Pennsylvania A3 Switcher (Kozo)

[Kim]

Chapter 5.5 – Verge Board

On to the Verge Board!
I’ll re-post the picture of the horseshoe assembly.  The Verge Board is labeled ( 8 ) here.


I carefully laid out the Verge Board pattern on some paper then used spray adhesive to attach it onto the 0.040” sheet brass. Using the bandsaw, I cut that chunk off the huge piece of brass that I have.  I got this brass sheet from a local place here that USED to sell offcuts and scrap pieces by the pound. They don’t anymore, which is too bad.  I used to get some great deals on metal there.  Guess it cost them too much to sell the offcuts.  Now they just recycle it.


Using the scroll saw, I cut the shape out of the sheet.




After a little clean up on sander, I bent the tabs to 15^o.


Then I bent the 90^o corners and fit it to the top horseshoe member.


It's clear that I have some fitting to do here.  The end should fit inside the notch here. I have about 3/32” to remove off each end.


Thanks for taking a look at my progress!
Kim

[cnr6400]

 

[mike mott]

Looks good Kim.

Mike

[Kim]

Thanks Cnr and Mike!
Kim

[Kim]

I left off fitting the Verge Board to the Top Horseshoe Member.

I started by drilling some holes to attach it firmly, so I could accurately mark the length.


Here I’m putting a mark to indicate the length on each side.


After filing & sanding to length, here it is, fitted in place:


Now, I need to make the rim of the verge board. The rim is a strip that runs all around the verge board.  It is 1/8” wide, made from 1/16” brass sheet. The problem is that it’s a ‘little’ bigger than the verge board itself, but needs to fit flush with the edge.  So, I rolled the verge board around some and came up with this general shape.  I started to mark off the 1/8” width but then decided not to do that till I’d cut out the top profile, as you’ll see.


I started by cutting out the shape on the band saw, leaving a bit around all edges.


Then I shaped the top edge of one side on the disk sander, like so:


And used a divider set at 1/8” to mark the width for the part I’d shaped.


Then cut out the bottom edge using the scroll saw. It goes slower, but it gives me much better control over the cut.


Next, I drilled and tapped some 1-72 holes, for solder holders.


And, holding the rim in place, I transferred the holes to the verge board.


Then drilled them with 1-72 clearance holes.


After attaching the length that I had shaped, I formed the rim around the verge board and marked the rest of the shape up to the sharp bend at the end.


After cutting and shaping up to that point, I held it in place with the existing screws and clamps:


And marked that final piece.


Here’s the final rim piece, shaping complete:


And now, with the trial fit before soldering, I’m ready to go!  One thing I found in the trial fit is that one of my carefully marked holes didn’t line up   But it seemed to have a good connection even without that screw so I didn't bother with it and just left it in to fill the hole. (You can see that right at the lower bend in the rim.)


After silver soldering the rim to the verge board:


And finally, after a nice pickle bath and a lot of clean up and filing work to even everything out:


THAT was a lot of work for one little part!

Thanks for taking a look.
Kim

PS.  You might note that I've made way more progress in the last few days than I normally would.  That's because I got my daughter all married this weekend and now that everyone has left I still have a few days off.  So I just had to play out in the shop   How fun is that?!

[Flyboy Jim]

Lots of work............but wonderful results. Well done Kim.

Jim

[Dave Otto]

Beautiful work Kim!

Dave

[mike mott]

Very nice job on the edge piece Kim.

Mike

[Kim]

Thanks for the kind comments, Jim, Dave, and Mike!
Kim

[Kim]

Chapter 5.6 – Vertical Board

The next, and final part in this sub-assembly, is the Vertical Board.  It will tie the whole thing together.

I started by cutting a piece of 0.040” brass sheet from the parent stock to use for the Vertical Board.  Didn’t take a picture of me sawing.  You've seen that before.

As I was getting ready to bend the piece, I noticed that I’d messed up on the Top Horseshoe Member.  It was supposed to have the vertical bends with the cut-out portion facing down, that way the solid part of the bar would be there to support the sheet metal.  As can be seen in this photo, I bent it backwards.


I toyed with the idea of leaving it as it was but decided against it.  I did several rounds of annealing and bending to undo the bends, then did a few more rounds to bend it the other way.


And after that, I had to fiddle with the holes in the Verge Board to get things to fit again.  But in the end, I won:


Now, back to bending the Vertical Board.  Kozo shows an interesting little tool for bending that’s nothing more than a couple of bars clamped together to help bend the brass evenly.  I made one of those and gave it a shot:


Took a couple rounds of annealing:


And here’s what I ended up with.  Not such a perfect fit   There’s that nice gap along the upper right corner.  Now, it is supposed to be 0.040” away from that edge, but this is way too far!


So, I took an appropriately sized steel rod and stuck in my vice to use as an anvil.   And pounding around with that (using a soft hammer) I was able to re-arrange things to have a much better fit.


This is where I finished up last week.  I’d intended to get this posted, but after about midweek I decided to wait and just finish up the part before posting.
So today, I started by transferring the screw holes onto the vertical board and drilling them.  It's never that easy, of course, and I had to adjust the holes here and there to make everything line up.  But I got it done:


Then I did the same for the Bottom Horseshoe member:


Here is the whole assembly, cleaned and fluxed up ready for solder (soft solder, that is).


After soldering, pickling, and a quick wash-up, here’s how it looks:


The last step I did today was to file down the heads of the solder-holder screws.


I’ve still got a bit of work on the whole horseshoe assembly, so I didn’t finish it today.  But next week for sure!

Thanks for looking in.
Kim

[crueby]

Nice job finessing the sheet, and really impressive that you could rebend that rail, must have judged when to re anneal just right.


 

[Kim]

Thanks, Chris,
Not sure I knew - I only went about 1/3 of the way then re-annealed. That's when it started to feel not quite as ready to bend.  I did a lot of rounds of annealing - seemed safer than pushing it!
Kim

[Jo]

Does look good Kim, well done. 

Jo

[b.lindsey]

Amazing progress Kim. There is a LOT of work in these parts as you say but the results look great!!

Bill

[mike mott]

Nice rework there and the final result looks good.

Mike