Author Topic: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?  (Read 23357 times)

Offline gbritnell

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Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
« Reply #30 on: November 08, 2018, 12:22:46 PM »
Hi Thomas,
Thanks for the pictures. It looks like even the simplest ones have similar features.
gbritnell
Talent unshared is talent wasted.

Offline zeeprogrammer

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Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
« Reply #31 on: November 08, 2018, 04:10:23 PM »
I'll be following along. This isn't something one runs across very often.

Just wish that the council would put a roof over the original - that alone would keep it much healthier ….

Yes. I'm just back from a cross country road trip and it was disheartening to come across many machines simply rusting away in a field or yard. Worse, a number of historical sites where, due to lack of money or interest, the buildings are rotting away. We're losing a lot of history. Photos just don't do enough justice. You have to be there.
Carl (aka Zee) Will sometimes respond to 'hey' but never 'hey you'.
"To work. To work."
Zee-Another Thread Trasher.

Offline Craig DeShong

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Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
« Reply #32 on: November 13, 2018, 01:11:36 AM »
 Hi George.  You're in what I find to be a real challenging and fun part; devising comprises between an actual part and one that can be made with the tooling we have available- then getting everything to fit together properly.

A good 3D drawing tool makes this fun as,well as challenging; and can give the old noggin a real workout.

Can't wait to see what you come up with.
Craig
The destination motivates us toward excellence, the journey entertains us, and along the way we meet so many interesting people.

Offline gbritnell

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Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
« Reply #33 on: November 21, 2019, 05:38:52 PM »
 Well it's been almost a year to the day but I finally got started on the Galion. As those of you that use brass know the prices have increased dramatically so I spent a great deal of time thinking about how to make the frame rails. The reason being is that the frame is 14 inches long by .50 wide. The finished height is 2.375 from the lowest to the highest point. To purchase a piece of 360 brass large enough to machine the rails from came somewhere near $130.00 plus shipping. As you will see from the pictures there's not much metal used but it would require a large piece to start with. I thought about fabricating it by cutting the rail segments out and soldering them together but in construction there are many pieces that need to be soldered to the frame so trying to keep everything together might have become a real chore. I did think of using aluminum for the frame but that would limit soldering parts to it.
 My friends who are always asking questions about my projects from time to time would ask how the grader was coming and I told them about the situation with the brass. One day I was talking to a buddy and he said that he had a huge chunk of brass, 12 x 8 x 2 but didn't know what grade it was but I was more than welcome to take it and see what I could do with it.
The first problem was trying to take a slice thicker than .50 from the chunk. For that another buddy set up his horizontal band saw with an angle plate and clamps and some tricky maneuvering but got the job done. Being as the piece was only 12 inches long and the from is a little over 14 the next issue was how to cut the rails and how they would be joined. While pondering this situation another friend with a somewhat large machine shop said that most of the machines were going to be moved to another location and he has some down-time on a couple of the CNC machines and if I drew up a model he would cut the frame rails for me before the machines go back into production mode.
 I eagerly accepted his offer and modeled the rails in Solidworks and gave him the file to see if it was usable, which it was.
 I had to make the rails in two pieces because of the stock length so the intent was to silver solder them together after machining. I created the model leaving a .005 fin all around the contour. The slab was then flipped and the recess machined into the other side. With the machining finished it was just a matter of cutting the frame rails segments away from the parent stock. The rails were then cleaned up and a fixture was made to hold the two pieces together for soldering. I put the slightest chamfer on the adjoining edges so that the solder would have a small crevice to fill as I had to but the two pieces together to maintain the accuracy of the rails. The silver soldering came out ok. There is the tiniest of indentations where the chamfer was but I didn't want to overfill the joint and then have to file all the extra solder out.
 The front of the machine has two plates, top and bottom, between which is a steering head. Before I could start any assembly the steering head would need to be made. This was cut from a bar of .75 brass using my step-off technique to create the shape. The plates were made and bolted to the steering head using 0-80 bolts. The frame rail from one side was fluxed and aligned with the plates and soldered with 50-50 solder using a propane torch. Before I could attach the other rail I had to make the rear plate to maintain the proper angle of the rails (1.44 degrees per side.) The rear plate was made and everything was clamped together and aligned edge to edge. Once I was satisfied with the alignment the other rail was soldered to the front plates.
 In the pictures I have added a .25 piece of angle brass near the front which is a cross brace for the rails.
 I have an assortment of brass stock, angles, rods etc. ordered from Precision Scale Model Engineering so as soon as it arrives I can continue with the frame construction.


