Member postings for Mark Elen 1

I keep doing stuff, with not much to show.
I got the handle for the manhole lid bent up and silver soldered into place:

You can see all of the rejects in that photo. I ended up making a variation on Kozo’s bending tool, that is also in the photo above.

I have also got the suction funnel made and followed Kim’s lead and made a removable ring to hold the brass screen in place

I keep putting off the verge board with the little edge that needs silver soldering on, and all of the sheet metal and false rivets. I’m going to have to bite the bullet soon with those though.

Cheers

Mark

Hi Martin,

Thanks for the heads up. I’m a big fan of Blondiehacks and it is good to see that she is starting on the bit that I’m least looking forward to - the boiler. It will be good to see how she gets on with it, I’m sure there will be some good tips for when I get around to this bit.

I’m looking forward to getting this tender finished and moving on to the mainframes of the engine. I have ordered the castings for the wheels and the cylinders from Friends Models in the US, I’m hoping they will be with me at some point in the near future.

Cheers

Mark

Hi Noel,

Yes, that is an option, but i'm probably going to re-make the piston. As you will see with this update, re-making parts is not unusual for me...

Todays update is really a few weeks work starting with the manhole:

I got the brass rolled and the little joiner piece silver soldered on, but missed the fact that the joiner piece wasn't quite square, it came back to bite me later. I also made a start on the hinge pieces

And this is where the non square joiner piece started to give me grief:

I wasn't happy with that, so started re-making this part, only this time, taking a lot more care to get things square and equal.

I also made up a superglue arbor and turned down the manhole lid, then transferred it to the mill, to square off the edge and drill and tap the hinge holes and drill for the handle:

I have the new manhole tube silver soldered up and the joiner piece is now square, (no photos) just need to sort out the piece at an angle and get it silver soldered up and turned down, i'm hoping this one comes out a bit better than the first effort.

Cheers

Mark

I’m just starting to get back into this build, with a bit of enthusiasm. I got a bit bogged down with the sheet metalwork, so I took a break and did something I find more interesting, mechanical stuff.
I made a start on the hand pump last Christmas, and have been making up little bits and prices for the last couple of weeks

Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos of this progressing, but this is where I’m up to now:

I still need to Silver Solder the base on and there are a couple of holes to drill for fixings. I’m also going to re-make the plunger, I made that before I got the Stainless for the lever and I cut the slot at 3.175 (1/8&rdquo when I got the metal for the lever, I couldn’t find any 1/8” so ended up with 3mm that is actually 2.9. Upshot is, the slot is too wide.

I’m going to make an effort to keep this build log updated going forward.

Cheers

Mark

Hi Phil,

Sorry for the late reply here. Not much has happened since my last post. I did manage a little over Christmas last year that I didn’t document here, but I’m hoping to get back into this build soon.

Cheers

Mark

Hi Ian,

I have shaped it to accept the cut out section of the bend. If you look closely at Pat Huchison’s build photos (which is where I got this idea from) he has done the same.

I also cut that section the whole length of the clamp bar so that I can get it out once the two legs are bent up.

Cheers

Mark

Edited By Mark Elen 1 on 14/02/2021 15:13:21

Bit more progress on the Switcher:

I got the side panels soft soldered to the corner members:

Then got on and made up the punch and die for the fake rivets:

That piece of Gauge Plate is the holder for the die that will be fixed to the mini pallet.

I then got on and did the first bend on the upper horseshoe member, again, 4 lots of annealing and taking it easy with the bends:

I then made up a mandrel to fix to the pallet with the correct internal bend radius for the vertical bends (Kozo specifies the external radius)

Cheers

Mark

Hi Roger,

I'm afraid I can't answer that for you. As this is my first foray into engine building, I don't know how it compares. What I can say is that Kozo's instructions are excellent, with the dimensions specified being absolutely spot on so far. I'm learning a lot of new techniques and am growing in confidence with every piece that fits. I can see why the tender gets built first now.

I have got a load more done yesterday and today (helps that i'm not working at the moment, but that is going to change next week, so this build will slow down considerably)

The 5/16" square for the side plate brackets turned up, so i got it to length, drilled and tapped the holes for holding it down to the bottom plate and then nicked Kim's idea of using a wood router bit to radius the ends (same router bit used for rounding the wooden former, so it should end up pretty close)

I then made up a piece of aluminium to use as a jig to hold the bottom horseshoe in the vice, then spotted and drilled and tapped the holes using the DRO to set the dimensions:

I then decided to set up and drill out the fixing holes for the side brackets and the horseshoe on the bottom plate. In the end, I decided to drill out all of the holes in the bottom plate, I was going to drill out the holes as I needed them, but its a pain to keep swapping between vice and table, so I did them all in one go. There was a bit of clamping gymnastics, but in the end, I managed to do all of the holes in 2 set ups.

