Author Topic: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel  (Read 573832 times)

Offline Don1966

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #1290 on: May 13, 2018, 03:37:04 PM »
Still with you Dog and enjoying it. A link below to a steam shovel.

https://www.facebook.com/audie.taquino/posts/10213418436988584

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #1291 on: May 13, 2018, 04:21:06 PM »
Still with you Dog and enjoying it. A link below to a steam shovel.

https://www.facebook.com/audie.taquino/posts/10213418436988584
Hi Don!
I am not a FB member, so cannot see that post...  :-[   This forum is as close as I get to antisocial media!   :Lol:

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #1292 on: May 13, 2018, 09:18:06 PM »
Got the rear cross beams silver soldered up, and made the backstay anchor block, which holds the ends of the backstay bars that hold up the front A-frame. The block was pieced up from some 1" square bar and some 1/4" flat bar, trimmed to width/length, and drilled for the cross pin. The radius on the end was done with the drill-through-the-hole method on the mill.
The slots were then milled in to take the backstay bars:With the beams silver soldered, cleaned up, centers of the webs milled out like on the other beams, here is a test fit with the cross bolts:Next step is to drill the holes in the long beams for the bolts, and can assemble it. At the same time as drilling those holes, will drill a couple other cross holes that will take some of the control pivots later on, for the hoist brake and swing throttle linkages. All the other control rods anchor underneath and on the sides, so no need for long cross holes for them.

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #1293 on: May 14, 2018, 12:43:19 AM »
Got the holes drilled for the long bolts that hold the rear cross beams in place. Lots of measurements, then a while to figure out how to clamp the frame on its side to the mill table. The drill press I have is not set up with any X/Y table with any precision, so it was done on the mill. The frame is so wide, I had to use the 3-jaw chuck to get the last bit of height for the drill bit. I could have taken the frame apart to do the rails individually, but that would have been a whole lot more work.Here is the rear cross beam in place - note that the cross rods go through the stay anchor in the middle as well.And a wider shot showing the entire frame - having to back up a lot more to get it all in!Next is to take the rear plate off the frame, to drill the holes for the coal deck supports and the steering gear shaft. The rear tracks are not driven for movement, but they pivot for steering, and the steam engine that powers the pivot of the rear tracks is behind the boiler on the left side. A gear driven shaft runs forward through the frame to a worm gear that turns the power 90 degrees across the frame, where another really long worm gear moves a tiller left and right, moving the rear tracks with it. The front tracks are driven, and provide the motive power to move the shovel. On the original machine before the tracks, there was no need for the steering engine since the shovel ran on railroad rails, powered by chains from the hoist engine to the axles.

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #1294 on: May 14, 2018, 01:03:40 AM »
I think I finally understand why your progress seems so rapid.

You must have a collection of raw stock of Brobdingnagian proportions!  We almost never hear you lamenting, "As soon as the ... arrives, I'll start work on ..." I'm sitting here imagining a rented Boeing 747 hangar filled to the ceiling with every type of material, in every shape and size increment.

I'm also imagining a smaller, Piper-cub size hangar filled with all the currency you use to buy all the brass you're using in this project.

Keep up the great work.  We're all enjoying this thread immensely.
Turns out that this came up again - was about figure out how to lay down the plate for the flooring on the frames, realized that I did not have enough wide thin stock, so just ordered some thin aluminum from McMaster, but not much delay since it will be here Tuesday. Nice having one of their warehouse centers 60 miles away so things arrive in a business day....And yes, threw in some more brass plate, always using the stuff, so the hanger gets a little fuller...! :cheers:

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #1295 on: May 14, 2018, 01:15:13 PM »
Holes done in the rear plate and all is reassembled again - here is a nice family shot of the booms and frame. Had to put some weight on the rear of the frame or when I pull on the hoist chain the frame went up in the air! The boiler, engines, gears, etc will be plenty to hold it down when they are made.Next up is the set of bars for the backstay links, currently just a piece of string. Then will do the rear deck frames, which were added at the quarry at some point to make a permenant coal deck rather than the fold-up one that the shovel was originally built with - the frames will be about another 6" longer than they are now. This was a common modification in quarries - the fold up deck was fine when transporting by rail to different locations, but the permenant deck gave more room and was more solid. Another modification most places did was to add scaffolding down the sides at floor level, walking through the cab when running the engines is very dangerous since there is a very narrow walking space between the walls and the gears.Heading out to the quarry in a little while to get more pictures, also taking my mother along to tour the shovel (part of an extended mothers day). Also going to take tracings of the root of the missing tooth on the dipper bucket so I can fabricate a replacement for it.

Offline Farmboy

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #1296 on: May 14, 2018, 02:17:23 PM »
Chris, hope you won't mind me sharing a thought on the layout of the postings. I think they would display better in my browser if there was a carriage return before and after the photo; as things are the text gets a bit confusing, and some photos get pushed over to the right. I know other devices interpret the display differently so maybe it's just me. I'm using Firefox on a desktop PC.

