Model Engine Maker

Engines => Your Own Design => Topic started by: gbritnell on October 09, 2018, 01:17:35 AM

Title: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on October 09, 2018, 01:17:35 AM
 I have a friend who lives about an hour away. When I go to visit him the one route I take takes me through a small crossroads village named Homerville.
As with a lot if not most small communities in Ohio the original school buildings that taught from K-12 have been recommissioned or in a lot of cases demolished due to new larger schools that can accommodate students from a larger area.
 The school in Homerville has been turned into a community center and supports some of the township facilities. Many years ago as I passed by I noticed an antique road grader at one end of the building. The many years that I passed it I thought it would make an interesting addition to my 1" Case traction engine but just never took the time to investigate the machine. I kept promising myself that I would go and measure it up but we know how that goes, other things take precedent and it gets put aside.
 Early this summer I took that particular road out to my friends house and passed the old yellow road grader. This time I promised myself that I would spend the time to measure and take pictures before it was lost to time.
 About a month ago I planned my first trip, about 50 minutes away. I loaded up the tools that I would need, camera, tape ruler, plumb bob, sketch pad, pencils chalk and calipers. I knew pretty much what was needed as I had done this on several other occasions for my Case baler and Russell traction engine.
The day was a little misty so I took some light rain gear just in case, which turned out to be a wise decision.
 When the machine had been put on display the rear wheels were cocked over as would have been the case when using the machine to keep it from slewing sideways when scraping. Although the machine was on a concrete pad this made it difficult to accurately get height dimensions to the various horizontal shafts. I ended up measuring shafts on both sides so that I could calculate a mean dimension when I started making the Cad drawings.
 I knew from the start that no matter how many pictures I took or how many dimensions I wrote down when I got home I would be lacking hundreds of important facts and figures. Like I said I've done this before.
 I spent about 3 hours in the light rain getting as much as I could although a lot of the horizontal location features would have to wait for the next trip because I couldn't mark reference points on the wet concrete with the chalk.
 When I got home I started transferring my sketches and dimension to the computer screen, using the photos as a proportional reference guide. I was able to establish overall lengths, axle positions etc. but would need much more information. I made a list of features I would need on my next visit so that I could get them without duplicating what I already had.
 To condense the story a little I have since made 2 more trips and have the drawings pretty well along. I realize I could 'fake' some of the dimensions but having spent so much time on it already I'll make one more trip for hopefully the last remaining measurements of bit and pieces.
 The machine is starting to show it's age sitting out in the elements and it probably won't be too many years down the road when some of the pieces start to fall off. I have searched the Internet for this particular grader and have found very little online information. There are a few pictures of machines of the era but nothing like this one.
 If nothing else I'll be saving this one in model form for posterity. I'm attaching just a few pictures to show what a really neat mechanical beast it is. I think I took close to 95 pictures to this point.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on October 09, 2018, 01:22:51 AM
Oooh, very interesting machine!
I had same issues on measuring machines, always needed another visit.  Or three. I liked to include the tape measure in as many shots as possible to let me get measurements for things I did not write down, if they were close enough to the tape to interpolate from.
Looking forward to seeing it modelled!
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: b.lindsey on October 09, 2018, 01:32:46 AM
Another project I will be looking forward to George. Certainly will make a unique model and as you say a nice addition to the case traction engine.

Bill
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: 10KPete on October 09, 2018, 02:30:51 AM
I thought I had seen most variations of these old graders, expecially Galions, but I have never seen tilting rear wheels before. That feature must not have lasted very long. Most all graders have front wheel tilt.

Thanks for the pics!! Something new every day...

If you do model this I will be very interested in watching.

Pete
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on October 09, 2018, 03:42:17 AM
Pete,
There's so many adjustments on this grader. The front and rear wheels tilt, the rear axle shifts side to side, the tongue can be shifted off the centerline, the blade rotates and tilts, the blade can be raised and lowered from side to side and the blade frame can be shifted from side to side. It must have 10 universal joints.
I don't know if I'll be able to replicate every detail in 1" scale but I'm going to try.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Kim on October 09, 2018, 05:54:10 AM
This will be fun to watch, George!

You find such fascinating things to model.  And you do it so well!
Kim
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Ye-Ole Steam Dude on October 09, 2018, 08:19:40 AM
Hello George,

This will surely be a rewarding project for you to do, especially to save a beautiful piece of history. I will be following along on this project for sure.

Have a great day,
Thomas
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: ShopShoe on October 09, 2018, 01:04:48 PM
George,

I've seen similar machines within a pleasure drive to where I live.

Can you post a side view of your example?  If I go by the ones I know I can get a quick check to see if they are close to yours.

--ShopShoe

P.S.: I think there was an episode of Antiques Roadshow (US) where a salesman's scale model of a road grader came up for appraisal. I don't know what year or location that episode was recorded, but maybe someone else has seen it.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on October 09, 2018, 02:39:53 PM
Hi Shopshoe,
I don't have a complete side view, just sequential pictures. I took the pictures at right angles so I could calculate sizes and spacings.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Don1966 on October 09, 2018, 03:09:27 PM
Awesome project George and I have seen this type grader before years back. Looking forward to another great project for your shop.


 :cheers:
Don
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on October 09, 2018, 03:42:25 PM
HI Don,
Good to hear from you! You had asked about the Fordillac flathead engine running. I posted a response over the weekend but it seems the weekend postings get shuffled quite quickly.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Don1966 on October 09, 2018, 04:04:20 PM
Thanks buddy got it!


Don
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: scc on October 09, 2018, 06:48:08 PM
" and now for something completely different"     Looking forward to this one George.     Regards            Terry
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Craig DeShong on October 10, 2018, 04:10:25 PM
You've been quiet for a while George, so i figured something was 'in the works'.  This is going to be an interesting project and with your skill I know it will result in a magnificant model.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on October 11, 2018, 01:34:47 AM
I made a short video with some still pictures. This gives a better idea of the size and uniqueness of this particular machine.
gbritnell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPR19n_TwoQ
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Admiral_dk on October 11, 2018, 11:10:55 AM
Very much looking forward to follow your build George.

Just wish that the council would put a roof over the original - that alone would keep it much healthier ….
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on October 20, 2018, 11:11:11 PM
I've been steadily working on the 2d Cad drawings. I always have a layout sheet which comprises all the parts. From there I work up the view drawings and then start on the individual sheets. I have almost 40 hours in the drawings. I'm taking my notes and sketches and putting them on paper/screen.
I have 2 of the overall views completed, one top and one front.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: PJPickard on October 20, 2018, 11:19:40 PM
The drawing is outstanding! One of the vendors in the model railroad world offered one of these, maybe Bill Roy? It will be  very neat model!
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: b.lindsey on October 21, 2018, 12:40:13 AM
It's coming along great George. The time you have put into it really shows!!

Bill
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Johnmcc69 on October 21, 2018, 02:28:13 AM
 :ThumbsUp:
 The drawing looks FANTASTIC George! This will be an amazing model!
 Looking forward to it all coming together!
 :popcorn: :cheers:

 John
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on October 21, 2018, 03:12:14 AM
Some very complex shapes there, going to be a great model! Some custom bending jigs in your future?


 :popcorn:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Don1966 on November 03, 2018, 01:32:27 AM
Beautified renderings George! Looking forward to see it take shape as a model...... :ThumbsUp:


 :cheers:
Don
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: kvom on November 03, 2018, 02:57:48 PM
Isn't 1" scale a little large for you given the past few projects?   :stir:

What was the motive power of this machine?  Horse or tractor?  Guess I should read the title.   :facepalm:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Alan Haisley on November 06, 2018, 08:42:36 PM

This will be fun to watch - all those little parts. 1:12 seems a bit large to me too, but a smaller scale could make some of the parts really hard - if not impossible - to do.

Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: chucketn on November 06, 2018, 09:36:13 PM
George, I'll be following along. I've enjoyed the pictures you took to help design this project. It brings back memories of such a grader I watched working the dirt road that passed my childhood home in upstate N.Y. I was maybe 5 or 6 years old. I was so mesmerized by it, I dreamed of being a "Road Worker" for several years after. Though when I saw it, it was not pulled by horses, it now is obvious to me that it was of horse drawn origin, and adapted to be pulled by a dozer. When they needed to turn it around, they stopped and the operator on the grader spent several minutes cranking a wheel to lift the blade, and they turned around in the hay field on the other side of the road from my house. I remember seeing it sit next to the town shed in later years.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on November 07, 2018, 06:50:05 PM
 Thanks for following along gents.
 I have finished the sheet that I posted at the beginning with 4 views, top, side, front and rear. It's actually suitable for framing and I had a couple of them printed out for some of my friends who work with heavy machinery.
 Now I'm starting on the individual part drawings. When I converted my sketches and dimensions to CAD the parts were drawn on the layout sheet but naturally I didn't do orthographic views of each part so now I'm taking each part and putting them on individual sheets and developing the required 3 views with dimensions. It's moving along well but as each part is created it's modified from the original full scale part to one that can be created as a model. This includes making provisions for tapped holes, bolt sizes, metal thicknesses etc. The larger gear boxes have worm drives in them so I have to develop pitches and tooth spacings to fit within the confines of the original boxes (after scaling). I just finished the worm and wheel drawing for the large main mechanisms that operate the the blade elevation. The gear came out having a 52.23 diametral pitch. As I make most of my own gear cutters the oddball pitch isn't a big deal it just looks unusual as a number.
 I'm probably looking at another month or so of drawing before I start making chips so hang in there, we'll get to making pieces in the next couple of months.
 To answer a question, the information placard that is with the machine states that it was horse drawn, well anyone knowing machinery can tell by looking at the drawbar that horses couldn't be harnessed to a round steel tube so the original setup must have been replaced somewhere along the line to allow a tractor of some type to tow it.
gbritnell
 
 
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: rudydubya on November 07, 2018, 07:15:16 PM
I'll be hanging in there with you, George.  Your projects are always worth the wait.

Regards,
Rudy
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Ye-Ole Steam Dude on November 07, 2018, 07:39:32 PM
Hello George,

I cannot see what is on the very end of the steel tube in the very front, but is it possible that a team was hooked up to that tube via a ring. I'm sure that you have more still photos to view plus your on site inspection.

Have a great day,
Thomas
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Ye-Ole Steam Dude on November 07, 2018, 07:59:41 PM
Hello again George,

I found some photos that might help.

Have a great day,
Thomas
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Dave Otto on November 07, 2018, 10:46:33 PM
Amazing amount of work George, I'm looking forward to being able to watch another one of your very interesting projects.

Dave
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell 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
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: zeeprogrammer 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.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Craig DeShong 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.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell 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.


 
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Ye-Ole Steam Dude on November 21, 2019, 06:36:38 PM
Hello George,

That is some absolutely gorgeous work.

Have a great day,
Thomas
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Don1966 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
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby 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:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Craig DeShong on November 22, 2019, 01:48:01 AM
Nice to see the progress on this project.  The wait was well worth it !!
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: PJPickard 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.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: mike mott 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
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: scc on November 22, 2019, 09:44:26 PM
Lovely progress.... :popcorn: :popcorn:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell 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.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell 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.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell 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.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell 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.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on November 28, 2019, 04:39:07 PM
That is stunning.  :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

Only problem now, is my shop elves want you to build them a gerbil-drawn coach!
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: mike mott on November 28, 2019, 05:13:58 PM
George those wheels are beautiful did you soft solder the spokes?

