Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel

[crueby]

Sidetrack just a bit today - our local RC submarine group was off in Grand Island (next to Buffalo) today showing at a (full size) boat club there, at a big antique boat show (cars too) they held. Lots of great boats and cars, we ran in the club's pool and had a great time.
Some of our boats (were lots more than these in the tent in the background)

My rowboat with a modern Skipjack to confuse the carp out of Capt. Jack:

Some great cars:

and car-boats:

and of course lots of old powerboats


and some old canoes, like this beauty of a Rushton:


Side side note, was given a bunch of photos that one of the couples in our club took on their recent trip to Wisconsin, where they were at the maritime museum (has a WW-II era submarine too). The one pic from there that I want to show is this big triple-expansion engine, which is one of two that drove the icebreaker Chief Wawatam, with piston diameters of 21, 33, and 52 inches. It has a huge D-valve showing in the steam chest on the side:

[zeeprogrammer]

Great pics!

You can tell it's a bit cooler up there. 

Love the car!

[crueby]

Great pics!

You can tell it's a bit cooler up there. 

Love the car!

Yeah, after months of 90+ degrees day after day, all of a sudden its about 62! Loving the change, gotten the house cooled off again. The remnants of the tropical storm that dumped on Florida and the Gulf should be up here the next couple days, just a bit of rain (that we need), nothing expected bad since it has blown itself out on the way inland.

[zeeprogrammer]

Great pics!

You can tell it's a bit cooler up there. 

Love the car!

Yeah, after months of 90+ degrees day after day, all of a sudden its about 62! Loving the change, gotten the house cooled off again. The remnants of the tropical storm that dumped on Florida and the Gulf should be up here the next couple days, just a bit of rain (that we need), nothing expected bad since it has blown itself out on the way inland.

I do like the cooler weather...but it's cramping our pool time. Best wishes though for those in the path.

[crueby]

Looking over the plans for the control links, one thing obvious is that I will be needing a pile of small clevises to connect the links to the control arms. So, started with a length of 1/8" square brass bar, and drilled tapping holes for 1-72 threads every .450".



Then set up the slitting saw in the arbor (same on I use for gear cutting, it has a couple of different diameter steps in the end for the saws and cutters, the washer plate is undercut on the inside face)



and cut notches .200 deep into the ends. The bar stock I have for the control arms is .062 thick, and this blade is .045, so made two passes at different heights.



Each part was notched then moved out and  cut off with a small hacksaw, so I could use the rest of the bar to hold the pieces in the mill vise.

After the batch was cut, moved over to the lathe, held each piece in the 4-jaw and drilled the end for the 3/32" round bar, and turned the end round for .100.



Here is the first complete clevis, the rest are ready for drilling/turning the ends. The clevises can be soldered or loctited on the ends of the control rods, and the 1-72 screws will act as pivot pins in the ends. I am making up a bunch of these, since I know it will need at least 12 or 15 of them (some of the joints are clevis, some are just overlapped flat bars).

[crueby]

The rest of the clevises are done:

and the pile of other control linkage bits and pieces is growing. There are a number of crank arms and rods to take the lever movement from the left frame bay over underneath the engines for drain cocks, throttles, and reversing gear. So far have made up the simple ones, there are a couple for the hoist brake band that need some bendy shapes, they are next. Most so far are silver soldered to the rods, there is one set for the slew throttle that has grub screws, otherwise it would be impossible to assemble them into the frames.

When they are all fabricated, I'll go back and taper the control rods and round the ends.

[crueby]

The rest of the under-floor control linkages are made, and ready for tapering/rounding the ends on the sander.


Once these are tapered/rounded, they can be installed, and work can start on the floor and arms up at the operators station.
EDIT: just noticed that some of the controls were set non-visible in the drawing I put up the other day, here is the corrected one, including the slew throttle linkage:

[Don1966]

Looking good Dog you just don’t let up do you? But you know ........i.........like...... 


 
Don

[Johnmcc69]

Very nice Chris, nice bit of CAD design & engineering.

 Will come in handy when you do the Stanley Steamer.
(Sorry Zee..couldn't resist.)

 John

[crueby]

Very nice Chris, nice bit of CAD design & engineering.

 Will come in handy when you do the Stanley Steamer.
(Sorry Zee..couldn't resist.)

 John

Thanks John!

Maybe I can get Ye-Old-Steam-Dude to put a Stanley body on the big one he is building, and convince Zee that is who he was talking to....   

Looking good Dog you just don’t let up do you? But you know ........i.........like...... 


 
Don

Nope - never let up, just keep steaming along!
One thing I have been experimenting with this week is just how to get this big beast of a model into my car (Maxda CX-5) for the trip up to Maine in October (they asked me to bring up the Lombard and the Marion to their two-day fall event, I'll be joining their crew running the real Lombard again!    ). I could slide it in lengthwise from the back, but that means it rides up on the back of the seats, which don't fold down quite flat. I also have a big plywood platform with padding/vinyl on one side that we used as a seat for the dogs in a Subaru, turns out that fits nicely over the top of the back seat in the Mazda and lays flat and snug - still have to see if the Marion will slide in through the side door, think it will fit with the main boom swung over about 45 degrees. Either way, I need to make a tray for the model that will cradle the tracks, and have some tie-down straps for the frame and boom to keep it from slipping around.
 

[crueby]

Okay - the main control linkages are fettled down and installed, used the tip-model-on-its-nose trick again to get underneath it. Starting at the back, here are the control rods for the reversing gear, hoist/slew drain cocks, and slew throttle. The holes through the floor plate are not cut yet, will do that later on when fitting the engines - the floor plates are held with screws, so they are easy to remove. The brass disc is the counterweight for the reversing gear linkages.


This is the back end of the linkage to the track drive dog clutch - the curved arm will connect to a bar over to the center that moves the clutch.

Moving forward, you can see the two-piece rod and its coupling on the left, and the brass disc at the end of the arm that is the counterweight for the hoist clutch control. This keeps the brake disengaged when the operator is not stepping on the brake pedal.


You can see it in the last photo as well, here is a closer shot of the front of the track clutch linkage. This curved bar connects to a handle that will go up through the floor. When the handle is raised and slid into a notch, it engages and holds the drive dog clutch so that the hoist engine will drive the front tracks (presumably with the hoist drum clutch disengaged so the bucket is not moved at the same time).

That completes this batch of control linkages, now I can start connecting up the dog clutch arm, and the levers/floor/brackets at the operator control station.

[Ye-Ole Steam Dude]

Those under-belly shots really look good, cannot tell it from the real thing.

Have a great day,
Thomas

[crueby]

Those under-belly shots really look good, cannot tell it from the real thing.

Have a great day,
Thomas

Actually easy to tell from real thing at the moment - the real one has birds nests and old tar!   

[Farmboy]

Actually easy to tell from real thing at the moment - the real one has birds nests and old tar!   

That'll be an interesting post. Replicating all that will be a challenge, but we all know you can do it 

Some more amazing work on those linkages. It's great to watch it all coming together 

Mike.

[crueby]

Actually easy to tell from real thing at the moment - the real one has birds nests and old tar!   

That'll be an interesting post. Replicating all that will be a challenge, but we all know you can do it 

Some more amazing work on those linkages. It's great to watch it all coming together 

Mike.

Hard part is finding the 1:16 scale birds to build the nest!