Author Topic: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel  (Read 573348 times)

Offline Ye-Ole Steam Dude

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #2265 on: October 19, 2018, 06:00:57 PM »
Hello Chris,

The new sprockets/chain wheel really look good and the gear guards also.

Have a great day,
Thomas
Thomas

Offline Brian Rupnow

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #2266 on: October 19, 2018, 06:37:16 PM »
Amazing stuff---Love it.---Brian

Offline Kim

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #2267 on: October 19, 2018, 08:22:11 PM »
Just too cool, Chris!

I was wondering about the guy standing there on that gear... but that's the 'official' spot, eh?  Seems like a pretty scary occupation, that!

Great work, Chris!
Kim

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #2268 on: October 19, 2018, 08:41:44 PM »
Just too cool, Chris!

I was wondering about the guy standing there on that gear... but that's the 'official' spot, eh?  Seems like a pretty scary occupation, that!

Great work, Chris!
Kim
The figure is standing down on the lower level of the turntable, probably would have really been up on the top of the disc area. Still, the hoist chain is just to one side, rocks and dirt probably bouncing down from the bucket in front, out in the sun/rain/snow, just a lovely spot to work!!  He had to be out there to work the lever for the throttle on the crowd engine, that lever will be on the back side of the guide wheel bracket (mount screws are there now, lever to come later). He also pulled the rope to dump the load from the bucket. The main operator on the wood platform did everything else.

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #2269 on: October 19, 2018, 08:51:22 PM »
And the final bit of work for the slew gear train, made the guide blocks for the rear bracket. These would keep the chain from sagging too low and walking off the guide wheels leading to the turntable. They were milled up from a couple solid offcuts, and the troughs done with a ball end mill. They are screwed to the bracket from underneath.

A family shot of the slew gears and turntable:

That finishes off the slew gear train (the slew engine comes later), so next step is the hoist gear train! The crankshaft for the hoist engine and the first small gear are already on the front end of the slew gear base. It will drive the largest of the gears, which is used to drive the hoist drum via a steam-operated clutch mechanism, which is one of the really clever bits on this machine. Here is where the large gear will go, you can see the smaller gear on the crankshaft to the left:

The drum will be on the same shaft as that gear, and take the hoist chain that comes back through the front part of the main frames. The lower slew chain in that photo passes just over the top of the hoist drum. So, next up will be to make the axle and bearing blocks for this gear. The other end of the axle, nearest the camera, will hold the first gear leading to the track drive gear train, since the same hoist engine gets used to move the front tracks as well (another clutch down there).


Enough for today, time for some cookies with the elves!!   :cartwheel:

Offline derekwarner

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #2270 on: October 19, 2018, 11:40:54 PM »
Chris...your hand powered viewing :hammerbash: or the function of the  boom slew drive is most impressive  :ThumbsUp:

How many turns of chain are on the slew drive drum?

Without going back so many pages, is the original slew drum just a smooth diameter, or does it have some form of longitudinal segmented or thread form to grip the slew chain?

During a digging operation, do the loading's applied against the bucket ...to the boom ....be restrained directly by the tension of pay in/pay out of the hoist chain?

Looking forward to continued watching ...... Derek

« Last Edit: October 20, 2018, 02:06:51 AM by derekwarner_decoy »
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Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #2271 on: October 20, 2018, 12:03:22 AM »
Chris...your hand powered viewing :hammerbash: or the function of the  boom slew drive is most impressive :ThumbsDown:

How many turns of chain are on the slew drive drum?

Without going back so many pages, is the original slew drum just a smooth diameter, or does it have some form of longitudinal segmented or thread form to grip the slew chain?

During a digging operation, do the loading's applied against the bucket ...to the boom ....be restrained directly by the tension of pay in/pay out of the hoist chain?

Looking forward to continued watching ...... Derek


Hi Derek,


Without the slew engine being made yet, thats the only way to show its function.   :shrug:




There are two slew chains, counterwound on the drum. The back ends are held with a half loop fixed to the drum walls, then there are three turns around the drum, and the chains run forward to the guide wheels and around the turntable rim to the bottom of the boom, where the attach to long threaded hooks to tension them. The drum is smooth, as is the inside of the guide wheels, no sprockets or notches.


Any side force on the boom is held by the slew chain, all lifting force is held by the hoist chain. The slew drum has no brake, but the hoist drum does have a brake band. The hoist engine has a spot in the throttle valve that will hold position, and another that connects both ends of the pistons to exhaust so they can freewheel. This allows the operator to hold and lower without use of the clutch or brake, they touted this one lever control as a big ease of use feature.


Hope that makes sense?


 :cheers:


Chris

Offline derekwarner

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #2272 on: October 20, 2018, 02:03:24 AM »
Thanks Chris...yes 100% ......

I understood about the chains being counter wound & secured to the slew winch drum side plate etc....but didn't realize the 2 tensioning links in the boom arm could take up all of the slack in the slew motion .......