Mike
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: kvom on November 28, 2019, 09:23:16 PM
Where's the penny?   :headscratch:  :)
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Craig DeShong on December 01, 2019, 03:29:40 PM
gorgeous work George.   :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on December 04, 2019, 03:23:47 PM
I'm making the trunnions (axles) for the grader. They consist of the axle (.25 dia.) on the end of which is a boss. Vertically from the boss is a shape which has a round center with 4 radial ribs. At the top is another round boss (.23 dia.)
How to make it? The original piece is a casting but this will have to be fabricated.
I turned the axle from a piece of .50 round stock leaving material at the end to create the boss. The part was put in the dividing head and the pivot hole was drilled and the outer radius was stepped off.
Another small hole was drilled at 90 degrees to the pivot hole.
The ribbed section was created on a piece of .25 round brass bar. I made a cutter from drill rod. I cut 2-45 degree angles leaving a sharp corner. I then went in with a tool having a .115 radius on the end. .
This would form the central round shape. The cutter was fluted and hardened. I drilled a .062 hole in the end for a locating pin and turned a .062 diameter pin on the other end before cutting off.
The upper boss was turned, drilled and cut to length.
The next order of business was to make a fixture for fitting the parts and the eventual soldering. I turned two studs with the appropriate diameters on the ends. These were bolted to the base with 8-32 screws.
The ribbed section needed a radius filed on the end so it would match the .23 dia. boss. Once everything was fitted using the fixture a .062 dia. pin was inserted between the upper boss and ribbed section.
The first pictures show the cutter and the ribbed section with upper boss.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on December 04, 2019, 03:28:23 PM
The next pictures show the fixture and the parts assembled on it.
When I made the axle pieces and stepped of the radial shape on the end I left a small central rib which will match up with the central ribbed section. After soldering I will file the rib shape flush with the proper angle.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on December 04, 2019, 03:30:55 PM
The final pictures show the parts assembled awaiting soldering.
With the fixture, cutter, machining time and fitting and assembly I have 6 hours in these 4 small pieces.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: cnr6400 on December 04, 2019, 07:28:44 PM
Beautiful work! Thanks for sharing the pics!  :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp:  :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on December 04, 2019, 07:47:18 PM
Super detail! I went back to the first post to see where these parts go, and there sure are a lot more bits to go on this project!
 :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on December 04, 2019, 08:21:22 PM
Hi Chris,
You're not kidding. By the time I get through with this it will have as many or more parts than some of my engines.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on December 04, 2019, 08:48:42 PM
Hi Chris,
You're not kidding. By the time I get through with this it will have as many or more parts than some of my engines.
gbritnell
And thats not counting the parts in the mechanical horse to pull it!
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: scc on December 04, 2019, 09:22:55 PM
That is stunning.  :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

Only problem now, is my shop elves want you to build them a gerbil-drawn coach!
     Do the gerbils use CAD I wonder :thinking:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Don1966 on December 05, 2019, 03:02:27 AM
The final pictures show the parts assembled awaiting soldering.
With the fixture, cutter, machining time and fitting and assembly I have 6 hours in these 4 small pieces.
I can relate to that George been there too. Small parts are time consumers!
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Dreeves on December 06, 2019, 02:32:38 AM
Always amazed at the work you do. Sure would like to see you at the Cabin Fever shoe in January.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on December 06, 2019, 07:05:25 PM
There's so many parts to make for this machine that some of them have no particular order but need to be made. Yesterday I felt like cutting some gears.
 The axles are composed of two pairs of angle iron rails, top and bottom. At the ends are the trunnion pieces I showed in the last post. One pair of angle irons are mounted to the frame and the other pair have the gear segment shown. There's a gear box between the angle iron frames in which is a worm gear set that drives a spur gear that moves the circular gear segment. I had to do a development when I was drawing it, meaning as the lower set of angle irons move laterally to tilt the trunnions they naturally get closer to the upper angle irons so this change the engagement of the spur gear with the gear segment so the gear segment had to be created from the widest point of the angle irons to the narrowest point when they were laid over. I came up with a radius for the gear segment then had to calculate a diametral pitch for that gear to somewhat replicate the tooth count of the original. The pitch came out to 36. They don't make 36 D.P. cutters so I had to make one.
 To make the cutter I have a 14.5 degree high speed tool ground. The diameter of the cutter isn't critical and in this case I used a piece of .50 diameter W-1 drill rod. I chucked the stock then cut a 14.5 degree chamfer on the end. I use this to set my tool properly. I set my compound at 14 degrees so that the cutter only cuts on one side when going into the rod. Much like when cutting threads. I do a layout in CAD to see what diameter rods to use for checking the depth of cut. I have a set of thread wires and try to use one of those for measuring the depth. After cutting the rings the stock is transferred to the dividing head and the flutes are cut into it. After fluting I file as much clearance behind the cutting edge as possible. The cutter is then hardened and using a flex shaft tool and a small cut-off wheel I hit the face of the flutes to clean up and burrs that might remain from the milling process. The cutter does rub a little but for brass it's not noticeable.
 I turned to discs .132 thick and mounted them on a mandrel. The mandrel was clamped in the mill vise between V-blocks, the center picked up and the mounting holes were drilled for 1-72 screws. I was able to get 2 pieces per disc. While set up for drilling I also milled the blanks to the proper width.
 The mandrel was then transferred to the dividing head to have the teeth cut. The disc would have had 60 teeth cut into it but I only needed to cut the segmented areas.
After the teeth were cut I rough sawed the discs then mounted them on yet another fixture to finish putting the radial cut-out and the radii around the bosses. The parts were then filed and polished.
 
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Don1966 on December 06, 2019, 08:47:32 PM
Nice looking Hobb George and gears which I know you love to make. Really looking forward to more updates on this project since I grew up on a farm and saw these in action.


 :cheers:
Don
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Craig DeShong on December 08, 2019, 04:48:25 PM
Beautiful work George.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on December 11, 2019, 11:01:57 PM
This part is probably the most complex in terms of setups, fixturing and machining. This is the housing that holds the worm gear that runs the blade up and down. It's mounted onto a combination of plate brackets and some bent angle iron.
I started with a block of brass that was machined to the overall dimensions H 1.677 W 1.292 D .597. As with any complex machined part you really have to plan the cutting steps so you don't end up with no where to hold for the final cutting. Due to the shape of the part I drilled the worm cavity so that it would accept plugs that would have the shaft diameter reamed into them. I drilled though first then opened up the hole with first a drill then a drill of the same diameter that had the end ground like an end mill to created a flat bottom in the hole.
The next step was to rough out the worm wheel cavity. It was first drilled through then roughed out with a .375 end mill to depth. The cavity was then bored to the final diameter.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on December 11, 2019, 11:07:42 PM
Several step cuts were made and using my radius step of routine I cut the radius over the large diameter hole for the worm cavity. The part was then rotated in the mill vise and several step cuts were made to create the shape of the lower area of the part. The radius on the end of the .25 diameter mounting lug was also stepped off.
The part was then filed and sanded smooth.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on December 11, 2019, 11:12:22 PM
The boss on the back of the housing has 3 supporting ribs. I contemplated how to add them to the part. One way was to machine the piece then solder the 3 ribs to the cylindrical boss but that would have been extremely fiddly and the chance for misalignment was too great so the plan was to mill them right out of the stock.
The part was turned over and the ribs first roughed leaving enough stock to provide fillets at the rib/housing joint.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on December 11, 2019, 11:19:46 PM
The ribs then needed to have an angle milled onto them and the one direction was no problem because I could clamp the part in the mill vise at 30 degrees but the other direction didn't have anywhere to clamp so I set the pieces up in my Sherline vise and clamped it into my mill vise for the cutting.
A piece of .25 bar was turned and drilled to fit between the ribs and into the counterbore in the housing. It was then soldered in place.
For this soldering job I had purchased some Stay Bright solder. It has a higher melting temperature (450 degrees) than regular 50/50 solder and is stronger.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on December 11, 2019, 11:24:28 PM
Before proceeding I need to make another fixture. This one will hold the part to a plate mounted on my rotary table. It will locate by the bored hole and the part will be secured from possibly turning while cutting with a stop boss mounted on the fixture plate. I don't need any oopses at this point. With this setup I will machine the circular outside shape and machine the 4 lugs that hole the cover.
I'll keep you informed.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on December 12, 2019, 12:35:46 AM
Great sequence for a complex part!  Watching along with great interest, as usual...   :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Kim on December 14, 2019, 05:48:43 AM
That's a lot of work in those parts, George.  Beautiful!
Kim
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on December 21, 2019, 06:25:27 PM
The gear boxes are finished. The outside diameter was milled leaving the bolt bosses. The part was removed and the radii filed on the bolt bosses. Next up were the covers. I chucked a round piece of brass in the chuck on the rotary table and basically cut the same shape as the outside of the gear boxes. The hard part was cutting the finished cover from the parent stock. The first one I did I put the bar back in the lathe and used a parting tool. I had a little bit of an issue with the part cupping somewhat around the edges (fixable) so the second cover was cut from the bar with a large .032 slitting saw. The cover is only .047 thick so it's kind of fragile. The raised triangular shape on the outside of the cover is a boss for an oil hole. When I get my mill table cleared for another tool I'll drill them at an angle matching the top of the boss.
When the gear boxes were made I had to drill out the cavity for the worm gear. This left a large diameter on one side of the box. To fill it I had to make a patch piece which matched the radius of the outside of the box. Into this plug went another piece which has an elongated rectangular shape. It had to be filed to match the radius of the first piece. I think I have about 3 hours just making the tiny plugs and soldering them in place.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: fumopuc on December 21, 2019, 08:37:20 PM
Hi George, the parts are looking great.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on December 27, 2019, 02:14:49 PM
I have never cut a worm gear before, well except if you count the one that was originally published many years ago by using a tap held against a circular disc.
I started out by developing some dimensions that would fit within the confines of the gear box. To cut the worm I had to use an available pitch that my lathe would cut.  After some calculating I settled on 16 TPI for the worm. The worm would have a 14.5 degree tooth profile like a spur gear. I ground up a lathe bit and approximated the tip width of the tool erring on the side of too sharp. This would at least give me enough depth for clearance.
I'm assuming the gear boxes on the grader, one one each side of the operator that raise and lower the blade, would be moved forward for down and backward for up. This would necessitate a left hand set of gears and a right hand set.
I cut the worms first and used my thread wires to measure the depth or width as the case may be. The thread wire set is calculated for 60 degree threads so I had to find a set that would fit into the 14.5 degree tooth form. This is where Autocad comes in so handy.
Next up I turned a couple of discs for the wheel. (I think that's the proper reference, worm and wheel) I also made a mandrel to hold them for cutting the teeth.
The worm is a screw and therefore has lead to it. Taking the circumference of the pitch diameter of the worm and the lead for 16 TPI I calculated the lead angle. I came out to 5.262 degrees. When doing all the figuring to get a tooth count on the wheel that would match the pitch for the 16 TPI I came up with 50.2655 D.P. For a diameter that would fit into the gear box the tooth count came out to 54.
To cut the wheels I set the dividing head at the proper angle and using a blank bar I indicated it to get the exact angle. The next task would be to set the cutter exactly on the center of the face of the wheel. To do this I put a layout line on the blank disc and mounted it on the arbor. Then using my height gauge I set the blank perfectly horizontal by lining up the scribed line. The scribed line also carried around to the edge of the gear. By eye I set the cutter as close to the line as possible, using a magnifying glass. I moved the cutter in until it just touched the disc then adjusted the Z and X positions until the witness mark was as close to center as possible.
I cut about 10 teeth  then moved the cutter out of the way so I could get a measurement over the worm and wheel. Here again the CAD drawing makes this a snap. I had to adjust my Y depth about .006 to get a proper overall reading. Once I was satisfied with the depth I set the Y -0- and cut all the teeth.
To cut the second wheel I had to change the angle of the dividing head to the other side of -0- and do all the same procedures as the first wheel.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Admiral_dk on December 27, 2019, 07:14:39 PM
The gears look amazing for a first try  :praise2:

The third picture, first looked wrong to me, like you had the cut exactly 90 degrees to the gear (result of the angle the photo is taken from), but the next picture reassured me that all is good as one can clearly see the angle the teeth are cut to match the worm - phew, nothing wrong with my mental "setup" from your description.

