Steam Department

A few of us have managed a couple of mid-week work sessions over the Christmas period.  The significant visible progress is that Eric and Chris did a great job on cleaning out the interior of the boiler on 1630.  After all the cutting of tubes there was a mass of debris in the boiler that they spent most of Monday clearing with brushes, rods, magnets and vacuum.  Thanks to their efforts we now have a good basis for preparing the surfaces for inspection.

A step that we need to carry out soon is the sand blasting of the firebox tube sheet.  We have the sand blast equipment, breathing helmet and supply hoses BUT - no really suitable breathable air pump.  If anyone has access to a suitable pump - (oil-less, about 10 c.f.m. at 5 p.s.i.) please let me know. Otherwise we are facing a cost of about $1000 for such a pump.

I had the chance to photograph the firebox with the defective corner cut out:

The defective corner is now out

.............. and the piece removed:

Long hidden view of the defect

Interesting that it is very much in line with the problem suspected by the specialist who attempted the temporary repair in May.  This was that, when a replacement tube sheet was fitted (believe in the late 1930's), it may have been fractionally narrow and pulled into place by the rivets causing stress cracks in the corner.  Looking now at what is the inside (water side) of the corner you can see the welded joint between the "new" tube sheet (on the right) and the original firebox.  This runs thru the last rivet hole on the left in the top row.  Sure enough you can see that the tube sheet is fractionally set back from the original firebox side.  The crack that resulted can be seen running from the second rivet in the top row.  (They look a lot worse now as a good deal of metal was ground away from the other side of the plate when removing the rivets).  These cracks would have formed over many years as water worked on the weaknesses caused by the stress in the corner of the new tube plate.

The other major work in these sessions was unplanned!.  Initial testing of the swager disclosed several problems.  The large dies that actually compress the pipe proved to be jammed.  Several of us spent a day removing, carefully cleaning and polishing the guides and refitting these.  Sounds easy but each weighs about 100lbs and they are linked by 4 inch long 1 1/2 inch steel guide rods that must be a tight fit - but not jammed!.  Good thing there were not too many around to hear the language on the occasions when we put them together, found they still jammed, and had to get them apart again!.  Still, they are now back in place ......... and it is clear that there are also issues with the air control valve.  So that is the next step.

Nigel Bennett

There was a very good turnout this Saturday.  Unfortunately the timing of the holidays means that the next two weekends are likely to be very limited.  A few of us who have time off are planning mid week sessions so if anyone is available, drop me a note.

I had to leave early this Saturday but, even so, saw a number of milestones reached and more was achieved after I left.

On 1630:

·         Collin broke the tube end removal record by single handedly removing 61 tube ends, including many large ones, by early afternoon.  This completed the job of removing all the tubes we plan to remove for this inspection.  (As previously mentioned we currently plan to leave the central group of super heater flues in place as they do to obstruct access to the boiler barrel for inspection).  This success highlights one of the sad facts of life in the museum environment.  None of us are experts so we have to learn on the job.  A lot of the tasks get a great deal faster as you learn the tricks but it may be years before they are required again.  Had all the tube end removal been at the rate the guys can now do it, we could probably have done it in half the time.

This week I got into the firebox AND remembered to put the memory card in the camera !!.  So the shots below give a good idea of the work and the conditions in which the guys operate.

In the morning all the fire tubes were out on the fireman's side.  The ends of 6 flues remained, which were removed during the day.

Progress in the firebox

Cutting the excess metal from the end plug of a fire tube.

Cutting a tube

The same exercise on a super heater flues clearly shows the cut being made.  You can also see how close Collin must be to the cut in the confined space of the boiler.

First cut the flue

With the excess metal removed and the tube still hot you use the air hammer.  You can see the top of the tube forced in and starting to pull free of the tubesheet.  Now the side is being hammered to finally push it out.

Then use the air hammer

And, if all goes well, it suddenly pops out and lands in the firebox.

and hopefully it pops out

·         Now we move on to the cleaning and inspecting the boiler shell and firebox.  Jason did some test cleaning of the barrel.  This is important as we need to understand the condition of the boiler coating.  This was applied at the last inspection 15 years ago and has not had many days of usage.  If it is intact, and the mineral deposits can be removed without damage, this will substantially reduce the amount of sand blasting that is required.  First tests looked encouraging.  The coating in the areas tested seemed in excellent condition.  However, we need to identify a reliable way of removing the mineral deposits, which are pretty tough.

