Author Topic: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel  (Read 573071 times)

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #4095 on: June 15, 2019, 08:26:30 PM »
Time to steam up the dome... Or make the steam dome...
Started with a short length from the firetube, and drilled/bored holes in the side to fit the bushings made the other day.

test fitting the bushings, flanges on the inside:

Then turned up the cap piece from some bronze. The base is stepped to fit the tube, and it is drilled/tapped through for the water fill fitting and the safety valve.


Then cut off the piece from the longer bronze bar. Back on the lathe, the top is domed to look more like the original:


To get the fittings to fit down flat, milled in around the holes:

To hold the dome in place on the boiler shell, I made up a curved piece to fit the inside of the boiler. Started with bronze bar held in a V-block on the rotary table, set to get the proper radius, and started milling. The cutter was long enough to reach halfway through the bar, so started with the top half:

then lowered the mill head to do the bottom half:

Checking the fit on the boiler tube, using the offcut from trimming the tube to length:

Cut the part off the bar on the bandsaw, and mounted it on the lathe to drill/bore the center out to fit the outside of the steam dome tube:

Here are the parts so far:

The top assembly will be silver soldered up seperately, then it will be assembled onto the shell with the lower flange inside and then soldered to the shell. The lower flange gets a brass setscrew to hold it in place for soldering - this is not structural, so should be okay - Kozo did this a lot, so I am assuming it is okay to do.

Now, after taking those pictures, went into the other room for a minute and came back to find that the shop elves had the idea that I was making them a deep sea diving helmet!

 :ROFL:

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #4096 on: June 15, 2019, 11:26:49 PM »
Next part is the smokestack base. To get the smokebox to be shorter and take up less room, Marion made the smokestack base oblong rather than round, then transition to round before going out the roof. The only way I could come up with to make that shape was to take a plumbing pipe reducer fitting and squash the wider end in the vise to flatten two sides (upper left of the next photo). This came out very close to the desired size, which was a lucky find.

The base flange, which will go inside the boiler shell just like the one for the steam dome, therefore needs an oblong hole in it too to match the stack base. So, took the second base blank, which I had made at the same time and the same way as the one for the steam dome, and bored a round hole in it on the lathe that was the same diameter as the distance across the flats on the stack base. That was then mounted on the rotary table just off center, and the ends taken out wider one at a time:

Took a couple of tries to sneak up on the distance betwen the ends of the oblong slot till the part fit into it well:

Fortunately this is not a pressure-holding part of the boiler, so it just had to be close enough to hold and solder in place. Here is a bottom view:

These parts can now be used to cut matching openings in the top of the boiler shell. The oblong hole will be bored round then taken out with a file (I'll try and channel some of Steam Guy Willy's filing skills for that one), since the boiler shell would not rotate far enough on the mill to cut the opening the same way.

I think that completes the parts for the boiler shell, next will be to bore the steam dome and smokestack holes in the shell. Quite a lot accomplished today!
 :wine1:

Offline cnr6400

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #4097 on: June 16, 2019, 02:06:55 AM »
Hi Chris, you are really moving along! Great work on the boiler parts.  :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

Bucket Bob as a Navy diver was a neat touch.  :Lol:
"I've cut that stock three times, and it's still too short!"

Offline Art K

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #4098 on: June 16, 2019, 02:40:41 AM »
Chris,
You drop that deep sea diver from your RC sub right? :lolb:
Art
"The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you" B.B. King

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #4099 on: June 16, 2019, 03:39:27 AM »
Yeah, now all night long I'll be hearing the elves clomping around in the bottom of the tub...!

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #4100 on: June 16, 2019, 03:49:08 AM »
A couple of weeks ago one of the guys at the museum up in Maine with the real Lombard hauler that I based my model on sent me a animated video that had a lot of the proposed changes they have to the grounds at the logging museum. At the very end, he finished the animation up with a flyby of the big barn that they store the Lombards in, and he had added a Lombard-shaped weathervane to it. As soon as I saw that, I knew that I had to make that a reality. After some experimenting, settled on getting the outline waterjet cut at a place I found online where you can upload the design, they cut it for me in .100" thick stainless steel, at about 30" long. Added some braces to hold a stainless tube with bronze bearings for the post assembly, which is off the shelf items from one of the weathervane shops. Mailed it up to them, and today they got it installed on top of the Machinery Hall building that the Lombards are parked in. Here is how it looks:



Couple of video links that Herb Crosby at the museum sent me of the install and the event they held today, the spring Alewive Run where they had running races, the Lombards running, as well as the sawmills:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCdzijSzMyA" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCdzijSzMyA</a>

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqLDfGGAcf0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqLDfGGAcf0</a>

And a link to a photo collection Herb took:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/w52TDw1PowqgLqQo7
Wish I could have made it up there today, but I will be there in the fall for the Living History Days weekend that they hold.
 :cheers:

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #4101 on: June 16, 2019, 04:51:21 PM »
This morning finished off the stack base, had forgotten yesterday to flatten the sides of the flange so it fits in the smokebox:

Then got out my handy-dandy boiler-shell-holder-clamps - made these for the Lombard model, just needed to enlarge the arcs since this shell is 1/2" larger diameter. It bolts to the mill table, and the threaded rod on either side clamps down on the tube to hold it for drilling/milling. The centers of the arcs on the bottom halves are lined up on the centerline of the table, and are at the same height, so it holds the tube level and square to the table.
With the tube and clamps positioned so that I could do both the steam dome and stack holes without having to move any parts (to keep them in line at the top of the tube), drilled the starter hole for the boring head.

and then bored the hole out till the steam dome tube fit through. Fortunately this shell is large enough that I can get a hand in from the end to insert the dome, otherwise would have had to make a holder for it.