Thank you for writing you build log here George   :cheers:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on January 16, 2020, 08:06:41 PM
It's been awhile. You all know that sometimes life gets in the way.
If this project was just machining it would progress at a much faster pace but it's going to be about 80% fabrication. Such is the case with the gear box mounts. They are made up of 3 pieces, 4 actually if you count the piece of angle material across the bottom. First there is a bracket, a flat plate with 4 bosses going through it. After assembly the bosses need to be machined to match the angle of the frame rails so that the gear boxes axis will be parallel with the centerline of the machine. Mounted to these plates is a flat curved piece of stock (.025 thick) and a piece of bent angle stock. Not being able to bend angle stock necessitates machining it from solid. There is a left and right hand. This required yet another fixture plate and setting up the rotary table. It seems I jump from the vise to the rotary table almost daily.
Mounted to the angle stock is another plate (.032 thick) that follows the curve of the angle stock. I machined and filed the upper part the annealed the middle section and bent it around a piece of stock with the same radius as the angle material. It was then temporarily bolted to the angle material and clamped so that the other mounting hole could be drilled. This whole affair is then mounted to the frame with rivets but while in the construction period I am using 0-80 bolts with round heads to replicate the rivets.
From the gear boxes is a .156 diameter shaft that ultimately will lift the blade assembly up and down. The shafts are supported by cast brackets on the full sized machine so I had to replicate them. The stock was roughed to the overall dimensions then another fixture was made to mount them for machining, yet again on the rotary table. These 2 innocent  looking brackets have almost 8 hours of machining on them, holes, angles, rib steps and through shapes. Once one side was done the fixture had to be reset so that parts could be flipped and the other side done.
The pictures show where I'm at. It doesn't look like a lot of progress to the naked eye but at this point I have many hours invested.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on January 16, 2020, 08:10:04 PM
Stunning work, as usual, on a very complex set of shapes. Watching along here!
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: cnr6400 on January 16, 2020, 08:43:19 PM
 :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

Wow! top notch work, thanks for sharing the pics.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: 10KPete on January 17, 2020, 02:03:03 AM
George, having operated similar machines I'm finding I want to shrinkify myself and operate your model! After it's finished of course...

Wow.

 :praise2:

Pete
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Craig DeShong on January 17, 2020, 01:35:33 PM
When you take the time to "do it right" it certainly shows in the results.  Meticulous work George.  Thanks for sharing the results of your talent with us
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Don1966 on January 17, 2020, 04:04:29 PM
George when it comes to metal work your a true artist. That my friend is an amazing piece of work....... :Love:




 :cheers:
Don
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on January 23, 2020, 06:15:51 PM
The blade elevation is operated by the gear boxes and shafts I have shown. Onto the shafts are cast brackets that are attached to long springs that go to the other side of the frame and hook onto other brackets. Trying to stay as close to the original as possible I started machining these more complex brackets.
I first squared up the stock and drilled 3 holes, one for the shaft (.156 dia.), one for the hole through the middle of the bracket, (.125 and the last is a .062 hole for a 0-80 bolt that will eventually hold one end of the spring.
As you can see by the pictures the bracket is quite complex in shape and not very large at all.
To cut all the angles would require the rotary table and some way of holding the stock. The plan was to get both brackets out of the extended brass stock so luckily the large (8.00 dia.) 4 jaw chuck from my Logan lathe just happened to have it's mounting holes positioned so that it could be bolted to the rotary table with the existing bolts and T-nuts. The rotary table was centered and the readout zeroed. I mounted the chuck and clamped the piece of brass into it. The chuck jaws were adjusted to center the 5/16 hole from which all the dimensions originate on my drawing.
I cut the outer profiles then the step-down areas with an assortment of end mills, .094 diameter to .25 diameter.
The bracket has a .047 slot .062 deep around the lower profiles of the bracket. The slot will allow the chain links to be guided as the bracket arms move up and down radially.
I used a .036 slitting saw for this operation and then to cut the first bracket from the parent stock.
I lightly touched the saw blade to the stock (not turning) and set my Z-0-. I then backed the saw away and blued the top of the bracket. I started the spindle and slowly came down in Z until the saw just scuffed the top of the bracket. I then went down in Z to what should have been the proper depth and cut the slot, rotating the part so the slot stayed parallel to the angled edges.
When I got ready to cut the first bracket off the spacing didn't look right but I was already committed so I cut it off. Upon measuring my part I found the slot and width were off far enough that the piece was unusable. Drat!!!!
I then proceeded to cut the second bracket the same as the first but this time I when it came to the sawing operation I figured I would use a more precised set-up. The stack-up height of the rotary table and the 4 jaw chuck it about 8-1/2 inches and the center of the bracket being 8.00 inches from the edge of the rotary table base. My surface gauge with dial indicator wouldn't reach so I had to improvise a little. I have a precision ground 4 inch cube 6 inches long so I set it on the mill table. That got me some height but I still couldn't reach into the center so I clamped to ground parallels to the block letting them stick out about 3 inches so that I could slide the surface gauge over far enough to reach the center. You can see in the third picture the parallels extending toward the rotary table. I set the indicator to -0- and then moved the saw over and indicated it until it read -0-. Now I raised the saw .018 so that  I had the center of the saw at the top surface of the bracket. I then made my cuts on the second bracket and they turned out great. The only problem was I had only made enough stock for 2 brackets so after cutting the second one from the stock I had to clean everything off the table, set up the mill vise, indicate it, mill another piece of stock and drill the appropriate holes then clean the table, set up the rotary table again, mount the chuck, center everything then cut the bracket.
Oh well, that's all a part of machining.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: cnr6400 on January 23, 2020, 07:46:32 PM
Tricky bracket! it looks great though, finish is excellent.  :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Don1966 on January 23, 2020, 10:25:35 PM
i bet you spent a whole day making that bracket ........ :Love:


 :drinking-41:
Don
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Craig DeShong on January 23, 2020, 10:45:19 PM
Tricky bracket! it looks great though, finish is excellent.  :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

And... it nearly fits within a 1 cent piece.  Amazing detail work George.  I’m currently working on the governor parts to my model and the parts are small... but they’re not this small.   :)

Following along.   :popcorn: :popcorn:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: zeeprogrammer on January 23, 2020, 11:13:05 PM
I always hesitate to look into George's threads. On one hand, there's the awesome craftmanship and very motivating. On the other, there's the "I'll never approach that level. Not nearly." And the danger of frustration creeps up. No worries yet. I'm still on the first hand.

 :ThumbsUp:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: ogaryd on January 24, 2020, 05:26:25 PM
WOW :o
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 03, 2020, 12:15:33 AM
With so many parts to make I just picked a drawing sheet and started machining. This part is the start of the front axle assembly. There is a circular area at the top. This rides against the frame. It pivots on a king pin mounted on the frame. Extending down from this part are the two support legs. On the full sized machine the circular top and the legs are 2 separate pieces which I could have made but the way I made them from one piece simplified the construction and won't take away from the overall aesthetics of the full sized machine. On the front of the circular area is a hollow tube shape into which the tongue tube is inserted. The tube is 3.6 degrees off of the horizontal plane.
The 1:1 part is a casting with the legs being a channel section. So how to build it. There is virtually no way to make the cast part by machining from one piece of brass so I laid out a plan to fabricate the circular area, the legs and the round tube. The circular area was turned and while still on the end of the bar pockets were cut into the bottom to accommodate the legs and nose tube. The rest of the bottom was cut away to resemble the original. The legs were started as a piece of rectangular stock then cuts were made to the sides and outside to represent the leg and upper part of the circular area. The top of the legs were tapped 1-72 for flat head screws.
The tube piece was turned them mounted in the dividing head. The sides of the piece are the same width as the diameter of the tube area. The top and bottom needed to be cut at 3.6 degrees so the dividing head was tilted to the proper angle and the top cut was made. The stock was rotated 180 degrees and the dividing head tilted the opposite way so that the two surfaces would be parallel.
The the inside corners of the legs and tube were filed to match the radius of the corners of the pockets in the circular piece.
The other piece with the other tube is to offset the axle assembly through a yet to be made gear assembly. It was made by turning the tube piece then mounting it in the dividing head. It needed to be tilted at 6.8 degrees and then a 3/16 end mill was plunged through to create the channel for the long stepped shaft. The two pieces were then soldered together.
The first few pictures are of the actual part on the 1:1 machine.
The remaining pictures are the parts I made.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: MJM460 on February 03, 2020, 09:32:03 AM
Hi George, another amazingly intricate part made in a manner that is a master class for us all.  Thank you for letting us watch over your shoulder as usual.

MJM460

Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Don1966 on February 03, 2020, 03:17:03 PM
Love to watch an artist a work....... :Love:



 :cheers:
Don
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Vixen on February 03, 2020, 03:41:08 PM
Hi George,

That looks so good.   :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp:

What solder and flux are you using. And how do you stop the other parts falling off while you solder on the last pieces?

Mike
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 03, 2020, 05:26:57 PM
Hi Mike,
I use several 'soft' solders. They vary in melting temperature so I start out with a solder called Stay Brite. It is made by Harris and is a non lead solder with a touch of silver to it. It comes in a small coil with it's own liquid flux. The next solder I use is plain old 50/50. It melts at just a little lower temp than the Stay Brite so if you have to solder a piece near to something that's already been soldered I use this.
The last one is rosin core solder which is mainly used for electronics.
 If I have an assembly that needs structural integrity I will silver solder it with 56% silver content. I'm only going to have a couple of pieces of this build that will require silver solder.
To keep cleanup to a minimum I first clean the parts then assemble them using whatever is necessary to hold them in place, wire, screws etc. I then cut very tiny pieces of solder with my side cutters. I flux and start heating the part. I don't lay the solder in the joint right at the start because as the flux heats it boils a little and that will displace the bits of solder. Once the part is hot and the flux has quit bubbling I lay the solder onto the joint with tweezers. Generally it only takes a slight bit more heat to get it to flow.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Vixen on February 03, 2020, 05:44:23 PM
George,

Thanks for the reply.

You said nothing about the years of practice that to takes to gain the skill

Mike
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Flyboy Jim on February 03, 2020, 05:58:44 PM
Hi Mike,
I use several 'soft' solders. They vary in melting temperature so I start out with a solder called Stay Brite. It is made by Harris and is a non lead solder with a touch of silver to it. It comes in a small coil with it's own liquid flux. The next solder I use is plain old 50/50. It melts at just a little lower temp than the Stay Brite so if you have to solder a piece near to something that's already been soldered I use this.
The last one is rosin core solder which is mainly used for electronics.
 If I have an assembly that needs structural integrity I will silver solder it with 56% silver content. I'm only going to have a couple of pieces of this build that will require silver solder.
To keep cleanup to a minimum I first clean the parts then assemble them using whatever is necessary to hold them in place, wire, screws etc. I then cut very tiny pieces of solder with my side cutters. I flux and start heating the part. I don't lay the solder in the joint right at the start because as the flux heats it boils a little and that will displace the bits of solder. Once the part is hot and the flux has quit bubbling I lay the solder onto the joint with tweezers. Generally it only takes a slight bit more heat to get it to flow.
gbritnell

Great information and a great build George.  :ThumbsUp:  :popcorn:

Jim
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: mikemill on February 03, 2020, 06:00:28 PM
George

Interesting your use of different melting point solders, I use resistance soldering system that delivers intense heat to a very small point via a carbon probe, you can solder a piece of metal very close to an already soldered part without melting the first one.
The pic shows a loco chassis put together with the resistance system running the probe along the joint to make a seam

Mike
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 04, 2020, 12:16:03 AM
Hi Mike,
I looked into getting one of those units but even on Ebay they were too much for the amount of brass work that I do. This project just happens to be out of the ordinary in terms of soldering so I couldn't justify buying one of those machines. Watching them in action on Youtube they really are the tool to have if you do a lot of soldering.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: ChuckKey on February 04, 2020, 08:31:14 PM
Having no idea what a resistance soldering system was, I have just spent five minutes surfing.