·         We also started the set up of the sand blasting gear that is certainly required for the firebox.  This will be another "nice" job.  A helmet respirator (which arrived last week) will be essential for this activity.  Now we have to plan and test the air supply.

·         When I left, Dennis had started working with the corner patch team to cut out the section to be replaced.  Ralph tells we that this was completed during the evening.  Another major milestone.

·         Set up continued for swaging the tubes.  The furnace was moved into the area and initial cleaning and testing of the swager was carried out.  This identified a couple of parts that need to be replaced before it can be operated.  Hopefully I can get these next week and test during the week.

·         The last of the materials for storage were moved out to the boxcar and Jeff hopes to get the boxcar switched this weekend so that we can access the tubes, which are currently on the South side of the car.  (This will be essential if we are to be able to get batches of tubes in for swaging during January).

A major milestone was reached on the Bay City crane.  Glen fired up the traction motor in place for the first time in 20-25 years.  (It failed when being driven to the museum in the 1980's).  Now it is back in place, cooling, muffler and transmission set up and runs very smoothly.  Some of us were in favor of putting it into gear and seeing it move.  However Glen is a little more "conservative" and believes in having the means to control and stop a beast this size before setting it in motion.  So the power steering and air pumps will be fitted and tested before it goes anywhere!!.

It really is running

Well done Glen!

On 428, machining continued on the coupling rods and piston bushes.  The steel has now arrived for building up the axle boxes but this depends on Dennis's availability to weld this into place as he has work on 1630 and the Shay ahead of this.

Happy holidays and thanks to the team for a lot of hard work.

Nigel

A good day with continuing progress on a number of fronts but one major bust from the blog perspective.

Note to self - the camera may appear to work but actually works a whole lot better if you remember to put the memory card back in after downloading the previous week's pictures - So not many pictures this week although I thought I had pictures of the firebox tube end removal in progress!!

On 1630:

• Collin continued the removal of tube ends.  He is now down to a handful of small tubes and the super heater flues.  Barring unexpected problems this should be done next Saturday.

• Mike, Brian and others started to cut out the defective piece of the firebox corner.  First the section over the mud ring will be cut with a grinder then Dennis will make the rest of the cut with his specialized cutting gear.  The work with the grinder in now well under way.

Cutting out the corner Step 1

The hoses crossing the picture supply the parallel activity of cutting and driving out the tube ends.

• The super heater flues were loaded on the flat bed truck to go to a specialist sand blasting company for cleaning.  Once this is done they will come into the shop to be safe ended ready for re-installation.

Superheater flues going off site

• The swager was mounted ready for use. This sounds simple but I can assure you that getting several hundred pounds of metal with eight precisely drilled holes to fit on to 8 rods in a stand is a challenge that had some of us in the shop until 10 last night!!

Swager in place

• A good deal more material was moved out to the boxcar or onto racking to free up the space where we will work on the super heater flues when they return from cleaning.

Dennis started work on the smokebox of the Shay.  First job was to caulk the new section of the tube plate into the barrel.  This required air hammering the join between the tubeplate and the barrel with a specially shaped tool to completely close any tiny gaps between the two plates.  That is now done and he will start fitting up the new sections of plate for the smokebox floor.

Tubesheet caulked into place

The bright line between 5 and 7 o'clock between the new tube sheet section and the boiler barrel shows where the plates have been caulked.

Bruce and Stu worked on the measurement and machining patterns for the shoes and wedges for 428.  This is a critical piece of preparation for machining these parts.  Wooden patterns have to be made and fitted to the locomotive frames to prove that, if everything is machined to these dimensions, the three dimensional jigsaw will all fit together with the required tolerances.  The trouble with these beautiful old locomotives is that, after years of repair and modification, you can never be sure that the drawings you have are all consistent so that everything will be correct if you work simply from the drawings.

Glen continued the reassembly of the Bay City crane.  We hit a few problems with the cold temperature and a drain plug with suspect threads but believe the running of the motor in the crane for the first time in 20 years is imminent.

Nigel