A loco lifetime

[matt2534]

G'day Barry

I was forwarded the link to this thread and found looking back at all your locos a nice step back in time.

Having graced the earth just before 5201 entered service I've seen a good majority of them in service and driven a few also, including the 57 class at your old place( i remember the owner forgot or miss placed the shovel and we fired it with a table spoon), its certainly an achievement as you said in volume produced which i doubt could be surpassed by any other individual building one offs to order.

Its been a great sight watching your engines at West Ryde and other clubs for years and many more to come.

Cheers Matt L

Ps look forward to seeing the 13 Class in all its green glory

[mugbuilder]

Thanks for that Matt. Between us your dad and I have considerably increased the 5" gauge NSWGR fleet. Can never be enough of them.

[mugbuilder]

3 degrees outside today,wet with ocasional snow flurries. Too cold for the shed so I thought that I would update this thread with the latest progress on the 13 class tank engine.
I have made some progress with the 'tin' work and so far have done a fair bit with the rear bunker and tanks as well as the right hand side tank. I need to get the left side tank done to the same stage so that I can mock up the cab which will enable me to determine how much of the cab-bunker I will have to make removeable for driving. I am a bit 'bog eyed' from drilling rivet holes and putting them in place. They are a bit wonky here and there as can be seen in the photos. I often use steel sheet for this work but brass is being used for this job as I will need to solder some of the detail in place when the time comes. Brass is nicer to use anyway.

[steamer5]

Hi Barry,
Very nice work!
On the wonky rivet front…..NO they are placed as the original builders did!
Boy there a few in there!

Cheers Kerrin

[mugbuilder]

Thanks Kerrin, I reckon that I must have fitted at least 100,000 rirets in my lifetime. I made 2 NSW '57' class tenders and worked out that I drilled about 80 feet of 1/1/6" diameter hole in their manufacture. I hade time to work this out when I was hamering in the rivets.

[mugbuilder]

'GOOD HEAVENS', A quick calculation of total leangth of hole drilled works out at about 430 feet. At least half of that was in 16 gauge steel. I think that the drill makers should give me a discount on them.

[steamer5]

Hi Barry,
Yeah gods! I think sometimes it pays not to work things like that out!
But how many drills were harmed ….. broken…. in the process?

Cheers Kerrin

[mugbuilder]

I find that I am most likely to break a drill if I am only drilling 1 or 2 holes. when drilling several hundred I am more focused on the job and more careful.

[suctionhose]

I remember reading once that shipyards on the east coast of America around 1860 or 70 were driving 6 million rivets a week. There was a shortage of labour to do it. Teams competed with one four man team doing 200 rivets in an hour. Eventually, welding began to relieve the bottleneck...

I've nearly finished a traction engine model - over 1000 rivets in the wheels! Why did they keep doing it this way??? (Actually, I have a theory; having asked myself that very question whilst pounding away on 3/16" steel rivets at the stellar rate of 25 per hour...)

[Gary L]

Jul 17, 2021 7:27:50 GMT steamer5 said:

Hi Barry,
Yeah gods! I think sometimes it pays not to work things like that out!
But how many drills were harmed ….. broken…. in the process?

Cheers Kerrin

There's a lot to be said for planning the rivet holes into a laser-cutting job. There's also a lot to be said for a rivet pressing tool, even when there are some rivets it can't reach. Between them they transformed a dreaded job into a doddle

Gary

[steamer5]

Hi Gary,
Yep having got the Garratt frames done, laser done holes are great!
The guys commented that hole diameter verses plate thickness can be an issue. My plates are 4 mm, holes 3mm & I got the impression that I was at about at the limit, maybe Ed could comment.
The tanks are going to be fun! Transferring them to the angle will be interesting!

Cheers Kerrin

[Gary L]

Jul 19, 2021 7:38:14 GMT steamer5 said:

Hi Gary,
Yep having got the Garratt frames done, laser done holes are great!
The guys commented that hole diameter verses plate thickness can be an issue. My plates are 4 mm, holes 3mm & I got the impression that I was at about at the limit, maybe Ed could comment.
The tanks are going to be fun! Transferring them to the angle will be interesting!

Cheers Kerrin

It’s a good question, and I’ll look forward to Ed’s comments. I suspect in our sort of material thicknesses process time and therefore cost play a part. Certainly you don’t get perfect small holes at commercial resolution, though amply good enough for positioning purposes. I like to draw rivet holes a few thou undersize, then clean them up with a drill. There is so little metal to remove, it can be done ‘freehand’ safely so is very quick. This is in brass; in steel you might want to make the holes a few thou smaller still, enough for the drill to cut through any hard skin (though it is possible to exaggerate the extent of this)

-Gary

[mbrown]

I think one of the limitations is small holes through thick material. I sent some drawing showing (IIRC) 3 mm holes in 8 mm material to Malcolm High and the pieces came back with no holes in those locations.

Malcolm

[peteh]

As a general rule you can't do a smaller hole than the material thickness. The is the rule our sister company uses (commercial laser cutters). For water cutting we work on at least 2 jet widths to ensure that the jet is constrained at all times. For thicker material than we would generally use in this hobby there are other rules

[steamer5]

Hi Gary,
I had the holes done 3 mm for 1/8” rivets, I also made the slightly larger ones the same, so yes I’ll need to drill them out, the large holes are to size as they are clearance for other items. As this is my first parts laser cut I wasn’t sure how they would come out. Pretty well as it turns out!

Cheers Kerrin

[Gary L]

Jul 19, 2021 19:53:49 GMT mbrown said:

I think one of the limitations is small holes through thick material. I sent some drawing showing (IIRC) 3 mm holes in 8 mm material to Malcolm High and the pieces came back with no holes in those locations.

Malcolm

Ed told me recently that some 2.5mm holes in 3mm steel were a bit marginal, and if they were too small, they would be dimpled instead. However the holes turned out fine.

This is on the large side for the mostly cosmetic rivets we were talking about here of course. However it is worth saying that the ‘kerf’ that a laser cuts is very fine indeed, so potentially laser-cutting is superior to water-jetting where small rivet holes are needed.

Gary

[mugbuilder]

Several hundred more rivets hammered in. The inside shape of the left-hand tank is to accommodate the driver's seat and to make room for the reverser screw. Even though The engine has slip eccentric valve gear, The reverser screw is very prominent and a dummy will be built. The splashers are next, they are fairly complex and will use a lot more rivets.

[mugbuilder]

Jul 20, 2021 19:32:16 GMT Gary L said:

Jul 19, 2021 19:53:49 GMT mbrown said:

I think one of the limitations is small holes through thick material. I sent some drawing showing (IIRC) 3 mm holes in 8 mm material to Malcolm High and the pieces came back with no holes in those locations.

Malcolm

Ed told me recently that some 2.5mm holes in 3mm steel were a bit marginal, and if they were too small, they would be dimpled instead. However the holes turned out fine.

This is on the large side for the mostly cosmetic rivets we were talking about here of course. However it is worth saying that the ‘kerf’ that a laser cuts is very fine indeed, so potentially laser-cutting is superior to water-jetting where small rivet holes are needed.

Gary

A local laser cutter can cut very good 1/16" holes in 6mm steel plate.

[suctionhose]

Barry, Blowflys excluded, is this the first tank loco you've made?

[mugbuilder]

G,Day Ross, The only other tank engines appart from 'Blowfly' were a 3 1/2" Juliete and this tank engine.I only did the tanks ,cab and bunker as well as some of the detail and painting. It is a modified Simplex and made by a local bloke.