Simplex in Colorado

[ozzie46]

I thought I better post these build pics in the proper section of the forum.

Made the buffers for the buffer beams.

Started by making the bumper part of the buffers


















I was stuck on how to form the convex on the face of the buffer until Tel's friend DrJ poited me to this site.

www.baggo.copperstream.co.uk/me/locos/25inch/helen%20longish/helen7.htm


Go about half way down the page to where he talks about the buffers. Worked really well.








I had to put packing in front of the headstock to get the right length of rod for the radius I needed
Thats the reason for the wood clamp in the pic. It's clamping the packing to keep it in place. This is
result.





Ron

[ozzie46]

Forgot to take pics of making the receiver part of the buffer. I made it in 2 pieces as I didn't have any square stock big enough to turn from. I think the 2 piece bit worked better anyway.




Checking fit of buffer into reciever.





Here is an assembly view





I mounted them on the buffer beams and tightened up the 3/8 nut on the buffer to hold everything in place and drilled the 4 holes in each square plate and buffer beams. Threaded the beams for 4-40 for 4-40 bolts. I am using round head machine screws to hold things now but I have scale hex head 4-40 bolts for final assembly.







On the frame temporarily.




Till next time.

Ron

[Shawki Shlemon]

An excellent start , well done, as the chinese say 1000 miles journey start with one step ,wish you a happy and successful journey .

[ozzie46]

Thanksw Shawki. It's going to be an interesting trip.


Ron

[Prowe]

Ron,
Glad to see that you are not being constrained by the convention that says "this must be made from square stock". There are more ways than one to skin a cat, was a common saying years ago, but probably not very PC nowadays.
It is always very interesting to see other people's progress, it does encourage me at least!Keep up the good work.

Phil

[ozzie46]

Thanks "prowe". I have visited so many machining sites and learn from them all and from postings on forums. So its probably not original to me but can't say where I saw it or if I saw it.

"PC" It is "political" but it is by no means "correct".

I hate political correctness! Say what you mean and mean what you say or don't say anything!

Ron

[ozzie46]

Hi all, I got a little more done on my loco build.


Made the axles and axle boxes. The axle boxes are cast iron and the axles are made from a long bolt made by Caterpillar Machinery. Don't know what it was for but it sure turned nice on the lathe with a very nice finish.


I squared up stock for the axle boxes long enough to make 2 aout of 1 piece so that the hole would be concentric in both the left and right boxes. I drilled to 11/16 then bored to size.




I then marked out the boxes and cut in half.




Put them in the mill and trued up the saw cut ends and brought to size. Then marked out for and milled the grooves to slide on the horn plates.





Then a lot of filing to get the boxes to fit well.






Now a question, I know that the distance between the axles have to be really close as far as the distance between ,say, the leading axle and the drive axle. How big a variance is to much between,lets say, the distance from the leading axle to the drive axle on the right side as compared to the left side?
I hope I'm not confusing you with my description.


Thanks for looking in.

Ron

[redmog]

Jul 26, 2010 0:52:20 GMT ozzie46 said:

Now a question, I know that the distance between the axles have to be really close as far as the distance between ,say, the leading axle and the drive axle. How big a variance is to much between,lets say, the distance from the leading axle to the drive axle on the right side as compared to the left side?
I hope I'm not confusing you with my description.

Thanks for looking in.

Ron

Hello Ron.
Thanks for sharing your photographs.
There is no set tolerance for the axle distances other than get them as equal as you can both sides, for driver to leading, and then driver to trailing.
You will then make the coupling rods to match, which is the
important part, as they all need to rotate freely.
Chris

[ozzie46]

Thanks for the info Chris.

Ron

[ozzie46]

Been awhile since I posted and have done quite bit on the wheels.

I bought a cheapie 3 in rotary table at Horrible Fright and used it to mount the wheel blanks for milling. I also drew up full size wheels in Turbocad and glued them to the wheel blanks and basically milled to the lines.




I used a 3/16 Ball end mill to mill around the inside of the rim and the outside of the axle boss. Then I switched to regular end mill and milled out the spokes and such. Did this times 6.






I didn't fancy trying to round over all the spokes by filing so after a few days of pondering I settled on trying a HSS dremel round over router bit and it workrd but the finish was not very good. It doesn't take much filing to make them presentable though.






