Steam Department

Well I'm glad to say that after the problems last Saturday we were able to move forward very well this weekend.

Glenn did a great job during the week in getting the starter of the Sullair rebuilt and refitted.  It may be overkill but we added a battery isolator on Saturday !.

On 1630 work on rebuilding the boiler proceeded well:

·         Collin and Jeff made great progress on painting the boiler shell.  After final cleaning, almost all the interior of the boiler barrel was painted.  If all works to plan, Jason and Eric will be in Sunday to deal with the tube sheets, dry pipe and the last area around the exit.

·         After a few tests, swaging of the new boiler tubes started in earnest.  My initial intent had been to do 5 that we could test fit them to the boiler.  Having done the first couple, Tom checked them and confirmed they were good so we went straight into production. 

The first batch of tubes ready to use

We now have 24 swaged at one end and annealed at the other, so ready to test fit to the boiler, cut to final length and then start expanding into place.  Only another 150 to go !.

Swaging area now active

The swaging area now shows a good quantity of finished tubes on the "output" side.  No photographs of the process as I seemed to be the prime candidate for working the furnace and swager, which made photography a little tricky!.

·         Tom and Stu worked on methods for cutting ferrules from copper tubes now we know that we cannot buy them.  A series of approaches using band saws, pipe cutters or a lathe failed as the result tended to be egg shaped or had ridges that it would make fitting difficult.  However plan D worked.  Using the large band saw with a stop set at the required 5/8 inch length, two people can cut them reliably in less than a minute each.  A little work is required to take off the rough edges with emery cloth but we now have the means of mass production and produced the first ten.

·         Ed continued the boiler pipe work.  We now have the first of the new pipe runs largely in place.

Progress on fitting new pipework

·         Mike continued forming the second test patch.  This is now pretty much formed and ground to size and the next step will be drilling the rivet holes and fitting.  So far so good.  If the next stage works, we will be able to start on the patch itself.

Dennis was back after a busy summer and was able to progress some of the welding tasks:

·         On the Shay, the new retainers for the springs were fitted to the bolster so we can now start planning the reassembly of the truck;

New spring retainers welded to the bolster

·         Jeff worked with Dennis on the design for the a boom and lift cage for the fork lift that will enable us to use it for lifting large parts such as the throttle and dome cover on to the top of the locomotive;

·         Bob worked with Dennis on fitting the reinforcing sections to the gear of the wheel lathe.  These are now complete so when Dennis is next available in a couple of weeks, we can hopefully finish this gear and reassemble this part of the wheel lathe.

Also on the Shay, Tom and Stu drilled the tell tale holes on new stays and test fitted these to the firebox.

A number of tasks were progressed in preparing for the winter:

·         Rick, Bob and Glenn worked on clearing the area around the new large compressor in preparation for set up and testing;

·         Bob cleared the area around the cab of #428.  One of the cold weather tasks will be to complete the riveting of the cab so that it can be refitted to the locomotive.  Not only will this be a big step on #428 but it will free up a big and useful area of the shop for fabrication work;

·         Bill and Stu worked on the water supply in the boxcar.  This will need to be winterized soon but we wanted to ensure that it was operating since it was reported as inoperative when Leviathan visited.  In the event it proved to be fully functional.  However it takes an inordinate time to clear the air from the pipes and draw water from the underground tanks.  Hopefully we can make some modifications to install a non return valve and avoid this issue.  Once the air locks are cleared it certainly moves a lot of water quickly.

Nigel

It will be a short and late update this weekend as I went on the Zephyr trip today.  What a great day.  Tremendous effort by the team.  Well done guys for making it a such great experience for those of us who just had to sit back and enjoy ourselves.

As regards Saturday at the steam shop hopefully all the bad things for a while happened this weekend!!.

First, the most critical job now to be done is painting the interior of the boiler, which can only be done by a small number of our team who can fit thru the access hatch to work inside the boiler.  Unfortunately one is facing a serious family health problem and the rest had other commitments so we were unable to progress the painting this weekend.

So we focused on setting up to prepare the tubes for fitting.  Each tube must be swaged (reduced in diameter from 2 to 1 7/8 inch at the firebox end), annealed at the smoke box end and then cut to exact length.  The original game plan was to complete the set up and then try a few test runs before maybe doing the first few tubes.  Sadly this was not to be.  We brought the first tubes in without problem

Bringing in the first new tubes

However when we tried to start the Sullair compressor, to drive the furnace and swager, the starter solenoid stuck causing the starter to burn out!!.  Having disconnected the battery and put out the fire, investigation revealed that the nose of the starter must have fractured a while back and just got into a position where it caused the solenoid to stick. 

No doubt why the starter failed

So we wait one week to rebuild the starter and hope we can start swaging next week.  Anyway, the area is now ready and the first 40 tubes were brought in and set ready for work.

Swaging set up now ready to go

Another piece of bad news was about the ferrules.  As noted last week, we received ferrules but they were 2 inch ID versus 2 inch OD.  The bad news proves to be that the supplier no longer makes 2 inch OD.  Unless someone else makes them we will have another very tedious job.  The alternative, if we cannot buy them ready-made, is to cut 150 5/8 inch long sections from 2 inch copper tube.  A perfectly practical but dull and time consuming job.

