gauge 1 Beyer Peacock 18 inch gauge shunting loco

[mike mott]

Reached a small milestone and the cylinder "casting" has now been completed. ready to move on the making and fitting the pistons and the D valves. The first picture shows the slow replacement of the temporary studs with the proper ones machined up with the un-threaded portion in the middle.

Mike

[Kim]

That's looking pretty sharp there, Mike! 
Kim

[mike mott]

Thanks Kim.
I have been working on the slide valves and the valve rods, tricky little blighters. 8054 shows the taper pin reamer reaming out the hole for the keeper pinned to the valve shaft.
picture 8047 shows the box of taper pins that i have had for must be 30 years now I don't use many of these but they work really well.
Picture 8049 shows the pin seated and trimmed to length set into the D valve.
8070 shows the valves in the common steam chamber.
8076 the slide bars are now trimmed to length and width. The ends of the valve rods were initially threaded 3x48 but they were really difficult to feed through the O ring in the gland bosses from the back end. so I re-cut them to be 2x56 which made all the difference. next I will make the valve rod ends that will connect to the radius rod.

Mike 

[mike mott]

work progresses on the springs and hangers in order to set up the axles and then the eccentrics. I used silver solder to build the top part of the springs as these will not actually function as operating springs a miniature compression spring will be hidden within the hornblocks. I used a third hand to do the accurate soldering and filing buttons to make the hangers after drilling the holes in some .075" brass sheet. the springs will be formed from leaves of .025" sheet brass.

Mike

[Flyboy Jim]

Nice work Mike. 

I'm guessing that your "3rd hand" didn't come from Harbor Freight.  Did you make it yourself? It's beautiful!

Jim

[mike mott]

Hi Jim yes I did make it myself and it has an assortment of different holding devices. I had one of those alligator clip types and fount it to be less the adequate for precision work. So designed one that could be set and locked then rotated at the vertical post. I have used it a lot with very small parts soldering with the hot air soldering tool.

Mike

[Flyboy Jim]

Hi Jim yes I did make it myself and it has an assortment of different holding devices. I had one of those alligator clip types and fount it to be less the adequate for precision work. So designed one that could be set and locked then rotated at the vertical post. I have used it a lot with very small parts soldering with the hot air soldering tool.

Mike

Fantastic! I love shop made tools and fixtures. I've made a few simple ones and it's really rewarding to use them.

If you ever make another "3rd hand" it would certainly be worth a build thread. 

Jim

[Zephyrin]

this third hand is a beautiful tool, certainly quite pleasant to use...

[mike mott]

Reached a milestone today I finished the difficult parts of the spring assemblies and the suspension is small but enough to deal with the sorts of irregularities that the loco might encounter. A rework of the leaves so new strips cut that are a tad narrower. The saddle for the leaves was machined out of some hard brass. the saddles were milled as a block and were then cut apart. They were cut with the fine blade in the jewelers saw and thankfully I was able to cut the three cuts without breaking the blade. The saddles were then cleaned up on the mill. All the parts were then assembled under the superintendence of the Foreman. Now I can work on the proper axles and get the wheels finished then the eccentrics.

Mike

[Kim]

That looks really nice, Mike!
But are you going to be able to see all that beautiful work with it back there so far? Seems like it will be all covered up by the boiler?
Kim

[mike mott]

Kim that is an interesting question. Only yesterday I mentioned to my wife that I was doing the same thing that the model-makers who build those incredible 3 masted sailing ship models like the Victory who spend hours getting all the details correct and all the framing and knees etc as accurate as is humanly possible and that a great deal of that work will never ever be seen again. I guess anyone who takes on the challenge of building an "accurate" model (there are always compromises of material choice and scale issues) The journey is the most important aspect of the work for me, can I achieve what I am attempting? there are disappointments along the way and restarts and "aha moments" when things go better than expected. In the end I know that they are there and that is what really matters. I did my best and the next work will hopefully be better executed from what I learned on this journey.

Thanks for looking in and your question.

Mike   

[Kim]

Yes, I understand what you mean.  You know, whether or not it can be seen. And as you said, the fun is in the doing
Beautiful work, regardless!
Kim

[scc]

Beautiful work Mike     Terry

[mike mott]

Thanks Terry.
I just finished making the most expensive 0x80 bolts they took me way too long to make but I do have the satisfaction of making them myself. I needed 14 bolts to bolt the Cylinder set to the frames they are .25 inches long. circled on IMG 8189 Until reading on Jo's thread about making studs and bolts in 303 stainless, I had shied away from stainless unless I absolutely needed to use it. Perhaps I have had some difficult stainless in the past. So I had some 1/8th stainless rod that I had picked up at the hobby store, and thought I would try it for the 0x80 bolts. I don't have an indexing head but I do have a small rotary Table after a lot of thought I began with the turning aspect of the work and found that the stainless machined very nicely.  IMG 8193 I was able to reduce the diameter in 2 cuts to get the .060 diameter then I threaded them and parted off the screws ready for cutting the hex on the head. IMG 8195 I used a hex bodied pin vice in the small milling vice at the indexing head and set up the micro mill head on the big mill and cut the hex with a small bur like cutter. IMG 8197, IMG 8198 Because the tolerances were quite small and the pin vice is not exactly a precision instrument I needed to use my hearing to reset the vertical depth. so as soon as the sound changed I reset the dial and then taking .001" cuts took off .006" from the body of the head. Retracted the cutter rotated the pin vice and cut the next face, and so on. IMG 8200 and IMG 8121
There is a definite satisfaction when things go well.

Mike

 

[Mcgyver]

I like the indexing method....simple and clever