Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?

[Dave Otto]

George I continue to follow along silently in the background and enjoying your design and craftsmanship of the Galion road grader.
The family shots of what you have accomplished so far are just stunning!

Thank you for taking the time to post and share with us this amazing build!

Dave

[gbritnell]

The last two parts for the operators platform have been finished. These are the two large spoked wheels that rotate the blade elevation arms through a worm and gear.
The rims are .109 diameter brass rod with an I.D. of 2.625. I had a piece cut from a 3.50 diameter aluminum bar so I used that as my fixture block. On one side I turned the I.D. back .218 to allow an overlap of the stock when forming it around the fixture. This would allow me to wrap the stock, mark and cut it off.
On the other side of the slug I cut the same diameter but only went down .109. I had the piece set up on my rotary table and relived as much as possible to prevent the heat from being wicked away while soldering. I left raised bosses at the spoke center lines and cut a groove through them with a .0625 diameter ball end mill. These slots would support the spokes and keep them aligned while soldering.
The stock for the rims was annealed and formed around the fixture. The excess was cut off leaving about .03 for filing and fitting. I flipped the fixture over and used small parallel clamps to hold the rim tight to the fixture while filing the ends for a good fit. When I was satisfied with the fit I lightly chamfered the edges to hold the solder. You can see the solder joint in the picture.

[gbritnell]

The wheel have bosses at both ends of the spokes, hub and rim. I don't quite know what they were for but I wanted to replicate them. I cut all the spokes to the proper length then made 32, .10 x .03 bushings. I turned and drilled the center hubs for the spokes. I made a stud for the center of the fixture to hold the hub concentric with the rim. The through hole is for a 2-56 shaft in the gear box.

[gbritnell]

The spokes were put into the holes in the hub and one bushing was butted up against the hub. With all the spokes in place I slid the other bushings onto the spokes then put the rim onto the fixture.
I fluxed each of the joints then cut tiny pieces of 50/50 solder. One at a time I laid a small piece of solder on each joint then heated it until the solder flowed around the bushing and the spoke. With the outside done I did the same at the hub. The assembled wheel was removed and all the flux scrubbed off.

[gbritnell]

The finished wheels were slid onto the ends of the gear box shaft and secured with a 2-56 hex nut. Here's several pictures of the full sized machine and then a couple of the model.

[Don1966]

Awwww George!!!! Your still one of my hero’s. Magnificent Craftsmanship my friend you never fail to deliver a great piece of work....... 



 
Don

[ChuckKey]

Quite apart from George's enormous skill in building the model, it must have taken a good deal of skill to drive the full size article. So far, I think I can count seven different hand controls on the 'footplate', plus the 'snowflake' wheel, which was presumably intended to be kicked round. And all of this probably while traversing a steeply sloped batter.

[Alan Haisley]

George,
Getting all of those pieces alike amazes me. I can generally make one of a kind, sometimes two or even three of a kind, but all those pieces? Never happens.
Looking at your pictures makes me wonder just how Galion assembled their wheels. Are they perhaps threaded to screw into the bosses?

[crueby]

Friend of mine up in Maine sent me this video:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AGev-8ZoPY" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AGev-8ZoPY</a>

They have an old grader at the logging museum, this video makes them want to hook it up to a Lombard or Cletrac and go play. Some of their events have draft horses too....

[gbritnell]

Gentlemen,
It's been awhile but it's not like I haven't been working on it. The last update was the handwheels. Since then I started on the blade frame. This consists of 2 curved rails which have a channel cross section.  They are joined at the front by a piece that has angular sides and an eye post that that holds the assembly to the main frame by a U-ring which goes through the head post.  Picture #1
As the rails taper outwards toward the rear they are connected by various cross members. The first being a piece of angled stock. The second is a complex part which will allow a locking pin to engage the circular frame that will hold the blade itself. Pictures #2 and #3. The next connecting piece part is a piece of channel stock that it riveted to the rails. Pictures #2 and #3 plus #4.

