Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel

[crueby]

And have the panels cut for second side, still need to drill a few more screw holes and add the faux rivets to it:

Then can start on the hinges and doors...

[Brian Rupnow]

Chris--Have you given any thought to a clear lexan roof? Lexan forms very easily and it's almost a sin to totally hide whats going on inside when all your panels are in place.---Brian

[crueby]

Chris--Have you given any thought to a clear lexan roof? Lexan forms very easily and it's almost a sin to totally hide whats going on inside when all your panels are in place.---Brian

The roof will be removable as well as the walls, even easier since it can just set in place. When on display it will most likely have one wall and most of the roof off.

[Don1966]

The walls and roof are adding a lot of details to this masterpiece Dog. Looking at the pics it could pose as a full size machine with all the added details. Awesome just awesome Chris!......


 
Don

[crueby]

Thanks Don!

With the wall panels all cut, this morning got started on the fidlly-bits. First took some of the offcuts from the walls and made up the benches for the rear deck and the bin for the front wall - ran a cut halfway through where they needed to bend, and cut the outlines.




Then bent up the tabs to form the rest of the box. The end tabs are a narrower so they dont bump into the sides.

Then started on the hinges. Need a whole bunch of them, so started with a piece of brass sheet, and ran a saw cut halfway through the face down the center to keep the tubing in place during silver soldering. After cleaning that up, used the table saw to slice off each hinge pair. Then used a fine jewelers hand saw to cut the zig-zag through the center to split the pair apart.


After drilling for the mounting rivets and installing on the panels, a pin through the tube will complete the hinge. One down, 19 to go...

[crueby]

Woops - missed a photo - here is one of the plates with the tube soldered on before cutting into the hinges...

Made up three of them to get all the hinges out - if longer they would have had a tendancy to bend apart a bit in the center (between the clamps I had on the ends) as the tube and plate heated up, unless they were heated exactly together.
One thing I tried differently this time in silver soldering was the flux. Originally I used Harris White, then switched to Tenacity 5 on the Lombard since it took long heats better. Am running low on that, and could not find a source here in the US, so I looked around and found the Harris Black flux, already mixed to a paste and meant for longer heats like on boilers. So far I like it, no mixing/remixing of the powder like the others, and seems to work about the same. Cleans up nicely with the Sparex pickle. Had not seen it before, wonder if its a newer formula?

[cnr6400]

Like your hinge fab method Chris. It beats my "chase the tiny hinge tube fragment with the torch" method by a long way!

 

[crueby]

Like your hinge fab method Chris. It beats my "chase the tiny hinge tube fragment with the torch" method by a long way!

 

And slip rolls are hard to find that will do diameters this small!




Picked up some different shades of red for the outside of the cab walls. Found a decent barn red looking one in the same engine paint as the rest of the model. The walls are going to be red outside, grey inside and grey roof. Marion lettering under the eaves will be white 1/2" tall dry transfer railroad lettering, close match for the way Marion did it in early 1900s.

[crueby]

Between making the center cuts on the rest of the hinges (as shown yesterday), I realized that I had not included the patent number plates when I made up the etched plates for the engines and boiler. The patent plates on each side of the frame are still there on the LeRoy shovel,

But the shop number plates, which show the serial number of each machine, are sadly missing and the numbers are unknown. I did find a photo of the plate on a Model 60 machine in Costa Rica:

that shows what they looked like. The outline and remaining bits of the broken edge on the shovel here match this one. I am making up a set of each for the model, but can't decide how to handle the shop number plate. I can make up a number and use that, or maybe take the number and chip most of it off to obscure it like it was vandalized, or maybe break off the bottom section with the number? I don't know what the real number on this machine was, and dont want to document a made up one...   

[bobh]

How about your initials and the year?

[crueby]

How about your initials and the year?

Interesting idea!

[Don1966]

Chris how about “Model by Chris 20**” fill in the year for shop!



 
Don

[crueby]

Chris how about “Model by Chris 20**” fill in the year for shop!



 
Don

Thats a great idea too!

[crueby]

While deciding what to put on the shop number plate, got started etching out the patent number plates. Here is the first one etched and a spritz of paint...

[Ye-Ole Steam Dude]

Hello Chris,

That looks really good and has that "aged" effect.

Have a great day,
Thomas