 
Talent unshared is talent wasted.

Offline Ye-Ole Steam Dude

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Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
« Reply #34 on: November 21, 2019, 06:36:38 PM »
Hello George,

That is some absolutely gorgeous work.

Have a great day,
Thomas
Thomas

Offline Don1966

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Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
« Reply #35 on: November 21, 2019, 08:41:43 PM »
Nice start George and sone awesome work as always. Looking forward to more updates..... :Love:



 :cheers:
Don

Offline crueby

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Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
« Reply #36 on: November 21, 2019, 09:14:10 PM »
Awesome first parts! I was hoping you would get back to this project too. There is an old road grader sitting outside the barn up at the logging museum up in Maine, every time I see it I think of this project. The one up there is a Wehr One Man Power Grader, very similar setup to yours.
Now, where did the elves hide the popcorn THIS time...
 :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

Offline Craig DeShong

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Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
« Reply #37 on: November 22, 2019, 01:48:01 AM »
Nice to see the progress on this project.  The wait was well worth it !!
Craig
The destination motivates us toward excellence, the journey entertains us, and along the way we meet so many interesting people.

Offline PJPickard

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Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
« Reply #38 on: November 22, 2019, 12:12:49 PM »
You always pick projects that are to me personally really interesting, this one absolutely included! Looking forward to more.

Offline mike mott

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Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
« Reply #39 on: November 22, 2019, 02:02:24 PM »
George I shall follow along as well. back in 1988 i took photos of an old horse drawn Grader that is on display on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia Canada. I thought to myself that would be an interesting model. So now I can watch yours being built without having to do it myself.

Mike
If you can imagine it you can build it

Offline scc

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Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
« Reply #40 on: November 22, 2019, 09:44:26 PM »
Lovely progress.... :popcorn: :popcorn:

Offline gbritnell

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Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
« Reply #41 on: November 28, 2019, 03:53:07 PM »
While waiting for material I started on the wheels. The hubs have a detail on them so they were turned then the 4 ribs were milled into the outer edges. This as most of my circular milling was done with the dividing head. The hubs were turned onto the end of a piece of .50 round bar stock and left there until the spoke holes were drilled. With the drilling complete they were cut from the bar and finished to length and a radius formed on the inner flange.
Talent unshared is talent wasted.

Offline gbritnell

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Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
« Reply #42 on: November 28, 2019, 04:06:00 PM »
Next up were the rims. The front and rear are different sizes so I had to make a fixture to hole them for drilling. I used a piece of 12L14 steel 4" diameter. A .062 flange was cut to match the inner diameter of both wheels. The fixture was though drilled so that a bolt would pass through to hold the clamp for the rim.  I laid out the center lines for each row of spokes then mounted them on the fixture and mounted it into the dividing head. The large wheel has a spoke angle of 8 degrees and the small front wheel is 10 degrees. The rims were drilled them removed, deburred and a small chamfer put into the edge of the hole by hand. This would be for the solder to fill and hold the spokes. When I made the fixture I reamed a center hole to eventually hold a post to locate the hub on. With all the drilling complete I put the rim on the fixture and slid the hub on the post. The first spoke was inserted and cut to length. When I had the length I cut off 17 more for the rear (18 total) and did the same for the front (16 total). Before soldering I put two small clamps on to hold the rim down tight against the fixture. The ends of the protruding spokes were fluxed and soldered with 50/50 solder.
Talent unshared is talent wasted.

Offline gbritnell

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Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
« Reply #43 on: November 28, 2019, 04:09:48 PM »
After soldering I started filing off the ends of each spoke and the solder but decided this was going to take forever so I mounted the finished wheels back on the fixture and put the fixture in the four jaw chuck so I could indicate the O.D. of the wheel true. I then cut the spoke ends and solder staying away about .003. This made the job of filing and finishing much easier.
Talent unshared is talent wasted.

Offline gbritnell

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Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
« Reply #44 on: November 28, 2019, 04:12:27 PM »
Just for grins I set the frame on a couple of 1-2-3 blocks and stood the finished wheels next to it to get an idea of the scope of the model. When you see it like this as opposed to a 2D drawing it starts to come to life.
Talent unshared is talent wasted.

 

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