Entries by Nigel Bennett

Thanks to Roger for the update in my absence last week.  Having arrived back from the UK Friday, the jet lag made Saturday at the steam shop harder than usual for me !.  However the team made good progress in a number of areas despite my preoccupation with what time of the day or night it was.

On 1630:

Tubing progress 03/09/2013

·         Another milestone in fitting the small tubes.  Brian finished rolling the front ends into the smokebox tubes sheet.  In the view below you can see all the tubes now fitted and the 16 vacant holes into which we will start fitting the super heater flues;

Rolling complete in the smokebox

·         After grinding most of the firebox ends to the final length for beading, we made a good start on flaring the ends in the firebox.  We have to watch carefully to ensure that there is no movement as the tube end is flared and expand the front end a little more if there is any tendency to move but, having worked that out, progress is quite rapid;

Progress in the firebox

Here you can see the difference between those higher up, that are now flared, and the ones at the bottom still to be done.  The comparison between adjacent tubes E6 and D2 provides a good example.  Once this is complete, we can move on to fit the 16 super heater flues and the 9 small tubes that fit between them.

·         Last week Dennis finished welding the patch into place.  A clear demonstration of my limited knowledge of the finer details of welding.  It looked pretty complete to me two weeks ago but a further finishing pass and tidying up around some of the rivet holes was still required last week.

·         The holes have now been reamed for riveting and focus is now on cleaning and servicing  the air tools that will be used for forming the rivets.  The riveting will be a considerable job as these are substantially the largest rivets we have driven in the shop in many years.

·         Dave and Phil worked on cleaning and servicing the various control valves from the cab;

·         Ed continued with the pipe work, which is now getting close to completion

 There was quite a lot of activity on 428 focused on the leading truck and axle boxes;

·         Having finished the welding on 1630, Dennis moved on to building up the truck axle boxes.  Once built up these will need to be machined and the bearings fitted;

Dennis builds up truck axle box

·         Dave and Phil worked on producing a guide to mount the axle box wedges in the shaper.  The wedges must be machined to provide an accurate and consistent angle between the faces.  

Tapered block to mount wedge

One part of the guide is this tapered block.  Here it is being drilled in preparation for mounting on the plate below.

Mounting plate and wedge

The tapered block will be attached to this plate so that  the wedge can be locked in position with the angled face on the block.  The outer face, against which the axle box will bear, will then be positioned so that is can be planed flat to provide the required angle versus the face within the channel (which bears against the frame).

·         Mike was working on another mount to hold the shoes in position for mounting on the shaper.

Mike with shoe machining guide

In the shop in general, there was a big step forward in the project, funded by the Benefit, to provide piped air supply to the new shop (South end).  Jerry had put in several days work during the week and yesterday he and Jeff completed the major parts of the system.  After blowing out the debris, valves were fitted on several of the outlets and the system tested for leaks.  The system proved air tight and, when I left, Dennis was, for the first time ever !!, working in the fabrication area without 100 feet of hose stretching back into the main shop.  This is a substantial improvement as long runs of hose and substantial distance from the operator to the shut off valve have been a safety concern.

The next step will be to finish the connection thru the South wall of the shop.  This will serve the dual function of providing air for work in the wheel drop area as well as allowing the Sullair to be connected  to provide additional capacity without long hose runs.

The final step will be to connect in the large compressor.

A good day's progress.  Hopefully next week I can be there in mind as well as body !!

Nigel

It was a day of great progress and one very significant milestone in the steam shop yesterday.

The activity was largely on 1630:

Tubing progress 02/23/2013

·         Fitting of the small tubes progressed very well using the methods established last week, with teams working both ends at the same time.

o   Collin and Eric ground the projecting ends in the firebox and all of these are now ready to flare once they are sealed into the front sheet.  As noted below, work on tubes in the firebox ceased for very good reasons in the afternoon;

o   Phil cut replacements for the two tubes that had hit problems and these were fitted and expanded.  So all the small tubes, other than the few that are in between the super heater flues and must be fitted as part of installing the flues, are now in place;

o   Most of the ends that are to be beaded in the smokebox were also ground to length. 

Brian and Eric grind the tube ends

At times Brian and Eric were working simultaneously on this with an impressive rate of progress.  Just a few on the fireman's side remain to be ground to length.

o   Brian is rapidly becoming our expert on the tube roller. 

Tube rolling in progress

Once the grinding of the engineer's side was complete he started again with the tube roller and worked steadily to the point that we are now substantially more than 50% complete in rolling tubes in the smokebox.  Everything on the engineer's side and much of the lower area is now done.

·         With installation of the small tubes nearing completion, Phil made good the paint (actually a specialized boiler treatment) on the 16 super heater flues to ensure that these are ready for installation.

·         Phil also spent a couple of hours on the sand blast cabinet in the car shop cleaning up some of the rivets needed for the patch. ........... which brings us to the major landmark of the week;

·         Dennis returned after a couple of weeks absence, due to illness in the family, and work restarted in earnest on the firebox patch.  The tube fitting team moved out to allow full access to fit the patch.

o   The patch was bolted into place, the last two rivet holes were drilled and bolts fitted thru them.

Jerry and Collin secure the patch

o   After more cleaning, degreasing and tightening, the patch was finally secured in place and Dennis was preparing to weld when I left for the Soiree.

The patch finally in place

o   I later received pictures from Phil.  By the end of day the patch was fully welded into the inner firebox sheet !!.

and now part of the firebox

o   This is a huge step forward in correcting the problem that caused the locomotive to be pulled from service.  It mean that we now have one more really tricky job to do before the repair is complete.  All the bolts currently holding the patch must be replaced by rivets, which are 7/8 diameter and about 6 inches long.  This will be a "fun" exercise but, once this is done, we will be close to the point where this part of the boiler is ready for hydro testing.

In other areas:

·         Dennis completed welding the gear for the back head mechanism on the wheel lathe.  Once the holes are drilled out and bolts fitted we should be able to assemble this part of the lathe and test it.

Dennis in action

That looks complete

The finhished gear

·         Bob continued work on the planer;

·         Dave machined new parts for the spring hangers on 428; and

·         Jeff was able to install the first sections of the new compressed air supply to the South shop.

Installing the new air supply

So, overall a very significant day for the steam shop.

No update next week as I am going to the UK on business.  However, a lot is now in progress so I hope that there will be a lot more to report in two weeks time.  I am hoping that there may be the opportunity to see some steam activity in the UK while I am there.

Nigel