I then broke out my new riffer files and went work on the wheels. I have 2 done as far as the profiling goes to try to make them look like cast wheels. 4 more to go.




I've never seen cast wheels before other than pics on the computer so I hope they look sort of right.


Still along way to go before these wheels are done but the really hard part is done. I hope!!

As always comments,tips are welcome.


Ron

[ozzie46]

I had to take break from all the milling of the wheels and made the eccentric fpr the feed pump.

I had some unkown stainless steel I got from the scrap yard that I had been afraid to use after I had read about the work hardening properties of stainless. Cut off a chunk with the band saw and it seemed to cut really well so stuck it in the lathe and went at it. Man it cut really well. I totally surprised.



These will be the steel tires for the aluminum wheels. They are cut from hydraulic cyl rams donated by a good friend that runs a Hydraulic repair business. Still need enough material to make 2 more.



I would like to have it setting on its wheels by January. Maybe it will happen maybe it won't..

Oh yeah, I started to get some sores on the palm of my hand from using the riffer files so much as they are double ended. I asked my wife if she could make me a leather palm protector. Oops no leather, so she found an old mitt style pot holder and cut the finger area off up past the second knuckle of the fingers and cut the thumb out too. I used the cut off finger area as more padding in the palm of my hand. I just stuff it inside the pot holder into my palm. It works great.

Ron

[ozzie46]

Thanks Mike. The 182 is about 95 % done. I started it 10 yrs ago and seemed to have lost interest for a while. I'll finish eventually. Got started on this machining thing and can't seem to stop. I haven't flown anything now for about 5 yrs.

Ron

[ozzie46]

Nice one Mike. I'll finish mine. Someday.

Ron

[russell]

Nov 23, 2010 18:36:02 GMT @mavermick said:

A but off topic I know, but it's nearly Christmas. Here's my 182:

You did well to keep it out of the pond and the greenhouse!

Russell.

[ozzie46]

I've done some more on the wheels.
I got the steel tires heat shrunk onto the wheels. I made an arbor to mount the wheels on to turn them to size.



It is a very close fit on the axle bores and will stay in the 3 jaw until all work remaining work on the wheels is done. If I need the lathe I will just pull the 3 jaw off and mount the 4 jaw.

The wheels were turned to .002 more than the inside dia of the steel tires.



I stuck the aluminum wheels in the freezer and let them get good and cold. I then turned on, are you ready for it,SWMBOs' electric cook stove and laid the steel tires on the heating element. SWMBO was there while I did it and I'm still here to talk about it. :big:

I let the tires heat up till they got blue then put them on 3/8 plate steel on a little stool and took the wheels out of the freezer and they fell into the steel tires with no effort.

This is what they looked like after cooling down.



I had to see what they looked like on the frame.



Now I have to grind up a HSS cutting tool to the 3/32 radius called for on the tire tread near the flange. I need to read up on how to turn the treads as well as it seems there are some angles involved.

Thats it for now I guess. Oh I laid out the dimensions on the steam cyls too. Will be working on them soon but I want to make a holding plate to fit my cross slide on the lathe so I can line bore them on the lathe.

Till then I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy and Joyous New Year.

Ron

[Deleted]

Dec 11, 2010 23:42:29 GMT ozzie46 said:

I had to see what they looked like on the frame.
Ron

Ron, I am exactly the same. I like to get what LBSC called a 'Distant Signal'. It provides the inspiration to keep going!
JB

[ozzie46]

Thanks JB. I'm kind of anxious to get the cyl mounted too. That will look really cool.

Ron

[ozzie46]

Well I finished turning the wheel treads and painted them.


I ground up a 3/32 radius tool bit to turn the radius on the tread.




Heres how it turned out.



set the wheels on the frames to get a motivational shot. ;D ;D






I turned some spring pins and single pointed the threads on them and will be installing them and looking for some springs at the hardware store.

A little off topic, but I gave myself Kozos' Pennys A3 Switcher for Christmas. That book is full of neat ideas on jig, setups and such.

Ron

[drjohn]

Looking great Ron - the home carved wheels look terrific.

That's a massive hole in the front stretcher - are you not a good aim with an oil can for the pump eccentric? ;D ;D

DJ

[ozzie46]

Hi DrJ. Thanks
I didn't really know how big to make it and I figured if I ever needed to work on the eccentric with my big hams for fingers bigger was better. Maybe I got carried away a bit. ;D ;D ;D



Ron