Thanks Don. Glad you are watching.
Kim,
They are iron not steel rivets. They are soft enough to rivet with a hammed and no heating. I used round headed rivets. I put a small countersink ready for the end to be riveted into. Sat on the anvil on my vice with the heads downwards. Couple of good whacks with a medium hammer and they are done. No need for a punch to round them off.
Todays job was to build up the cylinders and fit them. I cut some gaskets for the steam chest and its lid. The rear cover is refitted with a gasket there too. I have not fitted the front cover yet so I can see the movement of the piston.
The slide bar and crosshead are already on the left cylinder so that was the first. The holes for the fitting bolts on the frames had already been drilled by the previous builder. They should really have been left until the drilling jig can be used. This is the jig made earlier for the drilling of the cylinders. Here came todays issue. The holes are in the wrong place!! Measuring from the front of the frames to one of the holes they are at least 6mm out. I checked all other dimensions including wheel centres, axles to front of frame, con rods, coupling rods, piston rods etc. All are correct to the plans so what was wrong? No idea apart from the holes drilled wrongly. I sat the cylinder on the frame and positioned it so it sat correctly and marked the frame. I used the drilling jig clamped onto the frames to drill the holes correctly.
The smaller holes are the new holes. They are 5mm and match the M5 holes in the cylinder exactly so I fitted the cylinder.
The con rod is fitted to the wheel and the crosshead. The wheels turn well and the piston and crosshead move nicely. I had to cut a new slide bar as the original is too short. The motion bracket cannot be moved to fit as it would clash with the wheel.
The bracket needed a little metal removing from the bottom edge to clear the movement of the wheel and is bolted on at the same angle as the centre stretcher. I drilled the holes out and replaced the bolts with M3 stainless bolts.
The new slide bar was cut to size and had a small bracket bolted on the end. This was bolted to the motion bracket to hold it all solid.
The last part needed was the second part of the joint for the valve rod. This is 10mm square mild steel. It is drilled and tapped M5 near to one end. On the same end at ninety degrees a slot is milled to fit the end of its mate on the valve control rod. The rest is turned to round in the four jaw chuck and the end drilled and tapped M5. A lock nut is screwed onto the valve spindle and then this part followed it on. An M5 stainless bolt holds the two parts together. The pivot bolt is temporary and will be swapped for something better later.
The valve and its rods will need adjusting later but the left cylinder appears to be sitting and moving properly.
That's it for today. Tomorrow I hope to fit the other cylinder and then won't be back in the workshop until tuesday. I have missed my target of running on air by the weekend but hopefully it will not be far off.