To complete our woes for the day, Ed and Bob were continuing to the fit of the pipe work.  The simple job of heating a nut to remove it from the stud to allow the pipe bracket to be adjusted to the new pipe took a good part of the day.  What first seemed to be an empty acetylene cylinder proved to be a regulator than had gummed up and will need to be reconditioned.

On a more positive note we went thru with B&G the plans for grading in front of the shop and preparing to install the new air compressor to feed the new shop.  This will allow us to rivet (and swage) without relying on the Sullair.  We were also able to work with Jeff on the layout for the air supply in the new shop.

So some overall progress despite a number of setbacks.  Let's hope for better this week.

Nigel

The major milestone was successfully achieved on Saturday.  Our FRA inspector visited, discussed and reviewed what we have done so far, and gave us the go ahead to start putting the boiler back together.

Unfortunately inspections of the Zephyr and other areas took longer than expected so it was into the afternoon before he was able to get to us.  So this rather limited progress on the boiler.  However:

·         Jason and Dan worked on the interior of the boiler with the air line and vacuum cleaner to get the surfaces to the point that the Apexior coating can be applied.  Clearing the accumulated dust is going to be an ongoing task.  I spent the evening clearing dust from the smoke box and the locomotive in general.  For as long as the weather holds and we can get any sort of air flow thru the shop you will see us with the doors open trying to get as we can completely out of the shop before the winter.  Next Saturday we will determine if any further cleaning is needed in the boiler and hopefully start applying the coating.

·         During the week Kevin made substantial progress on needle chipping the underside of the boiler and cylinders.  This will enable a thorough repaint so that, when we get back into service, 1630 should also look good.

Substantial progress on preparing the motion brackets

And the cylinders

·         Mike, Bob and others made good progress with the second test piece for the firebox patch.  In one day they managed to form the initial right angle bend using the McCabe and also start the bend to fit the sloping tube sheet , a stage which took 3-4 weeks to achieve on the first test.  So far this is as planned.  The first piece was largely experimental, testing alternative techniques.  The second is intended to prove that the selected techniques can be reliably applied to produce a patch that accurately fits the fire box corner.  If this works, we can then do the same with the real boiler plate.  Over the next couple of weeks we will confirm that the test piece can be accurately fitted to the mud ring and firebox sheets.

The plate is first reinforced

The reinforcing prevents the lower part of the patch distorting as the slope is formed.  You can see the first test piece on the right being used to judge position.

Then the large press is used to form the slope

The round stock will be used in under the patch to shape the bend.

·         Ed continued with the pipe fitting.

·         Bob cleaned up all the fittings for the throttle.  It will be quite a while before we can refit that but we want to make sure that parts such as this should fit together smoothly without the need for cleaning and re-cutting threads we when are trying to re-assemble.

·         The materials are coming together for re-tubing:

o   The contract welder made substantial progress during the week on safe ending the super heater flues.  More than 50% of the ends are now on.  Those that are attached are not yet finished as the ends are first attached with 6010 welding rod but must then have a "top coat" of the harder 7018 rod applied.  However this is moving forward and is on target for us to anneal and test them before they are need for fitting;

o   The copper ferrules that fit around the tubes at the firebox end arrived.  That was the good news!.  The bad news was that the supplier provided ferrules of 2 inch INSIDE diameter versus an order for 2 inch OUTSIDE.  Good thing we ordered with time to spare.  Fitting a 2 1/8 copper ring into a 2 inch hole could be a challenge!.

o   Hopefully we have a shunt scheduled this week that will bring our box car back beside the road where we can access it with a fork lift.  We are now ready to start swaging the first few fire tubes so we need to be able to retrieve them from storage.

·         The boiler insulation arrived and was stored ready for fitting in the Spring.

Boiler insulation in hand for installation

In other areas:

·         Machining of the thrust face was completed on the 4th and last of the axle boxes for 428;

·         We finished clearing the area between the shop and barn 9 to allow B&G to grade the area and hopefully reduce flooding risks;

Bob and Jason move parts of 101 to allow grading

·         Bob Sundelin and Tom completed the clutch mechanism for the tail stock of the wheel lathe.  This part was smashed when the lathe was first acquired and has had to be built from drawings.  There should be some real "fun" with the wheel lathe before long.  I had not previously understood how this area worked. 

Bob fits the clutch mechanism

The clutch mechanism that Bob is fitting engages a large gear (currently not in place and awaiting welding of a crack) to the shaft. 

The drive gear awaits welding

Once repaired this gear fits onto the shaft in the space to the right of the clutch in the previous picture.

This shaft is threaded into the back head assembly.  The purpose of this mechanism is to slide the multi ton back head assembly along the guides to allow loading and unloading of wheels from the machine.  The force involved with a substantial electric motor, heavily geared down, driving a shaft threaded to the load must be enormous. 

Overall view of wheel lathe (2010)

In this 2010 picture of the lathe the section that must be moved by this mechanism is most of the right side of the machine (behind the hanging chains) including the large circular face plate and the substantial green gear assembly on which it is mounted.  The uncertainty and challenge will be that, while the back head assembly has numerous grease points to lubricate the faces on which it must slide along the guides, it has probably not moved in more than 40 years.  Judging how much force can be applied in trying to free the guides without breaking anything else will be "interesting".

Nigel