I think the original slew motion would have been quite clunkly  :hammerbash: as the chain links clicked or snapped over in the change direction during a slewing motion...from the slew engine drum....thru the guide or support wheels then onto the main slew quadrant wheel of the machine  ...that is during a slewing motion and not a reversal of slew

Having said this it would have just been a part of the rather loud smash & groan sound of the machine

Derek

PS...sorry about the previous thumbs down........was a missed key.....I have corrected my error
« Last Edit: October 20, 2018, 02:07:15 AM by derekwarner_decoy »
Derek L Warner - Honorary Secretary [Retired]
Illawarra Live Steamers Co-op - Australia
www.ils.org.au

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #2273 on: October 20, 2018, 02:24:21 AM »
Hi Derek,  yes, those machines must have been quite loud, makes sense that they later switched to cable drive rather than chain, in those days metallurgy was advancing quickly. I wish there were videos available of the chain machines with sound, only ones I have are silent, just picture. The steam part was not loud, that was something that surprised me when running the Lombard up in Maine, almost all the noise was from the drive chains and tracks. From a fairly short distance it was very quiet, at least till the whistle blew! The gas engined one was very loud just from the engine.


 :cheers:

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #2274 on: October 20, 2018, 10:29:18 PM »
Today I got the stock picked out and rough cut for the hoist drum and axle. The axle is out of 1/2" steel rod, turned down at the ends to fit the gears and bearings. The drum section could be made the same diameter as for the gears, which is 7/16", but leaving it full 1/2" diameter means it will keep the nice smooth finish the bar has, which is good since the drum will be able to rotate seperately from the axle when the clutch is disengaged. So, the center hole in the drum will be a slide fit on the 1/2" center of the axle.


I picked some 1-7/8" brass bar for the drum center, for two reasons: I had a short length of that size already, and using brass means I don't need to bush the center hole for bearing bronze like I would if it was steel. Okay, three reasons - the brass will be nicer to work with to get it to the shape of the drum center!


So, started by turning the bar to length, and notched in the ends for the 1/4" plates that will form the outer walls. Those ends were turned to 5/8", the plates will be bored to match. The plates take the total diameter of the drum out to the finished 3", and will also provide the surfaces for the clutch and brake bands to ride on. In this picture, both ends have been notched in, the post on the other end fit within the center hole of the chuck.



Then drilled and bored the center hole for the axle:



And used a center-point tool to start roughing in the center section, which will be 1.375" diameter, with .25" radius ends to blend in with the outer plates later.



Switched tools, and turned the first end down to shape freehand, then used a half round file to smooth out the tool marks.



Tomorrow I will turn the part around, grip it by the end post since the finished end is too narrow, and turn the second end of the inside of the drum to match the first. After that, I can start shaping the end plates, which were rough cut out of some 1/4" plate stock.

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #2275 on: October 21, 2018, 06:21:09 PM »
As mentioned yesterday, this morning I turned the drum around and gripped it by the end post to finish turning the drum recess. To avoid any risk of deforming the post when tightening the chuck, I put in a short piece of 1/2" bar at that end. The second end was first roughed in with left to right passes, going shorter the farther it went in:

Interesting to see how much the brass oxidised overnight on the left side, compared to the fresh cuts on the right. If only Don was here to keep it polished up. But, then he would drown me in the swamp when I painted it!
Then made what I call etcha-sketch passes from the rim into the center, turning both handwheels to form the curve in a couple of passes (this could also have been done with a curved form tool, but it would have taken a lot longer to grind one up than to do it this way).

The shape was then gone over with a half-round file while spinning to smooth in the last tool marks, then the whole thing scrubbed with a scouring pad. Here it is with the axle blank back in:

And a shot of where it will be in the model:

Next step is to make the end plates for the drum. These are 1/4" thick x 3" diameter, and both hold in the wraps of chain and give a wide rim to be the surfaces that the clutch and brake bands ride on. Started with rough cutting them out of a larger piece of 1/4" stock, and drilling the starter hole for the center:

and widening that out with the boring head to fir the end post on the drum:

One down, one to go:

Once the second blank is ready, I will mount each on a mandrel to turn the outer rim to size.




Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #2276 on: October 21, 2018, 08:06:16 PM »
Once both end plate blanks were bored to a nice snug fit on the drum end posts, they were mounted one at a time on an arbor for turning to size. They just fit on the lathe without hitting the ways:

and turned to size:

test fit on the drum:

So far so good - next need to drill for and fit the half-loop on one side plate that takes the end of the hoist chain, then the plates can be mounted permenantly to the drum with some loctite....

Offline Gas_mantle

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #2277 on: October 21, 2018, 08:20:12 PM »
Looking great Chris, it's taking shape nicely  :)

Offline JC54

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #2278 on: October 21, 2018, 09:29:25 PM »
Excuse me Chris, if being simple but have you recessed drum into end plates or just nice snug fit? trying to see transition from end plates to drum.  :old: :DrinkPint:
When the Fun Stops,, Stop!

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel
« Reply #2279 on: October 21, 2018, 09:36:51 PM »
Excuse me Chris, if being simple but have you recessed drum into end plates or just nice snug fit? trying to see transition from end plates to drum.  :old: :DrinkPint:
I thought about recessing them in, but having the ends of the drum taper out to thin points looks good as is, so the end plates just butt up to the drum. Had to handle the drum carefully since the tips are a bit sharp.


 :cheers:

 

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