I blued and scribed out the set up as a sanity check and was very pleased that all of the holes came pretty much spot on my scribe marks:

That 12.7 PCD 3 hole took me ages to get set up for on the DRO, until I realised that 0 degrees is actually on the x axis, lots of head scratching...

All drilled out and ready to go:

Then it was moment of truth time:

I was pretty chuffed with that, they all line up and the horseshoe is pretty square:

I made up the front little bits and the rear corner member, then had a trial fit of the sides:

Then got one side drilled, tapped and screwed together ready for soft soldering. By that time, I had had enough today.

Cheers

Mark

Evening all,

Whilst waiting for the side 5/16" square bar to turn up, I have been working away on making a 'bending jig' for the horseshoe parts. I bought the 20mm plate of ali a couple of years ago with the intention of making a mini pallet for the mill, in much the same way as the one I made for the rotary table:

I just didn't get around to it. With the horseshoe parts to bend, I have been looking around at other peoples build logs to see how they approached this. Pat Hucheson's build log gave me some inspiration and it also prompted me to start on the mini pallet. Link to Pat Hucheson's Build Log

One of the annoying things with the rotary table pallet is that the holes are never in the place where I want them, so with this one, I'm just going to drill and tap the holes as I need them:

In the above photo, you can see that I have scribed some lines in the top of the pallet, I did this with a scriber tip held in a collet and used the DRO to scribe where I wanted the lines

I got the bars made up and ready to bend:

Then, with a couple of 1 1/2" dies made up, bent the first bar

Reading Kim's build log, I followed his lead and annealed these bends 4 times during the process of bending

It worked really well and apart from a couple of small tweeks, it looks like its going to do the job. The plan is to make up a set of dies for the other bar and also a couple of longer ones to bend the sheet, I'm also going to crib Pat's idea of a 11.6 degree block to bend the verge board as well.

The other thing I'm going to use the pallet for is as a holder for the die block for embossing the rivets, more on that later.

Cheers

Mark

Hi Ian,

I have spent hours going through Kim’s build log, it is a great reference with loads of tips. Many thanks for your comments. There is another build website that I’m following, I’ll link to that with my next post detailing the bending Jig that I’m in the process of making.

NDIY, many thanks for your opinion.

Cheers

Mark

Thanks gents for your kind comments.

I got a bit more done this week, starting with some woodwork. I cut out the former from a block of oak that I got from e-bay a few weeks ago. I also put in 3 registration pins along the centre line, shamlessly stolen idea from Kim's build log here: Link to Kim's Build Log

With that made up, I started rounds of annealing and hammering using my plastic faced mallet. It didn't go too badly, just one corner that I messed up a little, after a few goes with a pair of pliers and some more annealing and hammering, I managed to get it reasonable:

With that done, I got them separated and made up a block that fits the table on my mill to line up the top. I used the edge finder on this block to set up and square up the bottoms:

I'm now waiting for some 5/16" square brass for the bottom fixing for these, but have got a bit more done in the meantime. I'll update later

Cheers

Mark.

I also made up the little brackets to hold the front steps:

I had to make up that D bit as even my smallest countersink wouldn't fit

With that, the front end is complete, just the freehand filing to do.....

I then got on and made up the rear coupler pocket:

I then had to radius the rear to 3/4". I was originally going to set it up somehow on the rotary table on the mill, but as I had decided to make up a holding fixture for it, I decided to use the 4 jaw on the lathe:

I then used the same fixture with a 50 degree angle block to mill off the bottoms:

With that done, I got on with the tender tank floor, cut out of a sheet with a fret saw, then milled to dimension and test fitted:

Cheers

Mark

I seem to have got a load done over the last week. Helps that I'm not having to go to work at the moment. While waiting for the 1/16" brass sheet to arrive, I got on and made up the rear step:

When the 1/16" sheet turned up, I got the steps silver soldered:

Then started cutting and filing to shape:

There is still some work required to file the fronts to shape, but as its going to be 'freehand' I'm putting that off until I get some inspiration.

I then got on and made up a 'grooving tool' to take a hacksaw blade:

Then got the pins made up for the bolsters:

Thanks for the kind comments.

I got a bit more done this week. Starting with the tender frame. Not very exciting, just drilling holes and getting the stock to length. The bit I wasn't looking forward to was drilling and tapping the holes in the long side members. At over 15" they were too long to go in either my mill, or drill press. I ended up making a 'drilling jig' as a tight sliding fit on the end of the side member, then after drilling, I opened up the holes in the jig, to allow me to use it as a tapping jig. It worked a treat.

There are still some holes to drill in the end sills, but it is mostly complete.

