Pennsylvania A3 Switcher (Kozo)

[Roger B]

Splendid little pump    I'm still there in the background 

[Kim]

Thanks for the support, Roger!  
Kim

[Kim]

I’m getting slow about posting updates, but I guess it worked out this week.  The air quality is so bad in our area due to the wildfires that I’ve decided not to go out to my shop.  It’s fairly well insulated from the outside, but not as well as inside the house.  Also, we’ve had the garage doors up over the week for various reasons.  My wife (who has a much keener sense of smell than I do) says she can smell the smoke in the garage, but not in the house.  So, I’ve decided not to work out in the shop till the air quality gets better.  I’ve had significant issues with my sinuses over the years and don’t need anything more to exacerbate it.  (Thus, the issue with my sense of smell mentioned above :/)

My particular area is not in immediate danger from the fires, but the air is really bad. The sky glows yellow/orange and the air quality is in the hazardous zone.  I don’t remember it ever being this bad here.  I don’t mean to complain so much about the air quality; lets remember that many hundreds of thousands of people in Oregon have been evacuated or are on standby to be evacuated and many thousands have lost their homes and everything in them to the fires.  And my inconvenience is that I have to put up with bad air…

Anyway, all that to say I’m going to spend my day inside posting updates rather than working out in the shop.  And this will let me catch up.

After the Suction and Delivery studs, I made the Suction Strainer.  This is nothing more than a fancy nut that screws onto the Suction Stud, holding it in place on the bottom of the tender and straining the water that will get sucked out by the axle pump.

The Suction Strainer was made from 5/8” 303 Stainless Hex bar.

Here I’ve drilled & tapped the strainer and cut a 45^o angle on the end. Now I’m cutting it off the parent stock.


And here I’ve flipped it around in the collet, faced it off flat and cut a 45^o taper inside.


With the basic shaping done, I drilled and tapped a few holes (#0-80) as screen retention method (I tried soldering the screen again, with equally pore results on soldering a screen as last time  )


And here is the completed suction strainer and an additional nut I made (from 3/8” 303 stainless hex).  The strainer is the nut to hold the suction stud in place, and the plan 3/8” nut will hold the “Delivery Stud” in place.


That completes all the parts for the section 9.1 – Drain Pipe, Drain Plug, Suction Stud, Delivery Stud, Suction Strainer and Nut.

[Kim]

Chapter 9.2 – Nipple Joints and Nipples

The next section of the piping work is to make all the nipples.  Two of these are “Nipple Joints” and will be used as one end of the attachment to some rubber tubing used to provide a flexible water connection between the tender and the engine.  The other two are just standard nipples for metal-to-metal connection.

Staring with one of the nipple joints, these were made from 5/16” round 360 brass. I started by making the 45^o face on one end of the joint – this end mates with the joining tube connection, and will be pulled up tight (metal to metal) with a union nut.


The back side has a 30^o slope and matches with the inside of the Union nut.


Then it was cut off.  The long section on the back side is 3/16” diameter and will fit inside of the plastic tubing.


I made two of these nipple joints (with small deltas in dimensions). I also made two nipples, which are essentially the same thing but with a much shorter back side since they will simply be soldered to the coper tube rather than fit inside of plastic tubing.


Chapter 9.3 – Union Nuts

The Union Nuts are quite simple and I made four of these, one for each nipple made above.

The union nuts are made from 3/8” hex brass.  I drilled #12 through (just barely larger than 3/16”) and then followed that with a drill and tap for 5/16”-24 threads, 1/4” deep.


Then I cut off the Union Nut at 5/16”.


And here’s a shot of all the nipples and union nuts:


Nearing the end of the little piping pieces!

Thanks for looking in as I catchup on my build.
Kim

[Mark S]

Hi Kim, my name is Mark S and I've been looking at your posts for a while because I am making an A3 switcher too. I live in Bristol, UK. This is my first comment because I have just started making the handrail and I really like your ideas on how to make the feet. I bought some 1/2" hex 303 stainless bar because I thought it might be easier to hold. I think your bobbin idea for filing the end radii is inspired, so thank you for your excellent posts and please continue   

[Kim]

Thanks, Mark!
That's very kind of you to say
I can't take credit for filing buttons.  That's something I learned from the kind people of this forum. They have been incredibly helpful in my learning this hobby of model engineering!

I'd love to see some pictures of your build.  You should post what you're doing so we can compare notes!  Besides, you'll be passing me soon, I'm sure.  I move at a snail's pace. A very determined snail, mind you, but I do make progress!

Also, it would be great to get a quick introductory post from you over in the "Introduce Yourself" board.  That way everyone can get to know who you are, what you're interests are, and where you are from.  This is a great site (as you probably already know).  People are quick to help out and we are generally a non-contfontational lot.

