rivet. In the photos of the real engine, I can see the joint between the peened over head and the disc on a lot of them - they probably hot swaged it in place. There is also another loose disc at the other end held from sliding off by a cotter pin like I showed in an earlier post.
So, lots of fiddly small work this coming week!
« Last Edit: May 31, 2018, 08:21:15 PM by crueby »

Offline wagnmkr

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Re: Chris' Build of a Lombard Hauler Engine
« Reply #157 on: November 09, 2016, 11:43:57 AM »
You have just solved one of my problems with the excavator tracks. I will make up one of those tools and do my track pins the same way.
Tom
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Online Roger B

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Re: Chris' Build of a Lombard Hauler Engine
« Reply #158 on: November 09, 2016, 01:33:46 PM »
There's a lot of work in those tracks, but it looks like you have got it sorted  :ThumbsUp: Still following along  :wine1:
Best regards

Roger

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris' Build of a Lombard Hauler Engine
« Reply #159 on: November 09, 2016, 01:38:57 PM »
You have just solved one of my problems with the excavator tracks. I will make up one of those tools and do my track pins the same way.
Tom
Cool! It does take some experimenting to find which size hole gives the best grip. Make sure you file the corners of the holes on the inside faces slightly to keep it from leaving a mark on the pin. Years ago I had made an arrow puller with the same setup, with the holes lined with thin rubber mat, to pull ones that missed the target and went into the wood target holder or a tree.
Later I am going to experiment with putting the washer disc on the top of the holder before peening the end to see how well it locks the two together.

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris' Build of a Lombard Hauler Engine
« Reply #160 on: November 09, 2016, 01:40:54 PM »
There's a lot of work in those tracks, but it looks like you have got it sorted  :ThumbsUp: Still following along  :wine1:

Thanks Roger! Very pleased with how they are coming out, figured it would be best to start with them in case they didn't. The rest of the track mechanism is going to be interesting too, there is a whole engines worth of parts in that assembly before I even get to the main frame.

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris' Build of a Lombard Hauler Engine
« Reply #161 on: November 09, 2016, 02:47:49 PM »
Okay, I think I have a winner in how to do the inside ends of the track pins. I turned down some steel bar to 5/32" (I have some 5/32 ordered, should be here in a few days) and drilled/parted off a thin washer of it (the parting tool was thicker than the finished part). I put that onto a pin and positioned it in the peening jig with a short length of the pin sticking up:

then hammered it over and down with a ball peen hammer

which made it look just like the pictures I have seen of the real track pins

And here it is in place on the track:

I like the looks of that setup - I think that is how I am going to do the rest of them.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2018, 08:21:30 PM by crueby »

Offline b.lindsey

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Re: Chris' Build of a Lombard Hauler Engine
« Reply #162 on: November 09, 2016, 06:01:27 PM »
That looks good Chris, but that is a lot of washers to make  :o   ;)

Bill

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris' Build of a Lombard Hauler Engine
« Reply #163 on: November 09, 2016, 07:30:53 PM »
That looks good Chris, but that is a lot of washers to make  :o   ;)

Bill

Only about 120 of them....   :paranoia:   Thats why I'm waiting for the right diameter rod (tomorrow) to make the rest, so its just drilling/parting that needs to be done.

Tricky part is keeping them from jumping off the end of the bar as the parting tool breaks through and getting lost in a corner or pile of swarf - have been holding a small rod in the hole to control them.

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris' Build of a Lombard Hauler Engine
« Reply #164 on: November 09, 2016, 07:45:18 PM »
Another jig to make - this one is to drill the ends of the track pivot rods for the cotter pins. Teeny little cotter pins! I started with an offcut of steel flat stock, squared up the ends and drilled a close fit hole for the pivot rods down the end.

Then, with the table locked down in the forward/back direction, turned the bar on its side and drilled through with a #55 drill at the position that the hole in the rod needs to be. The rod is held from sliding in too far by the rivetted on washer on the end - this distance is the width of the track plate plus thickness of the washer plus a little over half the diameter of the hole. From here on, its just a matter of insert the next pin, drop of oil, and run the drill through the hole into the pin, likethis:

leaving a nicely centered hole in the right place:

If the hole in the jig wears and drifts while making all these pins, I can just mill off the end of the jig and drill a new side hole. With the pin test fit in place, and a washer and a cotter pin bent up out of some fine steel wire, here is the result:

And here is the whole assembly, with a center bushing, pivot rod, washers, and cotter pin all in place:

One down, about 59 to go....
Now, before I do final assembly on them all, I am going to try tumbling the track plates with some ceramic media to debur them better, will have some of that tomorrow too. So a little experimenting, then several days of cutting small bits of metal to go for some finished tracks.  It has actually gotten to this stage quicker than I had expected - gotta love jigs and sharp tools!

« Last Edit: May 31, 2018, 08:21:46 PM by crueby »

 

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