Yes…..not great for switching, but how much switching do you actually do?
Actually, a lot more than you would think. I like to run operations sometimes, and if you're running a local, you'll end up doing a ton of switching. Of course this is in 7 1/2" gauge. I've been the person operating the yard switcher before and ended up switching out cars all day. You'd be surprised at what an 0-4-0 can do switching.
Don't know that I've ever heard of anyone running operations in 3/4" scale.
Yup…..but here we are talking about a 2 - 1/2” gauge locomotive. It will spend its time running around in circles on an elevated track.
Not much switching to be done on any of the elevated tracks I’ve seen.
Pressing on and remaking the parts I made a bad guess on.
Drilling the two 1/16" dia. trigger pivot points after fully milling the bottom slot as per the Ayesha sketches. I should have noticed this the first time from the sketch but I didn't.
The old and the new quadrant plate with the revised lever pivot point. My drawing has also been revised to reflect these changes.
And rotary milling for the revised curved sector piece to reflect the revised quadrant plate top curve of 1-11/16" radius.
Drilled the trigger and latch pivot holes and carefully bent over the latch head to align the latch square to the curved top of the quadrant/sector plate. It is not shown this way on the Ayesha sketches LBSC made but is shown bent over on his later reverser drawings and it needs to be.
I really wasn't sure if I wouldn't have to make the latch over again (horror) but no, the guess on the length of the latch arm turned out to be correct. Just need to do a little polishing now on all of these parts.
I also need to make the buckle a little longer but this is the easiest part to make and to fit the holding spring to the extension pin on the trigger and to attach the other end of the spring to the lever. I will not do the final drilling on the buckle to attach it to the lever until the reverser is mounted and the valve forward and reverse notches have been machined.
You can be certain I am going to make complete detailed drawings of all of this so there are no more guesses.
This is starting to sound like a cracked record but I finally finished the reverser. But to do that I had to make a new, slightly longer, buckle having a longer miniature slot (13/32" long, exactly 0.113" wide in 1/4" thick material).
As an aside, producing deep miniature slots that are truly rectangular, straight and square, not bell mouthed and are exactly on size is something that one runs into occasionally with locomotive construction. If one is interested in how I do it, I have detailed the process in the General Discussion Section under the thread Machining Setups With Few Comments (along with a number of other interesting little problems encountered). It is a real test of how good a machinist one is.
So now all there is left to do is find some space in the cab where to mount the reverser and to attach it to the reach rod and set the valve travel. Easy to say but I think I will be visiting someone who knows much more about these things than I do.
Whew…. must have been fun getting all those bits lined up right.
Greg Lewis, Prop.
Eyeball Engineering — Home of the dull toolbit.
Our motto: "That looks about right."
Celebrating 35 years of turning perfectly good metal into bits of useless scrap.
Bill Shields wrote: ↑Fri Feb 04, 2022 5:30 pm
...
99.999% of people that look at a steamer have NO CONCEPT of the amount of work required to build more than the most simple.
When I started one of my mentors said that the only people who really understand what it takes to build one are those who have done it. He was so right. When visitors look at my engine I tell them it's scratch-built but I can tell they don't get it. I'll even hold a piece of bar stock up to the rods and tell them that I started with that and ended up with those, but I still think it doesn't register. No matter. I'm having fun and having the satisfaction that comes with meeting the challenges and making something special.
Greg Lewis, Prop.
Eyeball Engineering — Home of the dull toolbit.
Our motto: "That looks about right."
Celebrating 35 years of turning perfectly good metal into bits of useless scrap.
The setup and drilling of the quadrant plate mounting holes.
It turned into a ridiculous operation, simply ridiculous. One simply had to centre drill, drill and spot face the mounting holes except,
one needed to make a number of extension tools to undertake this operation. Fortunately, I had run into this situation before and had all of the necessary extensions ready. With the carbide two flute end mill used as a spot facing tool and the HSS extra long centre drill to start the hole, it was clear sailing as both materials are very hard and one can tighten up the miniature set screw in the extension without raising a burr but I had forgotten that a jobbers drill shank is soft.
Well, the set screw did its job and raised such a burr that the jobbers drill was now completely welded into the drill extension. Therein followed about two hours of very bad language trying to get the drill to release without destroying the drill or the drill extension or both. I finally bashed it out with a soft hammer with the twist end of the drill held firmly in the soft fibre jaws of the bench vise except that now I don't have any soft jaws anymore.
So, if one needs to use a drill extension, just remember one had better first machine a relief section on the drill shank where the set screw tightens against the drill.
And then there was this little episode. It has been driving me nuts for months after I made the firebox grates and when I finally decided to do something about it.