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| steamer:
That is sweeeet Dan! Nice build! Dave |
| tomfilery:
Dan, Many thanks for your response - I might well have to try to make something similar - and note your comments and observations about hardening being necessary. One small question - the "bucker" (which you indicate you mount in the vice) - is that the dolly to hold the rivet head steady, whilst you form the head on the other end? Your corner bracket jig is also really neat - I'd been toying with various ideas how to do the same job for producing multiple brackets for a railway wagon project in 16mm/ft scale. Your solution gives me a range of other options to explore. Please keep up the good work. I'm glad you are getting back to this project and am looking forward to further instalments. Regards Tom |
| Dan Rowe:
Tom, yes dolly is another name for bucker which is the term used on this side of the pond for the guy bucking the rivet or the tool in his hand. Now time to drill the I beams for the frame spreader assembly. Here is the first side with the drill jig clamped. The distance is set by the scale. The brass bar clamp is a third hand to make it easy to set the C clamp. Now the set up for clamping the other side with the same setting on the square. I knocked off for the day and drilled the holes the first thing the next day only to find out that now the assembly did not match the drawing. This was not the first goof and most likely not the last one so I needed a new way to plug the bad holes. I was using my Knipex pliers to smash tiny sections of rivets in the bad holes but I had to use blocks of steel to get past the beam flanges. This was a balancing act and a lot of the tiny rivet pieces fell out never to be seen again. My solution was to add tool steel mashing blocks to the pliers which are simple to operate with one hand. This photo shows mashed rivet on the top and the same section repaired on the lower beam. Now the frame is taking shape. Dan |
| Dean W:
This is some mighty fine work here, Dan. Your attention to detail is admirable. Your work on the channel iron came out really nice! |
| Dan Rowe:
Dean thanks for the complement. I like lots of detail and some of it does not even show like the fact that the truss pads have a small spherical washer under the nut just like the drawing. I have a lost wax casting setup to make the parts I need for this project here is the casting bench. The blue box is the kiln and the orange box is the programmable controller. In the back the black box is the vacuum pump. The short blue box in the foreground is the vacuum table setup with a gasket for casting. I mostly do small pours so I use a hand held crucible that I use the rosebud tip on my OA rig for the heat source. The stainless steel tubes are flasks for the investment. I have an electric crucible but I have not really done many pours that need that much metal. The SS things are production flasks and at some time I will upgrade my operation to use them. Here is the rubber vulcanizer and the wax pot. Now to show how I make use of the equipment I will show the steps to make the drawheads. First for a complicated part I start with wax and make a model 5% larger than the scale print. The drawhead used for S/N 2800 was unusual and I think it was a special case for the Mapleton Tramway. The drawhead on the left was the one used for the Gilpin #1 Shay and it is a lot more typical for small early Shays. I noticed the similarity so I made both at the same time. The wax is cast to make a metal pattern for a rubber mold. This is the master and the core. The other core with the square edges was used to help make the wax pattern. Here is the whole assembly in a rubber mold frame ready for the rubber to be added. The rubber mold is shown cut open with the cores in place. The blue wax is ready for cleanup and investment. The finished drawhead is placed on a scale drawing for comparison. Dan |
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