This DIY job may be of interest:

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=22890
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: cnr6400 on February 04, 2020, 10:31:13 PM
I needed a resistance soldering machine a while ago when I had some small scale model train work to do. I used the transformer out of a large old fashioned microwave oven. I removed the 50,000+ turn secondary winding and replaced it with 5 turns of 10 gauge insulated solid copper wire. Left the 120 V primary winding exactly as it was. Potentially this will deliver up to 130 amps at 4 volts AC in the transformer I used. Housed the whole thing in a large electrical box with an on off switch and a 15 amp fuse. Made some heavy secondary terminals from brass and steel, couple of leadwires from car battery jumper cables, and a tweezer electrode set plus a carbon rod handheld "torch".  I use it with a foot switch turning the power on and off. There is also an autotransformer inside to vary the input voltage for heat control. Very simple and works well. Extremely fine precision soft soldering with great local heating can easily be done with this unit.   If anyone wants some pics of the build process just let me know.

PS I have since used the unit as a power supply for a hotwire cutter for styrofoam parts, and played with it for resistance spot welding of light sheetmetal. The hotwire cutter worked great with some .010" dia stainless wire, no fancy nichrome wire needed. The welding ops tests were a little  violent even for me..... not good when the electrodes and the work evaporates.........  :zap:......    that application needs some refinement.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 05, 2020, 12:22:52 AM
Thanks for the PDF on building your own. I think I'll give it a try.
Meanwhile, I got some of the parts (links and pins) made for the front axle assembly so I assembled it just to take a look. When a project starts to look like something it keeps the juices flowing.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on February 05, 2020, 12:27:41 AM
More amazing work on a very intricate machine. Wow.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Don1966 on February 05, 2020, 02:04:10 AM
Awww I want one George......  :lolb:  now that is time consuming project always great work.......... :toilet_claw: :Love:



 :cheers:
Don
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: cnr6400 on February 05, 2020, 03:48:42 AM
 :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 10, 2020, 03:19:45 PM
The next piece or pieces on the list are the rear axle trunnions. Quite a complicated fabricated piece. On the original the main arm is a cast piece. It has triangular gussets that are welded to strengthen the curved angular pieces. The trunnions hold the rear axle assembly and through a lead screw and link setup can be rotated to offset the axle center line, either left or right. The angle iron piece rides against the rear part of the frame and is held in place by a small bracket.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 10, 2020, 03:33:15 PM
I started with the main arm. It was cut into a bar of brass using my normal technique of manual CNCing. I laid out all of the coordinate points in CAD and made a work sheet. I started with the profiling using a .250 end mill leaving about .020 stock. I then switched to a .125 end mill and finished the profiling. The part was then cut free using a 2.00 x .04 slitting saw. The part was cleaned of flash and the edges lightly broken. To finish machining the angular surface on the bottom of the link I needed some way to hold it. The sides of the trunnion are tapered 1.25 degrees so I cut a step into a piece of aluminum with that angle. I also cut a packing piece with the same 1.25 degree angle. The part could be sandwiched between the two angles and this would hold it parallel to cut the bottom surface and the recess in the bottom. To mount the circular part I drilled 2 .062 clearance holes into which 2, 0-80 screws could go to solder the pieces together. The remaining work on the pieces was to cut a circular boss onto which a link we be used to eventually move the part on the model. This was stepped off and then filed. The radii on the ends of the trunnion were also filed and finished.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 10, 2020, 03:43:46 PM
The circular angle piece was next. I started with a block of brass and cut it to the overall dimensions. The length and width were left large so that the part could be profiled but held in place by the stock around it. I used an old aluminum fixture plate and put new tapped hole and center drilled hole to mount the piece onto. The plate was mounted to my small rotary table and centered up to the spindle. The part edge was indicated true and -0- set on the table. As with the trunnions I drew my cutting guide in CAD and using a .187, 2 flute end mill started the cutting process. I finished all the profiling then had to drill the holes for the 0-80 threads. The final step was to touch off the end mill to the top of the fixture plate and set a -0-. I then went into the profiled part and went down in Z staying .005 away from the -0- setting. This would give me a fin around the part but enough to hold it in place for the final cutting. The block was removed from the fixture plate and broken free from the parent stock. The holes were tapped and all the edges were filed and sanded. The angled shape was then cut on the band saw allowing enough stock for the finish filing.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 10, 2020, 03:49:10 PM
When I cut the window in the circular piece I left it a couple of thousands heavy so it could be filed and fitted to the trunnion arm. This was done until the tapped holes lined up. I then made a little block with the drilled holes and taper on one side to match the bottom surface of the trunnion . This will be used  to hold the 2 pieces together for soldering then removed.
Two more parts down and 150 to go.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on February 10, 2020, 04:00:58 PM
More wow factor. Your brass shaping and filing work is SO clean.  :ThumbsUp:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Dave Otto on February 11, 2020, 01:07:11 AM
Impressive work George, I'm really enjoying this project.

Dave
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 16, 2020, 01:44:57 PM
The rear axle assembly is similar to the front in that the wheels are supported on pivoting arms. These are located on the ends of pieces of angle iron, one larger one at the bottom, to take the weight, and one at the top, smaller piece, to provide the rocking function. The whole assembly is held in place by forked arms that are mounted to cast brackets riveted to the frame. The arms are pivoted at the bracket allowing the axle assembly to move from side to side and thereby offsetting the machine for various grading work.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 16, 2020, 01:52:17 PM
The last posting of model pictures showed the forked links prior to soldering and finishing. This was completed and the pieces were sanded smooth and mounted on the frame brackets.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: maury on February 16, 2020, 01:55:24 PM
George, I've been poking in now and then, Excellent craftsmanship.

I was wondering, with all the 3D printing buz, would it be interesting to print a couple of Clydsdales to pull your model?

maury
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 16, 2020, 02:05:50 PM
The curved piece mounted on the arm is a support for the arm when the machine is shifted from side to side. The curved pieces ride on a wear pad at the very end of the frame. The brackets have a curved face which sits on the rear of the frame. I took the whole arm assembly and clamped it lightly to the frame making sure that the bracket was centered on the frame and that the curved piece was flush at the back of the frame. I fluxed the part and frame in preparation for soldering. Right next to the brackets is a plate that has already been soldered to the frame. To keep if from possibly coming loose I folded a paper towel and soaked it with water. I laid that on the plate to suffice as a heat sink. I cut tiny pieces of solder and laid them at the joint line of the bracket and frame. Using a propane torch I started heating the arm and bracket until the flux started to bubble. At this point I moved the torch to the frame and almost instantly the solder whetted and flowed around the bracket. Prior to soldering I cut tiny grooves into the curved surface of the brackets to allow the solder to flow under the part.
I turned and threaded the pins that hold the arms to the axle assembly and put the whole thing together to see what if would look like.
I slipped the wheels on the axles and took a few pictures of the machine.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 16, 2020, 02:14:02 PM
Hi Maury,
The original machine was horse drawn. As it sits it looks like at some point in it's life it was converted to be pulled by a machine. I have done numerous searches online looking for 'road grader', 'Galion road grader', '1913 Galion road grader' but none of them turn up much information. To hook a team to the grader there would have been a tongue with a set or several sets of trees to hook the animals to. Having studied machines from that era that were pulled by horses and machines they had a wooden tongue (water wagons, balers, etc) which would have been much lighter than what is on this machine so I don't know exactly what it would have looked like.
In drawing the machine to make the model I changed the tongue angle to match up to my Case traction engine draw bar.
Thanks for looking in and commenting.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Kim on February 16, 2020, 05:50:33 PM
More amazing progress, George.  I really enjoy following along with your build! :popcorn:
Thank you for taking the time to share it with us!
Kim
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 18, 2020, 11:45:34 PM
Well I have to say this tiny part is the most complicated machining exercise to date. When finished it will be comprised of 3 parts, the cylindrical body (which you see) a channel for the radial rack gear and a tube to hold one part of the tongue. I really spent a lot of time trying to figure out the steps I would take to make this part and decided that the main circular body would be made all as one piece and the other components soldered to it.
On the full sized machine it's a gear box that holds a worm drive and attached to the bottom end of the shaft is a spur gear which will mesh with the circular rack gear. When the operator wants to shift the front end of the machine he cranks a handle which transmits through a shaft as long as the machine. This connects through a series of U-joints to the gear box. The main tongue is attached to the machine pulling the grader so what this does is offset the front of the machine relative to the main tongue.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on February 18, 2020, 11:54:16 PM
On a model that is full of complex parts, that one is definitely a head-twister. Amazing work, watching raptly along!   :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 18, 2020, 11:58:02 PM
I started with a block of brass milled to the overall dimensions. The next step was to put the circular recesses in both the top and bottom with the .093 dia. center hole. While the part was set up for the top recess I also put the 0-80 tapped holes in which will hold the cover on. The hole for the worm was also drilled out. The next step was to drill the hole for the tube. The worm gear part of the housing had the radius stepped off next. I had to make a fixture plate to cut the outside radius. The part was bolted to the fixture using the 0-80 tapped holes. I cut the outer side wall of the housing down to the bottom of the bolt bosses. The part was then turned 180 and bolted through the now exposed tapped holes with long 0-80 screws. I made a step-off chart to cut the remaining material between each of the bolt bosses.
On paper the part didn't seem too bad but once the cutting started it was quite a job.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Don1966 on February 19, 2020, 01:43:30 AM
OMG! George you are a true master artist. The family shot is amazing to see has it has taken shape............ oh and did I say ..........I...........like......... :Love:



 :drinking-41:
Don





Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: 90LX_Notch on February 19, 2020, 02:07:51 AM
That part is simply bad ass.