Then cranked the table over for the stack hole, starting to drill/bore that out as well...




Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #4102 on: June 16, 2019, 05:06:11 PM »
Continuing on with the boiler, bored out the hole for the stack base to the front-to-back width of the base, where it was flattened.


Then, moved the table in a bit at a time and took a pass with the boring head till it was half the difference between the short and long dimensions on the stack. Then, back to center and did the same while moving the table outwards. This enlongated the hole for the base. A couple of test fits and took a few thou more off till it would go through the hole.

To hold the stack in place, drilled/tapped for a couple of 1-72 screws. The stack base does not need to hold pressure, so this joint will not need to be silver soldered, the screws will hold it on.
The steam dome WILL be silver soldered in place, and to keep it from shifting while soldering I drilled for some small screws there as well. To hold the dome in position for drilling, found a block of wood and a wedge the right size from the inside since it is way too far in for a clamp to reach:

and drilled/tapped from the outside, down through the base flange.

Here are the parts so far, almost ready for soldering things up:

Still need to make a set of blanking plugs for the static pressure test, and want to remake the hand pump I have to improve its function. Need to set up a connector to the boiler from the pump, and also a pressure gauge for the test.
For the silver soldering, I think the order will be:First set, using a higher-temperature ( 'hard' version) silver solder
- solder the base flanges onto the stack and steam dome- solder the ribs and bushings into the end capsSecond set, using the lower-temperature ( 'easy' version) silver solder- solder the steam dome to the shell, at same time install the bushings and cap- solder in the front end cap and firetube, rear cap in place to align tube
- solder in the rear cap to shell and firetube (doing rear last allows shell to stand up on front end for this step)

Offline rspringer

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #4103 on: June 16, 2019, 07:26:11 PM »
Are you going to put cross tubes in the flue? If not think about putting in a spiral sheet of stainless steel.  It will force the hot gases to make contact with the sides of the flue.  It really increased the efficiency of my donkey and the flues are only 1/2 inch.  In heat transfer turbulence is your friend.

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #4104 on: June 16, 2019, 07:57:55 PM »
Are you going to put cross tubes in the flue? If not think about putting in a spiral sheet of stainless steel.  It will force the hot gases to make contact with the sides of the flue.  It really increased the efficiency of my donkey and the flues are only 1/2 inch.  In heat transfer turbulence is your friend.
I've been debating the cross tubes - did that on others, but didn't have any equal boiler without them for comparison so I wasn't sure how much they helped, and they do add a lot of extra joints to possibly leak (fought that a couple times).

The spiral sheet is an interesting idea - just take a strip, twist it, and slide it in? Thats too easy!?!?! 

I do recall a Mythbusters episode where they were doing sewer gas explosions, and putting objects in the pipe changed the wavefront, but this is different, just getting turbulance for heat transfer.... 

Do you have any pictures of how you did yours?

Offline rspringer

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #4105 on: June 17, 2019, 06:15:54 AM »
It is as simple as this

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #4106 on: June 17, 2019, 02:18:03 PM »
It is as simple as this
Slick! I have some sheet stainless, can make that up and give it a try. Thanks!!

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #4107 on: June 17, 2019, 09:04:56 PM »
Been making up the blanking plugs for the boiler static testing, also got a new body made for my hand pump that uses o-rings and flat plungers rather than small ball bearings for the check valves, like someone posted a drawing of here a while back. Curious to see how that works out, I always have trouble getting a good seal with the bearings, they work for most use but for static test they tend to seep just enough to cause a slight pressure drop. The rest of the parts on the pump are from the old one.

I have a long bar of surplus hex stock that I have had on the shelf, made a great blank for the body withouth having to silver solder anything up for the shape, it is large enough for all the passages as is.

Offline Firebird

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #4108 on: June 17, 2019, 09:30:51 PM »
Hi Chris

Great work  :ThumbsUp:

It was me that posted some drawings of the hand pump I made using flat valves and O rings which works really well.

When testing my boilers I also use a one way valve in the pipe from pump to boiler

Cheers

Rich

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #4109 on: June 17, 2019, 09:32:44 PM »
Hi Chris

Great work  :ThumbsUp:

It was me that posted some drawings of the hand pump I made using flat valves and O rings which works really well.

When testing my boilers I also use a one way valve in the pipe from pump to boiler

Cheers

Rich
Thanks! It works fine in initial tests, it will get a good workout when the boiler testing starts.
 :cheers:

 

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