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Air Locomotive

Started by michael mott, January 31, 2009, 08:49:44 PM

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michael mott

Sorry about that Paul, I just visited the Cowells site A pretty little lathe really nice for small work http://www.cowells.com/gallery.htm a lot of great shots of this lathe. I was given a couple of boxes of watchmaking tools by a friend who's father retired a number of years back he kept the lathe Though :( . Before I purchased the myford I had started to make a small lathe similar to the Cowell I still have the headstock and the compound slide and the bed The bed was cut so that I could remake it into a small mill. however that died on the order desk when I purchased a Jet mill drill off of a friend about 30 years ago. The mill is still in storage at the moment. By the Way the  tools and furniture that I have in storage are because I recently moved to the new home that I am building by myself in the country by a lake. Living in an unfinished house is a bit trying. But hey it is far better than no home, and there are way too many folk in that boat around the globe. Am Now on a very small fixed income so it is very slow.

Regards Michael

RoughboyModelworks

Michael:

Sounds like you have your hands full with your model work and building your own house. I must admit it sounds very attractive building your own home by a lake.

I inherited my Boley jeweler's lathe from my grandfather who was a watchmaker along with his two-seater jeweler's bench which has been my main modeling bench for many years. The lathe is very small and I use it solely for free-hand turning work. He used to power it with a foot treadle! I modernized it with an electric motor and a variable speed foot switch. It's not nearly as sophisticated as the Cowell's machines but is surprisingly useful. Unfortunately I missed the pantograph engraving machine which could have been turned into a small pantograph mill, but such is life. My dad still has boxes of his small handtools which I continue to try to pry out of him! I'm thankful for what I did receive.

Paul

michael mott

Time for an update on the loco, I managed to get the rivets glued up along the joining plate. I am looking forward to getting these finished, because the lathe is tied up with the rivet set up and i dont want to change it untill the rivets are finished. So far there are 202 and about 40 or so to go.




the next task after the remaining few rivets will be to rework the opening at the front of the air tank. When I first did this I made it circular, but the opening is oval so I will turn up a thin ring with the profile of the inside shape and then deform it to the oval and fill the voids formed by the oval inside the circular opening on the endcap. I hope it will be easier to do than to explain.

regards Michael

Gordon Ferguson

I see you haven't lost your touch Michael  ;D

Lovely detailed work as usual , bet you couldn't fit it on your GN15 layout !

Presume with 202 individual rivets (+ the 40 to go) that the house is finshed  ;)

Gordon
Gordon

michael mott



Thanks for the kind words Gordon,
QuotePresume with 202 individual rivets (+ the 40 to go) that the house is finshed 

Gordon
I wish!! No the house is not yet finished and you are correct it will not fit onto my GN15 layout I am hoping to do some work outdoors with this one. I off fo a walk in the woods right now but when i get back I'll post some pics of the new front end cap. with the oval opening.

regards Michael

michael mott

As I promised here is a couple of shots of the now almost finished main body of the tank, it still needs all the valves and fittings and the front cap and bracket.



I made the oval section by turning up a slightly smaller ring and distorting it and then filling with modelling putty. If I had to do it over (which I'm not) I would have made the ring just alittle smaller in diameter to have made the oval just a little more oval. If thiswere meant to be an exact modl of the prototype I would. The base of the model is an Aristocraft 0-4-0 chassis so there is enough of a departure from the prototype in any case that the model is really only a representative one. I do think that i will need to rework the chassis a bit though looking at the overall shot.

here is a detail of the oval production.



regards Michael

lab-dad

Thanks for sharing all this, I am learning a lot!

BTW
What a life; building models and walking in the woods. You are a lucky man!

-Marty

Waldbahner

Hello Michael,

a wounderfull and great detailed model is growing here on your werkbench. I really like the self made rivets.
I'll have a similar problem one day, when the boiler for my Shay will be detailed. As the vertical part on T-boilers was seldom covert, all rivet work will be clearly visible and have to be modeled.

So long, I enjoy your work and I'm very interested in the final look of your air loco.

BTW : Your rotten wooden endbeams are realy awesome.

Gerd

michael mott

Marty, Gerd thanks for your compliments. "I bit the bullet" as they say and discarded the original Aristo chassis, so now all that is left of the original loco is the wheels,  Motor and con rods plus the foundation for the cylinders.

here is the start of the chassis,

 

I don't have my mill or drill press set up yet so I had to make the middle plates just with a jewellers saw and files, a bit more fiddly but still rewarding. I tried a new glue "Plastruct Weldene" as my Ambroid "Pro Weld" is just about used up. I found that the weldene is a much slower setting glue and I do prefer the pro weld which seems to set up faster.  At this point I cannot speak to the strength of the weldene as I have not had time to really test it yet. So only one of the middle plate is glued with the new glue.



I like the new frame better because the plastic of the Aristo did not want to glue to styrene very well and now I have an integral beam running all the way through. I will also be a bit more open, The motor shows but I will paint it black to help it fade away. I can now add some spring detail which will help with the overall look.



I am glad that I made the "rotten" end beams bolt on and removeable, They will be able to bolt back onto the new frames as soon as I get the appropriate brackets made.

regards Michael

marc_reusser

Beautiful work. Great to watch and, so  much to learn. Thanks!


Marc
I am an unreliable witness to my own existence.

In the corners of my mind there is a circus....

M-Works

Marty J

Hi Micheal,
I have not seen you air loco for awhile - it's really looking wonderful.
The new rivits set it off.
Cheers,
Marty J  (yet another Marty  :) )
www.narrowgaugechaos.com

michael mott

Hi Marty J thanks for the compliment, good to see you here, there is some fantastic work on this site.

regards Michael

michael mott

#42
I fitted the original baseplate(much modified) to the new chassis this gives it some good rigidity, and also refitted the rear buffer beam, I needed to turn up some smaller more rounded rivets for the fixing, the angle bracket is glued but the rivets will gice the impression that it is riveted



regards Michael

RoughboyModelworks

Beautiful job Michael. I like your solution to the oval opening... excellent application of lateral thinking  ;)

Paul

michael mott

#44
Thanks for that Paul, I have been a fan of Edward De Bono for years. Must be rubbing off a little ;D

today I was going to remount the front buffer beam but got sidetracked reworking the slidevalve chest, it was not positioned correctly and the slide rod was directly over the cross slide, I also to the opportunity to add the exra details that are on the prototype.



The wheels and motor are meshing ok I gave the motor a whirl and it ran smoothly, now all I have to do is finish the rodding.

regards Michael