-Bob
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 20, 2020, 12:39:37 AM
Almost another whole day to make one tiny part. The circular rack gear slides inside a channel so this is the second piece of the assembly. I had to make a miniature T-slot cutter to cut the channel. The diameter is .236 and it's .088 wide. It's made from W-1 drill rod and this time after hardening I tempered it. The flutes are so small that I didn't want them to break. The large outside radius of the part is 3.300 and my small rotary table is 6" so I had to make up a circular fixture plate to mount the piece for cutting. I mounted the blank with 6-32 screws and drilled the holes .136. I had to lightly file the hole but these would be for registering the part when it got flipped to do the other side. I cut the inside and outside radii first. The next step was to cut the opening in the channel going down to depth. This was followed with the T-slot cutter.
The part was then turned over and the ribbing on the ends and along the centerline were cut with a .093 dia. end mill.
I made a cut through on both ends leaving about .05 to hold the piece together. The ends were then cut off with the band saw.
All the filing and sanding was then completed.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 20, 2020, 12:41:19 AM
Here's how the two pieces look sitting together. Tomorrow I will make the tubular piece and solder the whole thing together.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: zeeprogrammer on February 20, 2020, 12:49:02 AM
That's just amazing.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Kim on February 20, 2020, 12:57:08 AM
I'll have to agree! That is just amazing!
Just beautiful work, George.
Kim
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 20, 2020, 11:48:28 PM
The last piece to the assembly has been finished. I started with a rod of 9/16 (.562) brass and drilled the inside diameter out. I then turned the O.D. up to the boss that holds the spring mechanism. I then turned the remainder behind the boss. This left a ring around the tube. I then put it in my dividing head and indicated it true. I then cut both side of the boss using the dimensions from my CAD drawing.
With the end mill set to depth I rotated the dividing head cutting of the remainder of the ring that was on the part. The boss was drilled and using a slitting saw I cut the slot between the ears and through the tube. The remaining part of the ring was then filed and the tops of the bosses radiused.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 20, 2020, 11:52:06 PM
The next three pictures show the components dry fitted. It took a little filing and fitting to get everything just right prior to soldering.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 20, 2020, 11:57:25 PM
Using a small home-made parallel clamp I clamped the circular piece to the main body. I aligned the center by matching the cut-outs on both side of the front edge. The tubular piece was then inserted and aligned true. I fluxed all around the joint faces and cut little pieces of solder and laid them in the corner pockets. The whole thing was slowly brought up to temperature and when I say the first bit of solder start to melt I moved the heat around to ge the solder to flow along all the joining edges.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 21, 2020, 12:01:22 AM
I cleaned all the flux off and scrubbed the part with a toothbrush using a copper cleanser. The part was then mounted back on the original fixture plate to cut the area between the bottom circular cavity and the channel where the circular rack gear will go.
Don't even ask how many hours I have in this piece alone. First of all I didn't keep track but I do know I have four days in it.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 24, 2020, 05:09:36 PM
With the gear box complete it was time to start on the gears, one set the worm and wheel and the spur gear on the bottom. For all the gears on this machine I have had to make my own gear cutter because of the odd pitches. The odd pitches are necessary to keep the gear boxes to scale. The worm set in this box are actually true form gears meaning the are based on 14.5 degree tooth forms. I ground a high speed lathe tool (29 degrees inc. angle) and single pointed the worm. I used thread wires to measure and make sure I was at the proper depth. The worm wheel was turned then put into my dividing head. The head was tilted to match the lead of the worm. Here again I had to make the cutter from W-1 drill rod and harden it. I cut the teeth going in the calculated depth then I meshed the worm with the gear and measured over the two to make sure I was deep enough. The spur gear which will drive the partial curved rack gear is actually a standard pitch (32 DP) but the problem is the cutter I have is 2.25 diameter so I didn't have the room to use it so I made a drill rod hob type cutter and hardened it.

Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: zeeprogrammer on February 24, 2020, 05:15:39 PM
It's always awesome to see your work.

I know these are small parts but something to show scale would be helpful.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 24, 2020, 05:29:22 PM
There are 2 more gear boxes that are used to tilt the axles. These are similar to the setup I just posted for the tongue gear box in that they have a worm and wheel set and and a spur gear.
These worms and wheels are based on 60 degree thread form. The worms are .254 diameter x 20 TPI. The worm wheels have 54 teeth. The reason I used a standard thread form is because I couldn't come up with a pitch and tooth count suitable for the size I needed. I single pointed the worms and measured the depth with thread wires. The worm wheel blanks were cut (.902 dia.) all on on piece of stock. The center hole is too small to mount them on an arbor. (.104 dia.) I set up the dividing head like I did for the tongue gears (proper angle). I had to make a 60 degree cutter for this job. It looks like I'll end up with a horde of cutters and fixtures by the time I'm done with this project.
To get to the center of the gear blank I made a shaft with a point on it to set the cutter height (Z). I set a -0- in X and moved the cutter over until it touched the face of the blank. I calculated the drop in Z and moved the quill down. I then moved in X the radius of the cutter and 1/2 of the gear blank width and here again calculated the proper drop and moved the quill.
The cutter was touched to the blank and I went the calculated depth. I cut about 10 teeth then meshed the worm into the gear blank and measured over both of them. I had to adjust only .002 in Y so I went back to the starting point and in 2 more thousands. After cutting the first gear I calculated my move in X allowing for a .062 wide cutoff tool in the lathe and lowered the quill the proper amount.
Might as well cut both gears in one setup.
When I finished cutting both gears the stock was put back in the lathe and the pieces parted off.
I have a large assortment of split collet bushings so I found one close to what I needed and bored it out to the proper diameter for the gear blank. The blanks were then inserted into the split collet and faced the proper amount.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Craig DeShong on February 24, 2020, 09:03:25 PM
I am always amazed with the level of you craftsmanship George; your work is a true inspiration.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 25, 2020, 04:25:53 PM
Hi Zee,
Here's picture of the gear box next to a quarter for size comparison.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on February 25, 2020, 04:34:03 PM
Beautiful!  What did you use to color the brass?
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: zeeprogrammer on February 25, 2020, 09:01:55 PM
Much smaller than I'd thought.  :ThumbsUp:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Don1966 on February 25, 2020, 10:38:26 PM
Masterful results George! Your still my hero......... :Love:




 :drinking-41:
Don
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 26, 2020, 11:19:52 PM
I thought that while I was in the gear making mood I would make all the miter gears for the machine. Although the pitch is the same one set has 13 teeth and the other 14. They all have different size shanks and holes.

The dimensions of the gears are: 56DP, 14 Teeth, . 25 Pitch dia. and .275 O.D.  Most have a .073 through hole
I started with a piece of .312 dia. brass rod. The first cut was the outside diameter. I then turned the compound over to 45 degrees and cut a .190 dia. witness on the end of the shaft. With this established all I had to do was cut up to the shoulder then using the compound cut the angled face.

The compound was then rotated to 45 degrees the other direction and the shank diameter and back angle of the gear were cut.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 26, 2020, 11:21:05 PM
I center drilled and drilled the through hole. This was followed with a very tiny boring bar to cut the inside angle of the teeth.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 26, 2020, 11:29:32 PM
The next step was at the milling machine. I had made a cutter from drill rod. I laid out the drawing to approximate the needed radius for the involute curve of the teeth and ground a high speed lathe tool to that radius. (.085 dia.) I had the required dimensions for the plunge and step-over so using a piece of .375 drill rod I formed the cutter shape on the end. The cutter was then fluted. After cutting I cleaned up all the edges with a magnifier then hardened and polished it.
I put the cutter in the spindle and set the height with a 123 block and adjustable parallel using a magnifier.
The rod was put in the dividing head and set true.
The surface of the gear was colored with a marker so I could see when I touched it with the cutter.
The Y axis was then moved to the full depth of the tooth (.039)
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on February 26, 2020, 11:47:13 PM
 :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 26, 2020, 11:55:36 PM
When making miter gears with a standard involute cutter 3 passes are generally needed but being as these gears are so small and they are brass I decided to skip the first through pass.
The first pass makes a parallel slot with pie shaped teeth. Not good for meshing. At this point what's needed is to trim the sides of the pie shaped teeth so they are parallel with a radial line from the center. This requires rotating the blank and then offsetting the spindle the appropriate amount.

For those interested here's the math involved in setting up the dividing head to make the gear.
The gear has 14 teeth. 360 degrees divided by 14 = 25.714 degrees per pass. When using the dividing head that will require using an index plate with 49 holes and making 2 complete revolutions plus 42 more holes in the plate. I have a basic Brown and Sharpe #0 dividing head (Vertex) Making the first pass isn't the problem it's how to make the parallel cuts.
On a 40:1 dividing head each revolution is 9 degrees so if you take 49 holes (the plate I'm using) and divide 9 degrees by 49 holes each hole will have a spacing of .18367 degrees.
Each tooth is 25.714 degrees so now you divide that by 4 which will make the side of the teeth parallel to the center line axis. (6.4285 degrees) Now how to get that number with the setup I'm using.
Each hole in the 49 hole plate is .18367 degrees and I need 6.4285 degrees so 6.4285/.18367= 35 holes. (I just happened to be lucky with this configuration. Usually you have to fudge the number)
From -0- on the dividing head I counted 35 holes in each direction. One direction for one side of the teeth and the other direction for the other side.
With the cutter touched off, the index crank in the proper hole and my spindle set for the proper offset (.008) I made 14 passes.
The dividing head was then rotated in the opposite direction to the starting hole and the indicator set to the other side of center and the remaining 14 passes were made.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 27, 2020, 12:00:23 AM
This is what the finished gears look like. You have to realize that these gears are really small so just being off by .001 or .002 make a huge difference. These aren't going to be precision gears but just a means to change rotary motion on a shaft to 90 degrees. The last picture is for you Zee!!!
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: zeeprogrammer on February 27, 2020, 12:59:42 AM
The last picture is for you Zee!!!

I saw the picture before I saw your comment.
I can't describe my amazement.
Just look at that! Someone (I mean George) HAND-made those gears.
Wow.   :o

If they fell on the floor, people would think it was swarf and sweep it up.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Don1966 on February 27, 2020, 01:08:17 AM
Those look like the gears i made on my Eastern and Anderson engine very small. Those are parallel depth gears George? In my gear calculation spreadsheets they calculate the offset and rotary table for you but that was a great explanation of the process loved it........ :Love:


 :cheers:
Don
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on February 27, 2020, 11:28:05 AM
Hi Don,
Yes they are parallel depth gears. I have all your spread sheets in a file headed 'GEARING'. The Helical one is great! Thanks for all your work on them and going way back some years ago for making the spreadsheet to calculate the offset miter gears for my differential.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Admiral_dk on February 27, 2020, 11:34:16 AM
I have always been amazed by the quality of your work and your engines George and this build looks to be just as big a challenge for you and with similar results  :cheers:

Per
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on March 06, 2020, 12:39:39 PM
This is the first assembly using some of the miter gears that I showed. This part bolt to the back of the frame and by cranking the handle, transmits the rotary motion through the gears to the lead screw. Mounted on the lead screw is a traveler that will have a link going to one of the axle yokes. This will offset the rear of the machine relative to the axle assembly.
The bracket was machined from solid as was the crank handle. For the handle I first drilled the center hole then cut the central ribs. The part was then cut from the parent stock with a slitting saw. A threaded bushing was made and soldered into the center hole. The ball was turned with the shank then pressed into the hole in the handle.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: cnr6400 on March 06, 2020, 12:50:12 PM
 :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Don1966 on March 06, 2020, 03:08:09 PM
Awesome!!!!....... :Love:




   :drinking-41:
Don
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Dan Rowe on March 06, 2020, 03:43:07 PM
You have to realize that these gears are really small so just being off by .001 or .002 make a huge difference.

George, as the offset is only 0.008" for each side pass how did you find the exact center of the blank to set the indicator at zero? I am not sure any of my methods are accurate enough for this small of a gear.