Looking forward to seeing more about your A3 build!
Kim

[Kim]

Today I completed the remainder of the little parts needed for the tender piping.


Chapter 9.4 – Pipe Tip

This pipe tip is a simple brass tube designed to fit over one end of the 5/32” copper tubing used for the hand pump water delivery to the boiler.  It’s a short length of 3/16” 360 brass rod with a hold drilled to fit the end of the pipe.  Here its had the holes drilled and is ready to be cut off.


And now, the completed part.




Chapter 9.5 – Pipe Clamps and Tube Clamps

Next I made the pipe and tube clamps.  These were cut from 1/4" wide strips of 0.040” brass sheet. The edges were cleaned up and then they were bent to shape and drilled.  I shaped them using the vise, brass hammer, and various sized round pieces of steel to act as a form to bend them around.  Here’s one of the tube clamps that’s been shaped, but I haven’t cut off the extra length yet (or drilled the second hole).


After drilling the holes, I used filing buttons to round off the ends. This is one of the pipe holders.


And here’s all four tube clamps and the two pipe clamps completed.




Chapter 9.6 – Rubber Tubes

Last up for today is the rubber tubing.  This tube will span between the tender and the engine, providing some flexibility to the water connections.  Kozo’s plans show the tubing encased in mesh sheathing to help the tubes withstand the water pressure and provide a measure of protection from any hot ash that might land on the hoses.  I obtained the mesh from some old coax cable I had sitting around.  I cut the connector off one end, cut a length of the coax, carefully split and removed the insulation, then compressed the ground sheath so it would slide off the inner part of the coax.  The particular coax I used also had a piece of foil wrapped around the outside of the mesh ground sheath to help insulate the signal.  I just removed that.  You can see the parts here – from bottom to top:  origin coax, with a piece cut out, outer insulation (slit so it could be removed and discarded), foil wrap (discarded), ground sheath, inner insulation and signal wire (discarded).  The piece I’m after is the mesh ground sheath.


Then I cut lengths of /16” ID rubber tubing.   The top one is a piece of the mesh ground sheath, ready to use.  Just below it is the rubber tube that will slip inside.  Below that is the second tube, already inserted inside the mesh.


These mesh-sheath/rubber-tube assemblies will be held together using the tube clamps made above.

That’s it for today!  Next step will be the actual copper tubing.

Thanks for stopping by,
Kim

[scc]

Looking Good Kim          Terry

[Kim]

Thanks Terry!   
Kim

[Kim]

Today I installed the piping on the tender.

Chapter 9.7 – Bending a Copper Tube

I started by cutting the copper tubing and silver soldering it to the various fittings. This is the suction output for the axel driven water pump, after soldering:


As I got ready to solder the next one (the hand pump output) the part slid off my soldering hearth and dropped to the floor.  I searched and searched for it but couldn’t find it.  And it wasn’t even that small of a piece!  Frustrated at having spent more time searching than it would have taken me to remake the part and still coming up empty-handed, I went ahead, bit the bullet, and remade the part. I guess this is why we love hobbies, right? 

Anyway, I remade the part soldered it up, and soldered the pipe tip to the other end, like so:


The more complex piping was to connect the hand pump to the discharge stud.  I made a little jig to bend the pipe and proceeded to bend it up.  Here’ I’m getting ready to solder the nipple to one end.


And in this pic, I’ve just completed soldering the nipple to the other end.  And yes, I DID remember to put the union nuts on the tube BEFORE I soldered the last end in place (this was one of my big fears!).  But luckily, I remembered – you can see them pushed to the far end of the tube there.  I even got them on in the correct orientation! (Just a little too smug, isn’t he?  )


While those parts were soaking in the pickle, I marked and drilled the holes for the pipe hold-down clamps.


Then tapped them 2-56 (using my favorite little tap handle).


And here’s a shot of the completed underside piping.  The lower one is the “suction” output for the axel pump, and the upper one is the hand pump output.


And here’s the top-side showing the connection from the pump to the output stud.   You can also see the suction cover for the axle pump output just behind the hand pump and below the copper tube.


Now for the beauty shots with the whole tender family. This is a shot of the undercarriage showing the drain and the rest of the pipe work.


And one from the front showing the completed tender.  The only thing missing here is the headlight, which will be added later.


Oh yeah, and the paint.  That’ll be my next task, to paint over all that pretty brass and copper.

Thanks for taking a look,
Kim

[scc]

Lovely work Kim

[crueby]

Very well done!

[Dave Otto]

Looks great Kim!

Dave

[MJM460]

Just beautiful.  A pity to cover it all with paint.

Just needs a light cut and some polish.

MJM460

[Kim]

Terry, Chris, Dave, and MJM,
Thank you all for your kind comments  

Yes, it is kind-of sad to cover it in paint, but that's what's going to happen.  I made the decision long ago and I'm actually quite excited to see how it will look when fully painted.   


Kim