S/N 10 Shay

[Roger B]

That's some fine detail work   

Can you say a little about your ceramic silver soldering support?

[PJPickard]

I was going to ask the same about the soldering grid, looks really useful!

[Dan Rowe]

The ceramic grid is what another steamer was experimenting with several years back for a burner. The grill was not in production even back then and I just got a new book on ceramic burners so I will follow those instructions. The book is "Ceramic Burners for Model Boilers" by Alex Weiss and I think it is worth buying if you are considering a ceramic burner.

They make a great soldering pad which is also what the ceramic honeycomb recommended in the book is used for.



Cheers Dan

[PJPickard]

Found on ebay and bought! Thanks!

[Dan Rowe]

Here is a photo in my collection of S/N 8 which is where we found roof details and some more truck details. I wish the guy on the running board did not have his foot in the way.



And here is S/N 9 the only other Shay known to have a timber truss.



This is the model roof in Bob's hand ready for trial fitting to the frame.



Cheers Bob and Dan

[Dan Rowe]

I used a tapered milling cutter to make the truss rod flange. Then the ends were filed round and back to the lathe to slice off the finished parts.





Here is the family shot of the first shipment of parts to Bob.



Here is a pile of 1.2mm square head bolts. I made these on the Derbyshire Micromill with two slitting saw blades mounted with a spacer to cut two sides of a hex head bolt at the same time. I made special mandrills to hold the bolts. The bolts screwed into the mandrill and had a safety nut on the end. Out of a run of about 200 bolts, I only had 4 or 5 that got loose made very interesting but useless heads.

The trucks will have all square head bolts and nuts to hold the parts as that was the common Lima practice at the time.



Cheers Bob and Dan

[cnr6400]

 

[PJPickard]

Are you using key stock for the square bolts? Hard to find small square stock in steel. Lots of work there!

[Dan Rowe]

Paul, I have lots of square key stock in several sizes but mostly for nuts. The pile of bolts started as hex bolts and I cut new flats to make them square still it took a while most of the time was loading the holders I made for the bolts. I did not think just sticking them in a collet would work as the twin slitting saws would snap the bolt off. I admit I did not try it that way.

Cheers Dan

[Dan Rowe]

Here is the 3D version of most of the parts so far.



And the model in Bob's shop.



This thread is almost caught up with reality so the pace will be a bit slower. Today I made the second batch of 1mm square nuts made from 1.5mm nickel silver fret wire. Here is 21 on a penny with a steel 1mm bolt made from 1/16" key stock. The tiny wrench fits the nuts but not the bolt.



These nuts go for the 1mm rivet bolts that will be visible to normal viewing. The same bolts hold the stake pocket bolts and the bronze wire U bolt is 1/32" phosphor bronze wire with a 1mm thread rolled on it. These are under the frame so hex nuts were used.

Here is my Levin lathe setup for the square nuts.



The tooling used is on the wood platform which normally holds chucks but I needed a tool station. The copper shim is .040" thick and was used to set the depth stop shown in the down out of the way position. The tailstock takes D or 10mm collets with a 10mm buttress thread. I have two holders for ER 11 collets and a D collet shank, The close one has the 1mm tap held in a special ER 11 collet that will #0 - #6 tap and has a square socket for the tap end. This was its first job. The other ER 11 collet holder has a #65 wire drill for the 1mm form tap. The other collet has the spot drill for starting the hole. The file is to chamfer the nut before cutoff. The tiny twist tie wire is very important I stick it in the nut at cutoff so it does not disappear into the swarf pile. (I only fumbled one maybe I will find it cleaning up)

I used the double lever slide but only have the rear cutoff tool installed. I have to make a thinner cutoff tool as the kerf was wider than the nut, but grinding a tool that thin is real tricky as the heat builds up fast on the thin section so a cooling quench is needed in less than about 2 seconds of grinding.

The star of the whole show is the 1/16" Levin WW square collet in the headstock. I have 3C adapters to use both WW and D collets in the headstock. The normal drawbar for the adapters only works with the manual 3C collet closer. I have the quick 3C closer mounted and I made longer drawbars to use so I do not have to remove the closer to use the smaller collets in the headstock.

Not shown is the small wood dowl used to push the wire against the material stop for the chamfer and cutoff step.

Cheers Bob and Dan

[Dan Rowe]

The reason I gave a very detailed procedure to make the 1mm square bolts is the first batch I made with a 0-5mm Albrecht keyless chuck. The second batch was giving me trouble with the drill, it was drilling way oversize.

This made me take a close at the chuck and the jaws of the chuck were just the slightest bit off when fully closed. This is why I went for as much accuracy as I could get with the tooling I have and it worked. Well at least until the drill broke and I had the drill chucked on the spiral to keep it short so the drill broke and took out the ER collet also.

Not to self, buy better ER11 collets. Also, learn how to clean an Albrecht chuck.

Here is a close-up of one I made today the E of LIBERTY on the Lincon side of a penny can be seen in the middle of the nut.

I really did not know the corners were a bit round before I made a 48X close-up of a nut.



Cheers Dan

[Dan Rowe]

Here is the frame up to date in Bob's shop. The square block is to make sure the boiler will fit the frame.







Cheers Bob and Dan

[Dave Otto]

Guys that is looking great!

Dave

[crueby]

Looking great!  The roof parts look like white ash, or oak?

[cnr6400]