Dan

Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on March 06, 2020, 04:29:59 PM
Hi Dan,
Actually I do it by eye. Well partly by eye. I know the center of my dividing head so I set up a gauge block, in my case a 1-2-3 block with an adjustable parallel on top to get the required height for the dividing head center. As close as I can measure the tip of the cutter (.015) I bring the spindle down and using a fairly strong magnifying glass I line up the bottom edge of the cutter with the top of the parallel and set a -0-. I then do it again without looking at the indicator and see if I get the same reading. If not I do it a third time and split the difference of the readings. I then move the spindle down .0075 which gives me my center. When it comes time to offset and trim the teeth I rotate the dividing head (which I already know the angle) and offset the cutter using the dial indicator and make the cut. Like I said I'm sure it's within .001-.002.
With a proper involute cutter it's assumed that the cutting teeth are centered on the cutter so it's just a matter of touching of the flat surface of the cutter and dividing by two.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on March 09, 2020, 06:49:42 PM
Making progress but all these tiny parts are very time consuming.
I finished the top for the draw bar gear box. A piece was cut to the overall dimensions and the mounting holes were put in but rather than drill the clearance diameter they were drilled and tapped for 0-80 screws to mount it to the fixture plate. After machining the holes would then be enlarged to the clearance size . The part was mounted on the fixture plate and that was bolted to the rotary table. The center was picked up the ribs and raised area over the worm gear were machined. The part was removed and the tops of the ribs files to the triangular shape. The center boss was then turned and soldered in place. The whole part was then filed and sanded smooth.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on March 09, 2020, 07:14:17 PM
Next up are the two gear boxes that are used to cant the axles and wheels. These gear boxes were first roughed out to the overall sizes and the holes put in. Three of the holes are for attaching the cover plate and the other two are for mounting the gear box to the axle. The squared up part was first drilled for the worm gear. The hole was drilled then using the same size drill but with a squared off end I flattened the bottom of the hole. The part was then turned 90 degrees and the bore for the gear was roughed and bored to size. The shaft diameter is .104 so this hole was also drilled on center. The gear box has a cover plate so using the boring head a counter bore was cut .03 deep. I then cut material away from the outside prior to mounting on the rotary table for the circular shape.
The cover plate was next. I cut a piece of brass to the overall dimensions and clamped it in the mill vise standing up so that when the pieces were machined they could then be cut free with a slitting saw. The reason for this set-up is because of the raised boss that fits into the gear box. I located the center of the stock and put the clearance holes for the screws in. I then mounted my boring bar with the bar set with the cutting edge toward center. Running the spindle backwards I then cut the boss onto the stock.
The worm gear will be permanently trapped in the gear box once finished. I turned up a flanged piece of brass with a .104 center hole. This was parted off and the flange was filed and fitted to the gear box. Once I had a good fit of the part I put the worm in place put the cap piece over it then soldered it in place. I have and access hole under the cover plate to tighten the gear to the shaft. This way I can remove the shaft for further machining.
To get the main gear into the box with the worm already in place I filed the high points off of 4 teeth on the back side. This will allow the center shaft to be soldered to the gear and the whole thing put into the box.
The pictures show the front and rear of the gear box along with the cap piece and the gears.
The next picture shows the main gear and worm in place.
The last pictures show the finished gear box with the spur gear in place.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: cnr6400 on March 09, 2020, 07:35:00 PM
 :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Craig DeShong on March 09, 2020, 07:40:48 PM
Once again, I'm out of superlatives :NotWorthy:

 :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on March 15, 2020, 05:00:57 PM
A curved rack gear! There is a gear box on the machine that shifts the position of the tongue relative to the machine. The rear of the machine can be offset as well but it involves shifting the grader frame relative to the axles assemblies. This can't be done on the front hence the mechanism for doing a similar thing.
There is a crank at the operator's platform that turns a shaft that spans the entire length of the machine. It terminates at the gear box (I posted pictures of it earlier) The gear box has a worm drive that rotates a vertical shaft. Attached to the vertical shaft is a spur gear which rotates a curved rack gear. (basically a piece of a large gear. This gear, beside the teeth has a rectangular section that slides inside the gear box casting.
I'll start this post with some pictures of the full sized machine to give you and idea of what this whole thing is.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on March 15, 2020, 05:14:34 PM
I started by making a mounting plate for my 8" rotary table. The pitch diameter of this radial rack gear is 6.254 and if the gear was made as a complete gear it would have 202 teeth. (32PD.)
I then machined and mounted a block of aluminum to the plate. Onto this was mounted the gear blank. The mounting holes for the blank were drilled so that the piece could be flipped over to complete the machining operations.
With the horizontal/vertical rotary table sitting flat on the mill table I milled a relief arc a little smaller than the whole depth of the gear. The blank was then turned over and reattached to the mounting block.
I unbolted the rotary table and took the mounting flanges off of it. I stood the RT up and attached an angle plate to the rear of it. Some HV tables actually have flange so when stood vertically they can be bolted to the mill table, mine doesn't so years ago I came up with this setup. I have 4 little L brackets through which a 3/8" bolt goes through and into the tapped holes on the rear of the RT. The angle plate is then clamped to the mill table.
The centerline of my rotary table is 5.50" to center so I set up a stack of blocks to set the tooth position of the cutter.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on March 15, 2020, 05:41:46 PM
It was here I ran into my first problem. My conventional R-8 holder wouldn't allow the cutter to get to the centerline because there wasn't enough room to clear the top of the RT. I have a bunch of home-made extensions and happened to have one that is .625" dia. O.D. and .50 I.D. so I changed my holder to a .625 one and inserted the home made 32 DP cutter. I reset my centerline on the cutter and moved it over to the edge of the blank. Next problem. The extension holder hit the aluminum mounting block so I changed end mill holders and rotated the block vertically. I then cut away as much of the aluminum block as I thought I would need and started over again. The holder cleared but now the cutter shank (.50 dia.) wasn't relieved far enough back when I originally made it so I had to take the cutter out of the holder and grind the shank back to where I thought it would clear. Reset centerline again. Naturally the RT isn't a dividing head so I had to make s positional chart in degrees and minutes.
I touched off the cutter to the blank and made a witness cut. I then moved to the next position to verify that the rotation angle was correct. It was so I went .06 deep (total depth is .068) and made my first pass around the blank. As I got near the top I saw that the extension holder and cutter shank were still going to hit so not wanting to affect the already cut teeth I took the whole R-8 holder out of the spindle and put in in the lathe. I trimmed off the bottom of the extension holder and ground more of the cutter shank back.
I put the holder back in the mill and proceeded to finish the first pass of cuts.
I then went to depth and made the repeat cuts. Using the spur gear to test the fit I found that the 2 gears were a little tight so I went .07 deep and made another pass.
The fit then seemed good so I cleaned the mill table up and set the RT back down flat.
I picked up the center hole of the RT and set my -0-s.
The gear blank was then turned over to cut the rectangular section to size while leaving the central stiffening rib in the center. I cut the outer side of the rib first going down to the proper depth.
I then started on the inside radii, first finishing the inside of the rib then the I.D. of the part itself. I stayed up about .02 from full depth so that the gear blank was still firmly attached to the parent metal.
I then switched to a .094 dia. end mill and cut the ends to dimension. I then put the .125 end mill back in and went to depth leaving several spots with the .02 thickness to secure the part.
The part was then removed from the RT and I cut the gear from the original stock. The part was filed, sanded and fitted to the gear box. All that's left to do is to taper the stiffening ribs and add the center ring that goes around the tongue. That's the easy part!
 
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on March 15, 2020, 05:43:23 PM
Here's some pictures of the finished gear in position in the gear box.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on March 15, 2020, 05:52:43 PM
Very very nice!

For cutting gears with my rotary table, which is 5 degrees per full turn of the crank and the handwheel is marked down to the 1/10th of a degree, I make up a excel spreadsheet that gives me how many full turns and what tick number to stop at. For most gears, especially ones with even tooth count, it winds up being a pattern that repeats several times. The formula goes by a degrees per tooth calculation and the tooth number, to minimize the rounding error that would rapidly creep in if a degrees/tooth was pre-figured to a tenth or so and added in each time. The 'MOD' function is handy to repeat the tick count every 5 degrees.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on March 16, 2020, 10:49:23 AM
HI Chris,
I don't often cut gears with my rotary table as I have a dividing head. This gear segment has 24 teeth so it wasn't a lot of calculating. I got my base number (4 places behind the decimal) and just added or subtracted to my starting angle. My rotary table is 90:1 and the divisions on the hand wheel are 1" so it's probably as accurate as my dividing head.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Craig DeShong on March 16, 2020, 11:25:40 PM
I must be lucky, my 8 inch rotary table is a combination RT and dividing head.

George, all I can say is... WOW!!!
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on March 22, 2020, 02:07:12 PM
Well work is progressing at a steady pace although making scores of square headed bolts of varying sizes is quite time consuming. I have the front axle/tongue assembly almost finiished. Just some support brackets and spring detail to finish up. Here are a couple of pictures of the front of the machine to use as a reference.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on March 22, 2020, 02:09:46 PM
Now here are pictures of my miniature grader.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Johnmcc69 on March 22, 2020, 02:19:27 PM
Amazing detail!
 Great work George!

 John
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on March 22, 2020, 02:24:50 PM
To operate all of the gear boxes on the machine involves shaft, links and U-joints. The U-joints have become a project in themselves. Chuck the brass rod in the dividing head. Cut the flats and drill for the pin hole (.040) Not wanting to continually change tooling per joint I would do the previous steps then do the next one and so on. Once all these were cut and drilled then were put back into the dividing head and indicated along the long flat and clamped tight. The slitting saw was mounted and the opening was cut in the joint making the yoke. Each piece had to be indicated but I figured that was quicker than putting the slitting saw in and out of the spindle each time.
With the milling finished the bar stock was put into the lathe and the shaft hole drilled and the shank area cut to size. The center hole is .083 diameter and the shank is .135 diameter. The pieces were then parted off and the taper and radius put on each yoke.
The pins were turned with a small head on them. The full sized pins have cotters on both sides but that just won't work in the size. What I did was drill for a retaining wire on the end (.020) and found some copper wire of that diameter and put it through, trimmed and bent it around the pin. To locate the cross drilled hole I made up a square fixture block with a .040 hole drilled for the pin. At the proper position I cross drilled for the retaining hole. Each pin was inserted into the block and with my sensitive drill press I drilled the ends of the pins. These U-joints are a little different than the typical automotive type in that the pins are offset to clear each other whereas on an automotive joint the cross is all on the same center.
I made 6 of one size and have 3 more to make a different size.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on March 22, 2020, 02:42:10 PM
Exquisite parts!  As long as the angles are small, the offset pins should be okay, won't change the lengths much during a turn, and these are just for handwheels, not engine spinning.


 :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Vixen on March 22, 2020, 02:48:51 PM
I've been silently following alone, watching this machine develope. I've never built an all brass model before, but seeing your work, I now wish I had.

There is something very special about brass fabrications and brass mechanisms. They somehow look twice as real, twice as delicate as with any other metal. The model you are creating would grace any jewelers window.

Thanks for sharing your talents

Mike
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Kim on March 22, 2020, 05:12:05 PM
Amazing work, George! I always love following your builds!  (Pass the popcorn, Chris!) :popcorn: :popcorn:
Kim
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: ozzie46 on March 22, 2020, 05:45:34 PM
 Fabulous.

Here's me packing up my tools and having a garage sale and sneaking out the back door. :wallbang:

Never be able to come close to this.

Ron
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on March 22, 2020, 06:18:19 PM
Hi Ron,
Be proud of what you do. We do the best we can with the tools and experience. There are people who are steps above me and I could never reach their plateau but I certainly can appreciate their work.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: ozzie46 on March 22, 2020, 11:32:39 PM
Oh, I'm not quitting. That was just my feeble attempt at humor. Sorry.

