Author Topic: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel  (Read 573534 times)

Offline Steamer5

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #330 on: December 15, 2017, 07:50:39 AM »
Don’t tell me you sprinkle them with raw sugar crystals, you know, the ones that have a bit of a yellowish tint  :stickpoke:

Cletus
Well, there are yellow, blue, green, and red sugar sprinkles - need something to decorate the confectioners sugar/water topping! I throw more lemon into that topping as well, very tasty!

Hope you are not using the yellow snow...   :stickpoke:

Hang about!!

You know the rules around here......

 :pics: :pics:

Oh & crumbs DONT count!

 :lolb:

Cheers Kerrin
 
Get excited and make something!

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #331 on: December 15, 2017, 01:52:00 PM »
Don’t tell me you sprinkle them with raw sugar crystals, you know, the ones that have a bit of a yellowish tint  :stickpoke:

Cletus
Well, there are yellow, blue, green, and red sugar sprinkles - need something to decorate the confectioners sugar/water topping! I throw more lemon into that topping as well, very tasty!

Hope you are not using the yellow snow...   :stickpoke:

Hang about!!

You know the rules around here......

 :pics: :pics:

Oh & crumbs DONT count!

 :lolb:

Cheers Kerrin
Okay Kerrin, (chew, crunch), okay (munch munch)... Here is a photo of the dipper bucket digging up some of the cookies!

 :ROFL:
And, in the spirit of completeness, here is how the sea turtle submarine wood forms are coming along...

Still need to carve the rear flipper and tail forms, detail them, then I can get them sealed up (seal, get it?) to take the molds from them.
« Last Edit: June 16, 2018, 08:33:54 PM by crueby »

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #332 on: December 15, 2017, 06:54:57 PM »
A little more done on the dipper bucket this afternoon, started by drilling the holes in the sides where the pivot pins for the yoke will go through (the yoke spans the bucket, and holds the chain pulley that hoists the bucket up and down).

The holes were laid out on either side, drilled partway through on the first side, and they actually met up perfectly in the middle when the second hole was drilled.
 :cartwheel:
These holes will be used during the rest of the milling/drilling operations to keep the bucket shell from shifting with a through-bolt. I made up a piece of brass rod for the center, threaded at each end for a bolt, and a pair of snug-fitting spacers to protect the edges of the hole and to keep the bolts from wobbling in the openings. The spacers are threaded also.

Here the through bolt is in place, locking the shell to the wood form nicely:

The next step is to fit the cross braces on the back side of the bucket. There are three of these, and the vertical bars will be notched to fit these and lock everything in place. I decided it would be easiest to bend some 1/8" bar into shape for the back of the bucket (annealed and bent cold, took two heats for the first one). The outer ends will be taken to the belt sander to thin the ends down, and blend the outer part of the curve to the sides of the bucket. I had considered taking the whole shape out of a wider bar, but this seemed much quicker and easier.

So, a little more blacksmithing to do, um, guess it is yellow-smithing for brass, to make the other two cross bars, then I will start on the vertical bars, which hold the ends of the brackets to hold the bucket to the boom and also the hinge for the lower lid.
« Last Edit: June 16, 2018, 08:34:04 PM by crueby »

Offline Steamer5

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #333 on: December 15, 2017, 08:31:22 PM »
Hi Chris,
 Biscuits look very tasty! Turtle is coming on, going to be fun seeing the video of him / her in action :stickpoke:
Nice progress on the bucket,  :popcorn: :popcorn:

Had a bit of rain the last couple of days, so I can splash out on a double helping of  :popcorn:

Cheers Kerrin
Get excited and make something!

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #334 on: December 15, 2017, 10:49:49 PM »
Thanks Kerrin!

One more thing done today after bending the other two cross beams, laid out and cut the notches in them to take the vertical bars, which will have matching notches so that they sit flush. The cross beams were clamped together on the bucket so that they were properly lined up, then moved over to the mill for cutting.



The vertical bars will be up next...
« Last Edit: June 16, 2018, 08:34:12 PM by crueby »

Offline fumopuc

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #335 on: December 16, 2017, 05:26:58 PM »
Hi Chris, a great pleasure to follow your new project.
Kind Regards
Achim

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #336 on: December 16, 2017, 06:29:06 PM »
Hi Chris, a great pleasure to follow your new project.
Thanks Achim, nice to have you along!

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #337 on: December 16, 2017, 08:25:50 PM »
Got working on the vertical bars that go on the back side of the dipper bucket, to reinforce it and to provide attachment points for the bottom lid and the boom. Started with a pair of 3/8" square bars that had been stress-relieved in the oven at 500F for an hour and left to cool, then drilled the cross holes and then squared up the ends with a mill.

