Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build

[crueby]

Got the rest of the recesses cut this afternoon, and started drilling/tapping the holes for mounting the side blocks

Here is one of the first pair screwed on, and the round post set in place. Loctiting them in will wait till the rest of the inlay blocks are done, there are more to get cut into the inside faces of the rails, so I need to be able to take the rails off still.

[Roger B]

So many fine pieces (but you do have some helpers  )   

[crueby]

So many fine pieces (but you do have some helpers  ) 

Thanks Roger!  (and thanks to the elves too, they do help, between raucus parties and RC truck thefts)

[crueby]

And continuing on the umpteenth page of this build (  ) more done on the top fittings on the engine frames. The blocks inlaid into the middle of the side rails could have been duplicated at the top as well, since there is another set of bracket mounting bosses there too. But, the top horizontal rail was cut long enough to get most of that built in, which is saving some time. The top boss was put in when I made the top rails, but the curve to blend it into the side rails needed to wait till now, so that there are side rails to blend to! So, did just that, several plunge cuts to remove the bulk of the material then a couple fine passes to smooth it out:

Here is what the look like at that point

The vertical boss for the bottom of the catwalk bracket went through several rounds of thinking, then I realized that I have a small corner rounding end mill, with a 1/16" radius - perfect for rounding the ends on some 1/8" bar, to fit in a slot made by a 1/8" end mill. That idea hit me in the back of the head last night (might have been accompanied by a shop elve's beer stein) so I got to work on shaping a round-sided bar:

Took some trial and error to get the depths right in both directions, then it was done on both sides. A matching slot was cut in the top ends of the side rails:

to take the rounded bar:

That worked great, so milled the rest of the slots and cut short lengths off the bar, which were then loctited into the slots.The next bit to go on is the short projection off the top rail. All six frames have the same projection on one side, but different length ones on the other side, so I started with the simple ones. Took some 1/8" square bar and drilled/tapped for a couple 2-56 screws. Working with this small a bar was easier in the mini-vise - the parallels I have would have held them up in the normal vise, but the parallels are also 1/8" thick, which makes it hard to ensure the bar is held properly too.

Then milled a notch at the edge of the top rails, clamped the short bars (which needed the lower corners sanded in a radius to match the inside corners left by the end mill) into the opening, and drilled/tapped into the top rail. Now, I don't want to leave a screw head showing, and the bars are too thin to countersink them in, so I threaded both pieces together.


When assembled some loctite was put into the notch and also the screw holes, and I used some brass screws. After the loctite has set up the heads will be ground off on the sander to leave the faces flat. Also put in the round bosses at the top.


The vertical bosses will need some cleanup on the faces to get them all the same distance out, can do that as well after the loctite has cured. Then will drill/tap all the holes for the top catwalk brackets, and move on to the rest of the protrusions needed on the frames - 14 pieces plus screws per frame so far, and thats maybe half what they will have when complete.


Tomorrow am off to the Pageant of Steam in Canandaigua NY, that show usually has a bunch of traction engines trundling around, lots of farm tractors, and construction equipment playing in the dirt.   

[Dan Rowe]

Chris, That is some nifty work I had to go back several pages to find the cad drawing to see these all up, so I grabbed the image for comparison.

Cheers Dan

[crueby]

Thanks Dan,  yup, still a lot to make on the frames. All the gridwork for the crosshead guides, inside corner fill blocks at the horizontal to vertical connections, and the mounting pads for all the lay shaft brackets and the K frames. Weeks worth to go!


 

[Kim]

Wow, Chris!  You've made a ton of progress!  I'm out for a week and you forge ahead like a runaway steam engine!  Those A-frames are looking great!

Kim

[cnr6400]

 

Enjoy the steam show! Don't forget to lock the beer fridge and spirit locker - when the cat's away shop elves will play! 

[crueby]

Enjoy the steam show! Don't forget to lock the beer fridge and spirit locker - when the cat's away shop elves will play! 

Some rainstorms moved through so we got a late start. I'm taking the elves along, the friend I am meeting there just bought a new Vette, so I will see if the elves can hotwire it... 

[cnr6400]

I can imagine the police radio broadcast now:  "All cars BOLO 1995 Corvette, male driver 10" tall, caucasian, brown hair, with hardhat. Passengers -  14 male passengers also 10" tall, two with burnt fingers. Possible destination - stores selling beer" 

[crueby]

I can imagine the police radio broadcast now:  "All cars BOLO 1995 Corvette, male driver 10" tall, caucasian, brown hair, with hardhat. Passengers -  14 male passengers also 10" tall, two with burnt fingers. Possible destination - stores selling beer" 

So THATS why they get away with it - the BOLO called for 10" tall guys, these elves are only 4" tall! (hey you in the Corvette, move along, we are looking for your older brothers!)   
 

[crueby]

Catching up on work on the engine frame brackets - most of this was done yesterday, I was off at the steam show today - uploading pics/video from that, will post some highlights next.
So, I cut out the blanks for the longer brackets on the sides of four of the frames, and milled in recesses to form the brackets.

Here they are, two long, two short, two of the frames dont have these - they are to give better support for the different sized cylinders blocks on each set of frames.

The put a smaller vise in the main one, at an angle to cut the sides of the brackets.

Then notched the sides of four of the frames, on the opposite side as the single rails I added yesterday morning.

These notches hold the brackets, down below the level of the frame so that the bracket back wall will sit flush.


Here is the first one set in place - as you can see if you look close at the far end in upper right, it sits a little below flush, since the sides of the frames still need to be trimmed down to final dimension, and the notches took that into account.

All four then were drilled/tapped for screws to hold them in place, like I did with the single rails previously.
Next I think will be to start on the inlays for the inside corners of the middle/top rails, so they will blend the sharp corners into curves, and also start on the cross bars for the crosshead guides.

[crueby]

As promised, a few pictures from the Pageant Of Steam show today held down near Canandaigua Lake in western New York State. Always a fun show, they had 9 or 10 traction engines trundling around and running machines in the sawmill and shingle mill, threshing machines, bailers, etc. Also a LOT of farm tractors, hit and miss engines, some excavators playing in the dirt piles, a small model show in one of the buildings, and a lot of flea market vendors around the outside.
A few highlight photos:
They have a couple buildings with some stationary engines, including a corliss mill engine and a big generator

This one is from a factory in Penn Yan I think he said, being assembled - its a twin Corliss



Inside of a little steam launch - couple of the pics came out sideways, whoops! Thought I had editted that... Oh well, have a big gulp of Elfensteiner Beer and it will look right when you fall down!


Here is the launch


Some of the traction engines, all US brands like Case






This one was running the sawmill


A small herd of cable operaterated excavators



And a video with some short highlight clips:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR803eLYI9o" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR803eLYI9o</a>

[cnr6400]

Great steam show pics! Thanks for posting them. TWO Corliss engines at one show! Never seen an oil burner on a boat's VFT boiler before - but a nifty idea. Cleaner than coal and safer than propane - and smells like the inside of a Kenworth engine's injector pump. The low slung Eclipse / Frick engine was nice to see. I used to see a few here in Ontario, but not in the last couple of years. You know I've looked and looked at them and never saw any "e" clips at all, not sure why they are called Eclipse....   

Terrific progress on the Holly frame details and brackets!   

[RReid]

Looks like a great show! Lots of interesting old goodies. I like the dump truck just as much as the steam shovel!