With that, on to something a lot more interesting, fabricating the front steps

I cut up some small .04" strips and set them up to make the slots. Kozo shows using a vertical saw, I set mine up horizontally and took it really steady

Then got all set up and silver soldered the first step

I got the other one done to that stage as well. I was very happy with the silver soldering as I'm still a very novice beginner.

This is where it all went wrong. I had miscalculated the measurements for the slots in the steps somehow, and instead of them measuring 5/8" external at the tops, mine were 5/8" internal.

So, I started again, this time making double sure I got the slots in the right places

I'm now waiting on some 1/16" brass sheet to finish the backs of those, so have moved on to making up the rear step. Photos later

Cheers

Mark

I have been busy this week making up the bolsters. They took longer than I expected due to the 3 degree angles on the sliding surfaces. I set up and milled the slots down to the maximum dimension, then set up again with the sine vice to mill off the angles.

Kozo gives some pretty tight tolerances for these. On the first lower bolster, I overshot the fore-aft dimension of the slot by .06mm, all of the others are on the tight side of tolerance. I'm umming and ahhing as to making up another lower bolster.

Cheers

Mark

Hi all,

Many thanks for your kind comments, I was a little concerned that nobody would be interested.

I spent today making up the tooling and getting the springs wound and the ends ground down. Kozo's instructions are spot on - the springs are shown in the drawings as .240" OD - in my language 6.09mm, mine turned out at 6.05 - thinking about it, when I bought the spring wire for this (and for all of the other springs) I couldn't find any .039" only .038" - there is the missing .04mm

Having made up the winding handle at the start of this project, it got a lot of use today.

Here is the result of the winding session before grinding the faces- I actually made 10 that were good, the top 4 were either too long, or too short

I then drilled out a piece of spare steel bar and set it up on my bench sander to grind the faces. The grinding took a long time this afternoon, as I didn't want to get the ends too hot or overshoot the dimensions.

And here are the best 8 ready to use

All in all a good day.

Cheers

Mark

Bit more done this week. I got the Jigs made up, cut up the material for the arch bars and got it brought to dimension then started making up the arch bars. This went amazingly well. Only 1 reject bar that I bent in the wrong place.

The other thing I did was to make up the pieces for the columns. I also had my first go at silver soldering. It didn't quite go to plan to start with. I think I either didn't get the parts clean enough, or I didn't get them hot enough, as the solder ran, but didn't join the parts together at first go.

I did them a second time, pickling them first, then re-read Kozo's instructions and second time went a lot better

I'm pretty happy with them. Kozo's instructions are spot on. They all fitted together beautifully.

Cheers

Mark

I got a bit more done over the last few days. All of the holes drilled and tapped in the Journal boxes - it didn't take as long as I thought it would, once I got going and into a rhythm with them. I then made up a couple of jigs to mill off the angles:

I'm now in the process of making up the bending/drilling jigs for the arch bars.

Cheers

Mark

Hi Ian,

Many thanks for your kind comments.

I have been busy this week a bit at a time, getting the Journal Boxes and the Bearings made up. First job though was to sort out the Lathe:

It got to the point where it wouldn't turn on at all, or if it did, the speed was all over the place, like it had a mind of its own. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a new control board from Arc with the intention of changing it out when it needed it.

Unfortunately, because I had the old style board, I needed to change out the emergency stop and the front panel as well. I bought the whole lot from Arc as a bundle and this week, got the whole lot changed over and it has been no problem since. Result.

With the lathe sorted, I got on and got the Journal boxes to dimensions in the 4 Jaw, then drilled and bored out for the bearings. I made up a go/no go plug gauge at 10.01mm go and 10.06mm no go and got them all done. I only had to throw away 1 where I overshot the 10.06

I also got on and made up the barrel shaped bearings:

I then got the Journal Boxes set up in the mill, 2 at a time and milled out the groove for the arch bars:

Using the DRO, I got the first pair done, for a nice sliding fit on my gauge blocks set at 7.92mm (.312) then got all of them done, on both sides, the same.

Next up is 32 holes to drill and tap in these - it may take some time. I have decided to substitute the fixings Kozo calls out for these (3-48) with 7BA.

Cheers

Mark

The last couple of days I have been sanding the wheels as per Kozo's instructions. As I already have a couple of hand sanding bars that I made up ages ago per Chris's instructions on Clickspring Here I used them, instead of making up another and I didn't like the idea of sanding the tread and flange by hand.

Today, the length of track that I ordered, arrived from PNP and I spent a good hour putting it together, just in time to try these out:

They have all had a coat of Metalguard Ultra, that leaded EN1a wants to rust by just looking at it.

Now they just need to be loctited to the axles and that is the first chapter completed. On to the tender truck frames and journal boxes next.

Before I started loctiting the axles to the wheels, I chucked up a piece of Phosphor Bronze, drilled and reamed 1/4" and made sure that each of the ends of the axles will fit to save having to mess about later with the fits.

Cheers

Mark