Ron
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on March 23, 2020, 12:17:10 AM
Hi Ron,
I realize you were only kidding but a lot of times I have heard fellows say that they could never do this or that and I tell them at least they are building.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: fumopuc on March 23, 2020, 02:57:50 PM
Hi George,
I have had the opportunity today for a better look in all the details you have shown us in this posting so far.
It is a real pleasure to see all this tiny part coming out of the stock.
I appreciate it very much that you are taking the time to show us your set ups and the way how it can be done.
Really a great job and much to learn.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on March 24, 2020, 06:04:01 PM
The original machine has a big spring that supports the tongue. If it were just any spring I could wind one and be done with it but this spring has a square cross section to the coils. Now I guess I could have said "that's too hard to make" but I came up with an idea that I thought might work.
Have you ever drilled out a broken screw by using just a slightly undersize drill? Sometimes when you're lucky the remaining threads just unscrew.
So using that premise I first went to my drawing and calculated the threads per inch, 13. My lathe will cut 13 tpi. I ground up a high speed lathe tool that would give me the proper width and turned the stock to size. I then threaded the rod going down to depth. The tool is only .036 wide and the first time I tried it the tool snapped off. I reground it but this time only allowed .05 for the projection. The second attempt went much better and I made 2 passes at each depth so it would clean up the cut before going deeper. When I was satisfied with the results I turned a sleeve to go over the O.D. It had a couple of thousands clearance figuring that the next step might swell the piece. I center drilled and drilled leaving about .02 stock in the hole. I then drilled about .005 larger than the depth of the threads. The sleeve slid off with no trouble. There was a tiny bit of flash inside the spring so a couple of passes with a smooth rat tail file cleaned it up nicely. I annealed about 1 coil on the ends so that I could compress it and make a square end.
The spring has 2 looped rods (.039 dia.) that go through the center and hook onto the end of the spring. The first one was bent up and it went through fine but that didn't leave much room for the other one. After a little bit of coaxing and tweaking I got the other looped rod through.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on March 24, 2020, 06:16:16 PM
There is a triangular bracket at the front of the frame. It is supported on the frame side by 2 straps (.170 wide x .025 thick) The problem is the straps are bent at the ends to align with the frame and the bracket. There is no way to just anneal and bend the stock like that so I experimented with a small piece of it. I cut a notch with a jeweler's saw leaving about .03 material. I then used a small jeweler's file. I think it's called a knife style. The sides are slightly tapered. I then filed the notch to the proper angle here again not going all the way through. I then bent the stock to the proper angle and silver soldered the small gap. That worked fine so once I had both pieces done I clamped them in place and gave myself a line from the triangular support. I then notched them like the first time and silver soldered the second joint.
From the triangular bracket there is another piece of strapping that goes down toward the spring. The spring is held to this strap with a clevis. I annealed a piece of .039 rod and formed it around the shank of a .052 diameter drill. The bolt going through it is M1.2 x .25. I made yet another square headed bolt and nut to hold the clevis to the strap.
Just a few more parts and the front end of the machine will be complete.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on March 24, 2020, 06:20:42 PM
It's kind of after the fact but here's are several pictures of the full sized machine taken of the spring and clevis attachment.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on March 24, 2020, 06:22:41 PM
That spring....  My brain just exploded... Scraping it off the walls...




Wow.   :NotWorthy:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Craig DeShong on March 24, 2020, 09:59:52 PM
This grader is just GORGEOUS George.  I’m fascinated as I watch this model come together.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on April 01, 2020, 06:23:46 PM
 I don't know how many of my fellow modelers have worked with sheet metal but it frustrating in the fact that when you're machining you just cut or drill to a dimension and you're done with it. With sheet metal you calculate where a bend should be and try to take into account the amount of metal that the bend takes up and you still end up making 2 pieces, the first one to see how it's going to come out and the second one that should be correct.
 This machine has so many brackets and plates made from sheet metal and at times it would be nice to have 3 hands instead of two, One to hold the part, one to measure and one to scribe a line where it's supposed to line up with something else.
 I have completed all the brackets (if you want to call them that) and got them mounted to the frame. The large one at the operators platform is a fabrication of 6 parts. It has to mount to the frame approximately where it's supposed to and the shafts that pass through the bearing blocks have to be in line with the center of the machine. The top shaft which has a steering wheel runs all the way from the operator's platform to the front triangular support.
 When I started on the grader and completed the drawings I tried to make the shafts a size that were close to scale but more importantly that they were available. I have been dealing with a company out of New Jersey (Precision Scale Model Engineering). The stock material that I have never been able to find anywhere else.
 Anyway, enough background. Here's some pictures of the actual machine and then pictures of the model and where I'm at.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on April 01, 2020, 06:36:16 PM
 The steering wheel rim is .084 diameter stock. It's 1.75 inside diameter. I tuned up a piece of bar stock with a small step to hold the rim for soldering. I annealed a piece of stock and formed it around the bar being careful to get the ends to just meet so that they could be silver soldered. After soldering and cleanup I put the ring back on the fixture bar and lightly tapped it with a piece of hardwood to try and make it as round as possible. The spokes are .062 diameter. On the fixture bar I cut grooves to the proper depth so when assembling the spokes would line up with the center of the rim. I also cut relief pockets where the spokes meet the rim. The fixture bar is aluminum and will suck all the heat away from the joints so I hoped the pockets would prevent this. I turned and drilled the hub and made up the four spokes. The spokes were carefully filed for a nice fit. The joints were fluxed and soldered. The last step was to turn up a speed knob and mount it to the rim.
The ends of both shafts were drilled in my fixture block so that a M1 x .25 square head bolt could be used to hold the U-joints on.
 
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Kim on April 01, 2020, 09:19:54 PM
That's a fine looking steering wheel, George!
The time and effort you put into each part really shows.
Kim
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: kvom on April 01, 2020, 11:23:54 PM
We know how hard working with the sheets and rivets are, but if it was easy we wouldn't be as impressed.   ;D :cheers:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on April 01, 2020, 11:40:41 PM

i wish you would stop showing us the photos of the full size grader you are building and show the small model instead...   :o

Just kidding - absolutely amazing work, as usual.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Alan Haisley on April 07, 2020, 05:01:28 AM
Still speechless ...
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: scc on April 07, 2020, 10:37:47 AM
Unbelievable George :praise2: :praise2: :praise2:   and here I am struggling with 8ba and clumsy fingers. This grader goes beyond model engineering.......it's pure artistry.       I love this post, THANK YOU.        Regards       Terry
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on May 04, 2020, 12:52:38 AM
Gentlemen,
I know it's been a long time since I posted anything but that doesn't mean I haven't been working on it. Every part is connected to another part so when making one piece 1 or 2 and sometimes 3 other pieces are required.
Since my last posting I made the odd shaped wheel that eventually will rotate the blade. It's mounted to a shaft that fits inside of a tube that's welded to a formed bracket that bolts to the floor plate. Attached to the shaft is a U-joint which will connect to another U-joint a then finally to the bevel gear on the top of the blade assembly.
I had to drill holes in the floor plate to mount the wheel and bracket. I blued the plate and using dividers I gave myself a centerline. On the centerline I scribed the location for the 2 holes.
At this point I have a question for the members. I backed up the floor plate and then using an automatic center punch gave myself to dimples to drill to. Now here is the question. When drilling something like the floor plate after it's in place what would you use to drill the holes? (1/16, .062, 1.59 mm diameter). I use my Dremel flex shaft attachment but from past history the slowest speed is too fast and it wants to make the drill wander. It's one of those things that you just hold your breath and hope that it doesn't give you an ugly hole because there's no way of replacing the floor plate at this point.
I'm thinking of making a speed reducer attachment for the Dremel, something like a planet gear box that will screw onto the nose of the Dremel.
Anyway back to the build!
The pictures are a mix of the original machine and my replication of it.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on May 04, 2020, 01:10:26 AM
Next up was the operators platform. The original is composed of 2 pieces of angle iron that's bent on the ends. Mounted to these angles are a series of steel slats, 7 across the flat area then 3 up each side. Apparently they were welded in place because there's no sign of rivets or bolts. I looked up arc welding and they did have it back as early as this machine was built so I suspect they were welded to the angles.
How on earth to copy this! To start off with I milled 2 pieces of angle stock. Using a jewelers hand saw I split the flat side at the angle vertex. I bent each piece to the proper angle then soldered a small plate over the split. Now how to get all those slats mounted with only 2 hands. I drilled 2 widely spaced holes in the flat side of the angle stock. I then made 2 spacer bars that were threaded 0-80 in the ends. I then bolted the angles to the spacer bars. This gave me a rigid assembly that I could mount the straps to. All the straps were cut filed and sanded prior to soldering. I scribed some lines on both angles at the center to give me a starting point. Naturally the first strap soldered just fine. It was all the others that I was worried about. How much heat would it take to solder the other straps without unsoldering the one next to it. Using 2- .078 diameter drills as spacers I butted the next strap in place and fluxed the joint. I then got my bit Weller solder gun nice and hot and touched the outside edge of the slat. It soldered just fine without dislodging it's neighbor. It even got hot enough for the solder to wick underneath and around the joint. With some new found confidence I continued soldering the slats on.
I think this part was one that caused me the most concern.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on May 04, 2020, 01:12:57 AM
The operator's platform has 4 legs that bolt to the main frame. I made up the angle brackets and bolted them to the angles with M1.2x.25 square headed bolts. These will get bolted to the frame, eventually.
For now I just have it sitting there looking splendid!
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on May 04, 2020, 01:14:14 AM
For drilling small holes in thin stock I like to clamp it between two wood blocks so it can't spin or distort. If the holes have to be lined up with layout lines, will make a slightly larger hole in the top block so the lines can be seen. I don't like to center punch, since it can still let the drill skate. Instead, I've got a small center drill, with a .100" tip. That will give a wider and even  dimple to keep the drill tip centered. I've got a small proxxon drill press that gives a good feel on small drills, the mill can make it hard to feel pressure on the small bits.


And agreed, looking splendid!!!
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on May 04, 2020, 01:40:07 AM
Now moving on to the rear axle assembly.
I had everything made and partially assembled but needed to mount many of the small pieces to complete the assembly.
At the ends of the lower support angles are stops. These keep the trunnions from canting over too far when the wheels are cocked. Apparently without the stops the operator could cant the wheels to the point that they couldn't be brought back to horizontal, thus the stops. I milled them from solid leaving the small angular projection the filed it to shape.
On the upper angle is mounted the curved rack gear. On the gear box is thinner at the top than where it mounts between the lower rails so that allow the use of bolts to mount the rack gear. My gear box is the same width throughout so to mount the curved rack I countersunk the inside of the holes on the rail then soldered the rivets in place and filed them flush.
The lower rails also have 2 cast pieces that the forked arms mount to.
All of these pieces are mounted with square headed bolts and nuts. I don't even want to think of all the hours I have in just making nuts and bolts. I make them as I go because I don't know what the lengths will be until I get to that point.
Now another challenge. The shaft that turns the worm in the gear box rises vertically and is supported by an odd looking piece of formed metal. It cross section is like angle iron but at the top it has a much wider area with a large radius. This must have been designed for added strength at that point. I could just make a piece of angle stock and bend it so I made up a drawing to machine it out of solid.
I mounted the stock to the sacrificial plate on my rotary table and commenced whittling away.
The top of the shaft terminates in a uniquely shaped casting. On the end is a miter gear which meshes with another miter mounted to the crank handle. I had already made the miter gears way back when I made all the gears for the machine. I didn't want to have to continually set up for gears along the way.
The cast frame that holds the gears was something that I just didn't want to fabricate. Not that I couldn't but it's hard to tell how many I would have had to make before I got an acceptable one.
I have had parts cast at a company called Shapeways in the past and was very satisfied with the results so I made a CAD model and sent them the file. I added a few thousands to the diameter not knowing how exact the casting would be. The cast piece exceeded my expectations so it was machined and the shafts and gears fitted to it.
The bottom of the angular support is bolted to the inside of the lower rail with yet again more square headed bolts.
The final pieces were angle brackets that bolt to the top and bottom rails and are connected with bent straps. These help tie the rails together and act like a parallelogram with the axle trunnions.
The final pictures show the full sized machine and where I'm at with the replica.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on May 04, 2020, 01:41:45 AM
The final set of pictures.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on May 04, 2020, 01:43:08 AM
Hi Chris,
I understand what you're saying but I don't have the luxury of using my sensitive drill press to get into these tight spaces. They have to be drilled by hand and that's where the problem lies.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on May 04, 2020, 02:00:26 AM
Hi Chris,
I understand what you're saying but I don't have the luxury of using my sensitive drill press to get into these tight spaces. They have to be drilled by hand and that's where the problem lies.
gbritnell
Gotcha. In cases like that, i would tend to use my high speed dental bur handpiece with a football shaped diamond tip to start the hole. At 400k rpm, it does not wander or pull. Then finish with the drill bit in the flex shaft.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Admiral_dk on May 04, 2020, 12:26:29 PM
I like Chris idea of using wood to help the drill bit to "stay in place" and will certainly consider using some of all the icecream sticks I keep for later ....