Still following your progress! This thread is my first port of call every morning  :cheers:

P.S. Just checked and it's the same on Chrome.
« Last Edit: May 14, 2018, 08:12:17 PM by Farmboy »

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #1297 on: May 14, 2018, 08:43:51 PM »
Chris, hope you won't mind me sharing a thought on the layout of the postings. I think they would display better in my browser if there was a carriage return before and after the photo; as things are the text gets a bit confusing, and some photos get pushed over to the right. I know other devices interpret the display differently so maybe it's just me. I'm using Firefox on a desktop PC.

Still following your progress! This thread is my first port of call every morning  :cheers:

P.S. Just checked and it's the same on Chrome.
Thats odd - I DO have carriage returns before/after the photos in the text lines, just not blank lines. I am using Firefox on my PC (windows), and I do not get that wrapping like you show.

EDIT: now I see it like that, if I make the window wider. Odd though, when I compose the messages I am putting 'return's in bfore/after the photos. Must be something about how the site is doing the formatting? Wonder if there is a setting somewhere for that...

Offline Farmboy

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #1298 on: May 14, 2018, 10:16:12 PM »
Yes, when I narrow the window the photos line up properly, but the text still starts beside the photo instead of below. As you say, probably the site software. Having dabbled in web design I know how hard it is to get things to work on all the different devices  :killcomputer:

Sorry, didn't meant to divert you from the proper job, which is moving on at a fantastic pace . . . really loving all the fabrication work  :cheers:

Mike.

P.S. ( again! ) It looks perfect on my Blackberry Passport  8)
« Last Edit: May 14, 2018, 10:33:48 PM by Farmboy »

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #1299 on: May 14, 2018, 10:41:44 PM »
No sweat Mike!


Today was fun, took my mother out to tour the shovel, perfect weather to get out. As usual, spotted more details I missed before. Lots more pictures. I took tracings of the bucket teeth, thinking of making a replacement tip for the missing one. Those things are huge when you get up close!


The historical society is setting up the restoration fund at their meeting tonight, more things getting moving. Exciting stuff.

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #1300 on: May 15, 2018, 01:52:36 AM »
Looking to make the backstay bars, which are 3/16" x3/8" section with larger discs at the ends to hold the pins. Going to silver solder discs onto the bar ends, guess I need to come up with another little clamp. The bars wont fit through the lathe headstock for drilling, way longer than the ways or mill column too, so no good way to pin them on. Sketching up some clamp ideas...

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #1301 on: May 15, 2018, 03:44:19 PM »
Think I have the clamps for the backstay bar ends worked out. Here are what the ends look like, turned out of some bar stock, flattened to match the width of the bar, drilled for the cross pins and parted off:

I was milling up the clamp plates, and this happened on the mill:

The switch post snapped off - took a minute to figure out what it was, thought a part fell off the light fixture at first. Guess it can only take so many thousand activations.... Metal looks like typical crap zinc alloy, very grainy. At least I can still turn it on/off with the end of a hex wrench while I order a replacemet...Anyway, here is what the clamp looks like, with the parts held in with some 4-40 screws:

The hole underneath should allow the torch to heat the part through for soldering, and keep the solder from sticking it to the clamp. Made up two to speed the work, need to make up three bars with the discs at either end.

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #1302 on: May 15, 2018, 08:16:22 PM »
Got the ends all silver soldered on the backstay bars, then trimmed them flush with the surface of the bars (they were still left a bit thick from parting off the longer bar).
I made up the pins to hold them, and assembled them to the frame. There are two shorter bars at the back, and one long one at the front going up to the top of the a-frame.

Here is a shot of it all, with the bucket swung over to the right side:
All working well, definitely needs the tracks and outriggers for support when swinging to the side, gets a little tippy!

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #1303 on: May 16, 2018, 01:40:25 AM »
The aluminum plate for the floors arrived today, here is the 2" outer plates set on the frames, some of the 4" plates for the center strip is in the foreground. Going to need to mill off a fraction down the sides to get the final dimensions, then cut lots of openings for boiler, supports, stays, pipes, etc.  This stuff looks pretty decent, think I will use the same for the cab walls later on (the originals were wood, but the quarry replaced them with steel plate at some point during its 43 years in the quarry).

Also got another length of angle iron made from two strips for the rear deck supports. Still need to make up some lengths of small I beams too - going to make a mini version of the clamps I made for the large main beams. These will be from 3/16" and 1/4" strips rather than the 1/2" and 1-1/4" ones for the larger set.


Tomorrow I am going to split off and do a motor swap in the sea turtle submarine, have a higher performance one I want to try this weekend at the pond for our outdoor kickoff picnic. After that will be back on the metal work again...

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #1304 on: May 16, 2018, 10:29:44 PM »
The other parts needed for the rear coal deck include a set of small I beams, so I whipped up a set of smaller clamps like the ones used on the large main beams, from some 3/4" wide steel bar. Lesson learned from the large ones, make the openings on the sides with the screws larger so they will come off the freshly soldered beams easier, even with lumps of flux and soot sticking up.

They were milled up as a long bar, and drilled for the side holes, then cut apart and the end holes drilled.

Here is how they hold the steel strips for soldering:

and the finished product, ready for trimming to length. One of the strips had a section that the solder did not penetrate on, so I just re-soldered that section.

So now that I have a couple lengths of I beam and a length of angle stock, will start cutting them up into the individual parts, and drilling for attaching to the main frames...

 

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