Second step was to mill the slots to half-lap over the horizontal bars:

then turned the bars over and started taking away the excess on the other side, to leave the attachment lugs. Dirst the section at the ends:

then the part in the middle:

The section at the top of the bars is angled:

Then the bottom/middle lugs got thier sides angled at 45 degrees:

last section needed the parts turned over to leave room to hold them:

And here is why the stress relieving step is important - without it, the bars would look like bananas at this point. When they roll out the shapes, the outer surfaces get compressed and build up stresses. If you cut away one side of the bar, it will curve towards that side. With the bake in the oven, the stresses get worked out without effecting the hardness much, handy trick that works with brass alloys. This does not work the same with steels - each steel alloy has different behaviors, you have to look them up to see what if anything can be done. For brass, which only work hardens and will not harden with heat, this method works quite well.
The slight gap you see in this photo is just how the bars laid down on the mat - when held together they laid dead straight together.

Last step for the day was to cut the slots in two of the lugs - at the top to take the angled braces back to the boom, and the middle one to take the hinge bars from the bottom lid. The fitting on the end of the dipper boom goes between the lugs at the bottom, so no slots needed there.

Here are the vertical bars so far. They need to have the bases slimmed down, leaving the lugs wider. Good place to break for the day...

« Last Edit: June 16, 2018, 08:34:22 PM by crueby »

Offline mal webber

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #338 on: December 16, 2017, 10:57:18 PM »
Nice work very interesting

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #339 on: December 17, 2017, 08:50:54 PM »
Today I got the vertical bars for the bucket slimmed down outside of the lower attachment lugs, all fits together nicely:

I attached the vertical bars to the shell with three 3/32" rivets each. The vertical bars hold the horizontal ones in place with the half-laps. Then, went around and ran in a little soft solder on all the joints, partly to tie everything together permenantly but mostly to give the inside corners of the joints that slightly rounded cast look, since the shell was cast in one large piece, with just a few added-on bands and fittings.

The ends of the horizontal bars were also taken in flush to the bucket sides with the belt sander, to match the shape of the originals. Then, marked out for the angled top line of the bucket:

The top angles down towards the back edge, then will go back up again where it ties in to the vertical bars. Here is the next spot where the wood former will come in useful, to hold the bucket in the mill vise for this next step.
I took a look at the reach on the Sherline, and quickly decided this was a good time to try out the new (to me) Grizzly mini-mill that I bought from a friends estate recently. But, then things slowed down, as I was turning it on to make the first cut. I had forgotten that these mills prefer to be started with the speed control turned all the way down, then taken up to speed when running. They REALLY prefer it, as the quick pop of the fuse reminded me (the Sherlines dont care, they will start at any setting, and I have that habit deeply ingrained in the little gray cells).
And of course I had no spare fuses that size, so off to the hardware store to buy a handfull of them (to cover the next few times I forget about the speed control).
Once back, milling the side edges to that angle went cleanly, the mini mill worked fine and had enough reach to to the side in one setup. I did change out the original 1/16" per turn feedscrews (STUPID design decision they made) with the 0.050/turn replacements from Little Machine Shop, which match the advance on the Sherline so I don't have to retrain that part of the brain also.

The first side was done, then the vise reset to the complementary angle and the part turned over for the other side. Here it is so far, ready to set it up to do the back edge:

The front edge just needs a light roundover, will probably do that with the belt sander. The back edge will need a different setup, the wood former will be angled up in the vise to mill that.
« Last Edit: June 16, 2018, 08:34:32 PM by crueby »

Offline b.lindsey

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #340 on: December 17, 2017, 10:56:03 PM »
That is really looking the part Chris. Very nice work.

Bill

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #341 on: December 17, 2017, 11:44:02 PM »
That is really looking the part Chris. Very nice work.

Bill
Thanks Bill, looking forward to scooping up popcorn with it while watching all the other builds here on the forum!


Offline Jo

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #342 on: December 18, 2017, 08:35:00 AM »
Thanks Bill, looking forward to scooping up popcorn with it while watching all the other builds here on the forum!

 :thinking: I was wondering about that. I am assuming once it is done that you might be tempted to do a bit of digging with it  :naughty: . Have you thought about how the paint on the brass will hold up to the abuse of digging something with hard gritty/lumpy bits.

Jo
Enjoyment is more important than achievement.

Offline Jasonb

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #343 on: December 18, 2017, 09:12:49 AM »
I don't look for a couple of days and you are well into the build and making fast progress.

Don't think any digger buckets I have seen keep their paint on for long so having it scrape off will be in scale just the base colour of the metal will be a slight give away, suppose you could do a bit of home nickle plating if it bothered you.

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #344 on: December 18, 2017, 02:12:33 PM »
Maybe I can get the bucket powder coated? That would hold up better, wouldn't it? Or maybe a thin coat of truck bedliner?
Might just have to stick to digging in a pile of M&M's!!


 

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