[gbritnell]

The last piece spanning the rails is a complex part made from 2 pieces of angles stock. The ends needed to be angled downward but in the past trying to stretch the brass gave poor results so to accomplish this job I calculated the angular cut that would be needed in the vertical rail and sawed and filed it to shape. This allowed me to bend the end to the needed angle. Now I cut small triangles of brass to fit the notched and soldered them in place. I then filed and polished the outside of the rails which can be seen in the one closeup picture. These angled pieces then had fillers in the ends through which the lower ball joint post passes. These were carefully soldered in place while the patch joint was insulated so it wouldn't come undone.

[gbritnell]

This angled assembly is riveted to brackets that are riveted to the main rails. I say riveted because the side that show the most has a rivet head while the inside has a M1.2 x .25 square nut.

[gbritnell]

At the ends of the two rails are pieces of flat stock which are here again riveted to the rails. These are drilled to hold a yoke type assembly that connects to the lateral moving block which is move by a lead screw under the dirt shield on the back curve of the frame.

[gbritnell]

Next up was to make the two connecting links that go from the upper shafts to the curved angle piece on the frame. These are another assembly of a number of parts. At each end is needed a ball joint so as the blade is moved up and down and side to side they will freely swivel. To accomplish this I started with a piece of stock in the lathe and plunged into it wih a .187 diameter ball mill. From there the stock was moved to the dividing head on the mill. Here the bolt flanges were milled and the lower outside ball shape was stepped off with a .093 diameter ball mill. The rectangular section under the ball was milled to size and drilled. While the part was still on the end of the stock it allowed for holding so the ball shape could be filed and smoothed. The cap were made almost the same way except almost the full outer ball shape was stepped off in the lathe. I left enough holding so I could put the part in the mill to drill the flange mounting holes. The part was then cut free and mounted to a mandrel to finish the ball shape.
The ball joints were made by drilling a .187 bronze ball through the center and soldering onto a post with a 2-56 thread that would go through the curved upper arms and the lower angled brackets.
The two side plates were made by cutting a piece of stock to width and length and drilling all the holes in it. I then used a slitting saw to separate them from the parent stock. As can be seen by the pictures the whole assembly is riveted together. Here I cut the escutcheon pins to half the length and put them through the side plates and spacer bars. When it was all assembled I soldered everything together.

[gbritnell]

That just about takes care of the blade frame. All that's left is to make the small bevel gear and bearing blocks and mount them to the plate.
Now the blade assembly! On the full sized machine I'm assuming it was a rolled shape that was then bent to the required configuration. The shape is somewhat like an I beam. The center section is thicker than an I beam but has a thin flange at the top which protruded from both sides of the central bar. At the bottom of the rail is a thicker section which is not quite as wide as the top flange. The best comparison would be that of a railroad rail turned upside down.
How in the heck am I going to make this thing??
I thought of several ways that it might be made but they involved making the rail then trying to form it with radii going in two different directions. I settled on taking a piece of stock and milling it to the proper thickness. I then drilled and tapped my aluminum sacrificial rotary table plate to allow mounting the plate. The part was cut upside down, meaning the wide thin flange was at the bottom and the narrower thicker flange was at the top. I first cut the outer radius of the part and cut the inset radius with a woodruff key cutter. With that stock removed I then used 3 small clamps to hold the part so that the inside maching could be done. The inside was still mounted to the plate but as the inside radii would be cut the clamps were needed to hold the part to here again use the key cutter for the recess.
The two curve tails were done in a different but similar manner. Rectangular stock was milled to thickness and mounting holes were put in. The plate were then mounted to the rotary table plate. First the holes for the various attachment points were drilled then the radii were cut, inside and outside. I stayed .010 shy of depth so the piece would still be held by the parent stock. The part was then flipped over and the inner recess was cut. The part was then sawed free from the parent stock and filed and polished.
To join the main curved piece and the tails would be a task in itself. While silver soldering the slightest movement would produce a terrible result. so I set all three parts up and drilled two pin holes in each. (.050 diameter). With the parts in th the mill vise I indicated the mating surface until it was dead flat. I then used my edge finder and bumped the surfaces 2-3 times just to make sure I got the same readings. The pin holes were put in and with the pins in place the flanges lined up perfectly.
The assembly was wired together and silver soldered.
As with the blade frame various flanges and cross members needed to be mounted to it.