My experience is that the slower the small drill go the worse - so I like to keep the RPM above 15K when using drill bits smaller than 1.5mm - that normally stops them from wandering.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Don1966 on May 04, 2020, 04:56:43 PM
George my friend that is looking magnificent it’s all I can say. ....... :Love:



 :drinking-41:
Don
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: fumopuc on May 05, 2020, 09:38:58 AM
Hi George, the details are unbelievable.
So my stairs at the Bruce Macbeth engine seems to be a kind of heavy metal construction against you work here.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Brian Rupnow on May 05, 2020, 02:16:29 PM
George--Beautiful results as usual. Very, very nice work.---Brian
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on May 11, 2020, 11:37:13 PM
 First a shout-out to Chris. In going through my miniature burrs I happened to have a small container of 3/32 shank burrs that someone gave me quite some time back. I had never used them and didn't even know what the profile was. The tips were so small that I had to use my magnifier to see them and lo and behold they had probably what you called a football shape but more so an inverted tear drop. They have 6 flutes on them and go to a point. I marked my hole locations by rotating my carbide tipped scriber until a had a good witness mark then I chucked up one of the burrs in my Dremel flex shaft. Using my magnifier I carefully set the tip of the burr on the witness mark and lightly pressed down. It didn't skate and gave me a nice dimple to drill to. At that point I was thrilled and the job that I had been dreading turned into not so bad of one.
 Now to catch up with the build.
 There's a lot going on at the back of the machine, levers, wheels, handles brackets etc. In my last posting I had presented the bracket and crank mechanism which tilts the axles. Next up was to install the already made axle shift mechanism. This consists of two brackets, one on each side of the rear of the frame. The one on the left holds another set of miter gears, the one on the right just supports the end of the lead screw. The brackets are mounted to a long rectangular plate that the shuttle rides on. The shuttle is made in two pieces and is slotted to fit over the rectangular plate. Attached to it is a bar that hooks to the left side axle yoke. When the handle is turned it transmits motion through the meter gears which turn the lead screw which moves the shuttle.
First the full sized machine.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on May 11, 2020, 11:41:22 PM
Here's the pictures of the model.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on May 11, 2020, 11:50:36 PM
The bracket that supports the shaft for the shifting mechanism is bolted to the frame. This wasn't a particularly hard job but the corner bracket for the platform sits on top of it and the bolts go through both pieces and through the frame. I don't know if having 4 hands would have helped? Trying to hold things in place while scribing lines, what a job. In mounting the operator's platform I had made the angular brackets that go to the frame from my drawing. Well they were just a little off and with the frame tapering it didn't give me enough room to put bolts through the other 3 brackets so they had to be remade.
More M1.2x.25 square head nuts and bolts. I think when I get through I'm going to count up all the nuts and bolts I made for this project. Or maybe I don't even want to know!
Here's 2 shots of the axle assembly tilted. By turning the crank everything works like it's supposed to.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on May 11, 2020, 11:53:19 PM
This picture was posted earlier on but it shows the rear axle tilted on the full sized machine.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on May 12, 2020, 12:00:04 AM
First a shout-out to Chris. In going through my miniature burrs I happened to have a small container of 3/32 shank burrs that someone gave me quite some time back. I had never used them and didn't even know what the profile was. The tips were so small that I had to use my magnifier to see them and lo and behold they had probably what you called a football shape but more so an inverted tear drop. They have 6 flutes on them and go to a point. I marked my hole locations by rotating my carbide tipped scriber until a had a good witness mark then I chucked up one of the burrs in my Dremel flex shaft. Using my magnifier I carefully set the tip of the burr on the witness mark and lightly pressed down. It didn't skate and gave me a nice dimple to drill to. At that point I was thrilled and the job that I had been dreading turned into not so bad of one.
 Now to catch up with the build.
 There's a lot going on at the back of the machine, levers, wheels, handles brackets etc. In my last posting I had presented the bracket and crank mechanism which tilts the axles. Next up was to install the already made axle shift mechanism. This consists of two brackets, one on each side of the rear of the frame. The one on the left holds another set of miter gears, the one on the right just supports the end of the lead screw. The brackets are mounted to a long rectangular plate that the shuttle rides on. The shuttle is made in two pieces and is slotted to fit over the rectangular plate. Attached to it is a bar that hooks to the left side axle yoke. When the handle is turned it transmits motion through the meter gears which turn the lead screw which moves the shuttle.
First the full sized machine.
Great find George! Those little burs can come in handy for a lot of things, they are available in a lot of shapes, both in toothed carbide and in diamond coated.   :cheers:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on May 12, 2020, 12:01:07 AM
The bracket that supports the shaft for the shifting mechanism is bolted to the frame. This wasn't a particularly hard job but the corner bracket for the platform sits on top of it and the bolts go through both pieces and through the frame. I don't know if having 4 hands would have helped? Trying to hold things in place while scribing lines, what a job. In mounting the operator's platform I had made the angular brackets that go to the frame from my drawing. Well they were just a little off and with the frame tapering it didn't give me enough room to put bolts through the other 3 brackets so they had to be remade.
More M1.2x.25 square head nuts and bolts. I think when I get through I'm going to count up all the nuts and bolts I made for this project. Or maybe I don't even want to know!
Here's 2 shots of the axle assembly tilted. By turning the crank everything works like it's supposed to.
Wow. Stunning finish, AND it works!   :NotWorthy:
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on May 12, 2020, 12:13:29 AM
The next assembly to make and mount is the lead screw setup that shifts the blade. It's similar to the one that shifts the rear axle assembly. A crank handle turns a shaft that goes through a pair of miter gears. This in turn moves a shuttle along a rectangular plate. This shuttle has somewhat of a universal joint. There is a link from the shuttle and onto this link is another shaft with a yoke. The blade can be moved from side to side and up and down. This linkage allows that motion while keeping everything rigid.
The lead screw is supported much like the axle shift brackets except they're much more complex. I made the bracket for the axle shift assembly but didn't want to even try to make these two. I could have made something that worked but to try and keep the details in the model I opted to have them cast. I drew the parts up in Solidworks and sent the files to Shapeways. The cost wasn't bad at all, $15.00 each. Much, much less than the time I would have put into trying to make them. Having had parts made by Shapeways in the past I knew the shrinkage was minimal but just to be safe I added a few thousands here and there. When I got the parts an measured them they were within a couple of thousands so I was thrilled, to say the least.
The next thing I had to figure out was how to machine them. The brackets eventually bolt to the rectangular bar so I milled a piece of brass the width of the recess where the bar would eventually go and soft soldered the bracket to it. This gave me something to hold onto and rotate around so the mounting and shaft holes could be machined.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on May 12, 2020, 12:16:18 AM
Here's a couple more picture of the model. The one shows the rectangular bar with the shuttle and linkage attached.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on May 12, 2020, 12:21:41 AM
The upper part of the shaft has a support strap that is bolted to the rear of the worm gear housing. I had to remove the housing to drill and tap the holes for the support strap. The housing had to come off anyway to put the chain bracket onto the shat anyway. The shaft is .073 diameter and is threaded 1-72 at the top for the handle The miter gear at the bottom is cross drilled for a pin. This is so that it can be disassembled if needed.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on May 12, 2020, 12:25:29 AM
Here's just a couple of pictures of the machine.
The last picture is the other casting I had made for the rear axle tilt mechanism.
Just a couple more pieces to complete the main machine and then I can start working on the blade assembly. That promises to be quite a job in itself.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on May 12, 2020, 12:39:08 AM
My gast is truly flabbered. Amazing work!
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: 90LX_Notch on May 12, 2020, 12:45:45 AM
Spectacular.

-Bob
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: zeeprogrammer on May 12, 2020, 12:49:28 AM
I haven't said much. Anytime I enter this thread...I'm left speechless.

What a wonderful project.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: derekwarner on May 12, 2020, 01:27:51 AM
They say the simple things can be the most difficult so have gone back to post #34 to re-read the construction of the chassis I beams

Thank you for sharing....absolutely amazing ....an inspiration and a huge learning curve for members looking in

Derek
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Craig DeShong on May 12, 2020, 02:12:50 PM
I’ve been working on the governor of my model and I consider the parts small; but some of your parts on this model are a magnitude of order (10 times) smaller.  I honestly don’t see how you do it.  I’m constantly awed and amazed.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Dave Otto on May 13, 2020, 02:00:34 AM
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
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on May 15, 2020, 10:39:29 PM
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.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on May 15, 2020, 10:50:41 PM
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.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on May 15, 2020, 10:58:01 PM
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.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on May 15, 2020, 11:05:42 PM
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.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Don1966 on May 16, 2020, 02:14:01 AM
Awwww George!!!! Your still one of my hero’s. Magnificent Craftsmanship my friend you never fail to deliver a great piece of work.......  :Love:



 :cheers:
Don
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: ChuckKey on May 16, 2020, 09:21:33 AM
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.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Alan Haisley on May 19, 2020, 03:51:16 PM

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?

Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on May 21, 2020, 10:39:22 PM
Friend of mine up in Maine sent me this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AGev-8ZoPY

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....
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on June 22, 2020, 10:54:26 PM
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.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on June 22, 2020, 11:02:08 PM
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.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on June 22, 2020, 11:07:05 PM
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.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on June 22, 2020, 11:10:51 PM
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.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on June 22, 2020, 11:26:35 PM
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.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on June 22, 2020, 11:55:46 PM
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.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on June 22, 2020, 11:58:23 PM
I'm looking at about another 3 weeks until completion but I can see the end of the project.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on June 23, 2020, 12:03:30 AM
Wow.




Wow.




Wow!
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on June 23, 2020, 12:10:09 AM
Here are some pictures of the actual machine for comparison.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on June 23, 2020, 12:12:23 AM
And finally a few more of the full size machine.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Kim on June 23, 2020, 06:16:02 AM
Yeah... Wow...

Kim
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: mikemill on June 23, 2020, 09:59:59 AM
George

You are the Faberge of model engineering

Mike

Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: PJPickard on June 23, 2020, 10:41:01 AM
Truly perfect! Will you be painting it? I wonder if the yellow was original.
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on June 23, 2020, 12:06:50 PM
HI PJ,
Along the way I had thoughts that I was going to paint it but as it progressed and in conversations with my friends I decided to leave it natural brass. The brass has a certain elegance to it.
Thanks for looking in and commenting.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: crueby on June 23, 2020, 01:13:25 PM
Do you clear coat the brass to keep it shiny?
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on June 23, 2020, 03:14:46 PM
Hi Chris,
Many years ago when I first got into the machining hobby almost everything I made was from brass. I thought that clear coating it would preserve it but what happens is if it starts to tarnish underneath the clear coat then all of it must be removed to clean it up. When I was in the Army our belt buckles were made from brass. The first thing we were told was to remove the clear coat, then polish. Since then I just let it stay natural. I have a can of Copper Clean. It's like Comet cleanser only for brass and copper. I use an old toothbrush and clean the brass with it. It seems to help preserve the finish.
gbritnell
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: kvom on June 23, 2020, 10:05:16 PM
I have been following the construction of the Astro Skeleton clock in Australia for a good number of years.  It has literally thousands of brass parts and gears, and the maker is now in the process of disassembly and polishing all these parts.  He mentions in one of the build thread entries that some of the brass will be lacquered, but there's no detail on what type he uses.  There was discussion much earlier about gold plating as well.

http://www.my-time-machines.net/astro-04-20.htm
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: Don1966 on June 23, 2020, 10:30:25 PM
Damn George you got my mouth watering looking at it. Oh yeah leave it brass it will get a patina on it. I put my models in a doll case it keep the air out only thermo expansion move air in an out of it but it holds its patina very well. You can have them made to the size you want. Awesome craftsmanship buddy love it...... :Love:


 :cheers:
Don
Title: Re: Horse drawn Galion road grader circa. 1913?
Post by: gbritnell on June 24, 2020, 12:57:54 AM
Hi Don,
Thanks for looking in.
gbritnell
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