3/4" Scale J1e

[Harold_V]

Nice!
I have a habit of saving sour cream (or cottage cheese) containers, and use them the same way. It's so easy to lose a fastener or other small component of an assembly if I just place them on my work bench.

I really like your approach to silver soldering, Greg. It's all too easy to overheat small items by applying the torch directly.

H

[NP317]

Jack:
So as to not hijack your thread, I have posted some more silver brazing info after using Greg Lewis's suggestion of indirect heating of small parts:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=110047&p=431076#p431076
Enjoy.
RussN

[JBodenmann]

Hello My Friends
That's not hijacking, it's contributing.
Jack

[JBodenmann]

Hello My Friends
Haven't done anything on 5344 for a while so here is a snappy just for fun. This was taken yesterday and shows the new sand dome in place. No shortage of things to do!
Jack

[JBodenmann]

Hello My Friends
Managed to get some time in on the Hudson today. The sander casings have been setting for a while so I decided to make some progress on them. The top two photos show what I call the universal holding fixture being used to hold the main side panel for the sander casing. The hole for the upper sliding door is being cut. The third photo shows the panel with the offset at the bottom edge. This offset will form the upper channel for the bottom sliding door. The next two snappies are of some MDF that is being glued up. Some thick material was needed but all that was laying around was 3/4". This will be a form tool for the bottom sliding doors. These doors have a small lip turned up to form a handle. This handle is to help slide the doors. Without this handle it would be easy to curve the doors to fit the casing. But this handle would create a flat spot in the door when it is curved, so a form tool is needed. Last photo shows things sort of mocked up. The lower sliding doors are at the bottom and you can see the formed handles. I have drawings of the sander casings, and photos too. The puzzle is that the drawings and photos don't jive. I hate it when that happens! So I'm just sort of winging it, and going mainly by the photos. I have run across the same thing with the full width turret casing. Drawings and photos are different Once again the photos won out. Go with what you got.
Jack

[JBodenmann]

Hello My Friends
Here is some more progress on the sander casings. First the MDF block that was glued up yesterday was cut to the contour required and then sanded a bit. Any roughness would have been transferred to the work piece. The .020 annealed brass was then mashed between the blocks. This piece will be the large sliding door. The sliding door still had a small flat spot visible by the pencil lead. This was massaged out on the wood form with a hammer and piece of round stock. At this point I was on a roll and forgot to get the camera out for a bit. Next, one of the tiny escutcheon pins used for rivets. These are .026" Diameter. Bottom photo, the main side panel.

[JBodenmann]

Next, a small rivet set that was made up for the .026" shank rivets. A 1/16" diameter round head end mill was used to make the pocket. It fits into a 1/4" hole in a holder that is threaded into the steel work table. I have a gaggle of rivet sets that fit this holder. The second photo shows the sander casing upside down. It has been clamped together with some small C clamps. It was fluxed with Stay Brite liquid flux and has has some tiny pieces of rosin core electronic solder placed here and there. As usual a small amount of solder was needed. This was then heated up with a small propane jewelers torch being careful to keep the heat localized so as not to unsolder some to the other soft soldered joints. The solder slurped nicely into the joints. Last two are the mostly finished sander casing plunked onto the engine and temporarily held in place with some masking tape. The casing will need a bit of adjustment to fit the sand dome better. These little rascals were a challenge to make, fitting to curves surfaces and flat. Next up will be to make a some hasps and clips with chains and hooks that secure the large door. I have some hasps but they are 1-1/2" scale and are far too large for 3/4" scale. While I'm at it I will make some extra ones along with some tiny hinges that I will pull molds off for investment casting. Some of these will be used on the full width turret casing. Having Fun here.
Jack

[JBodenmann]

Hello My Friends
Here is a bit on making small hinges and hasps. I have them in 1-1/2 " scale but they are far too big for 3/4" scale. These use the same size .062" tubing for the barrels, but the width of the barrels is .025" instead of .062. Some .020" brass sheet and .062" tubing were selected and the tube was silver soldered to the sheet as seen in photos 1 and 2. I would have liked to have some smaller tubing but I couldn't find it in brass. Then some .032" rod was tested for fit. Next it was over to the mill to cut the barrels. An .025" slitting saw was used to cut them. It was lowered .025" after each cut. And our last snappy here shows the hinge segment being cut off.

[JBodenmann]

It's good to have a brand new cutter to cut brass. I thought I had one but I didn't and you can see the result here. The cuts were pretty ragged and required a lot of clean up. Extra tiny files and the jewelers buffer were used to clean things up. This is OK but the corners aren't sharp and crisp like I would prefer. The tiny one on my finger will be a hasp for the sand dome sliding cover. I made three of these, two to actually fit to the sand dome and one to pull a mold from. The other two hinges will be a strap and butt hinges to make molds from. These will all be investment cast. Some will be used for the full width turret casing, and some on the tender. I will have them all for sale. I haven't decided what to make next, the turret casing or steam and auxiliary domes. I'm also anxious to start the tender frame. It will be a simulation of a cast steel one piece water bottom tender frame. Some of these had a corrugated bottom between the side sills and center portion. I don't know if the J1e's had this but I just think it's a cool feature. Part of the fun of little details like this that are mostly hidden is to sit back and see who notices them. Too much fun!
Jack

[Steam Engine Dan]

looking good jack, keep up the good work. hey here is my newest find of 5344. it was rare that she ever operated on the eastern end of the railroad. she operated on the western end for most of her career. here she is backing thru the station area at Harmon NY to pick up a train. and then ready to depart with her train

[Greg_Lewis]

I've always wondered how Jack gets so much done. Now the truth is out. There are two of him. Note that the post about the A&C high line was made this morning, and so was this post about the hinges, both within a few minutes of each other. Considering that you can't be out running a tractor and also in the shop silver soldering and running the mill at the same time, the only answer is that Jack has a twin of equal talent. I wonder where he hides him when we visit.

[JBodenmann]

Hello My Friends
Greg may have his suspicions, but I can assure you, there is only one of me. I do drink quite a lot of coffee though. I haven't done anything on the J1e for some time. I have been working on molds for the last few weeks for some projects and I'm sick of lookin' at em'. The little Hudson has been gathering dust... the Franklin power reverse castings have been laying around since mid summer. Ahh, too much fun. The first operation was to run a reamer through the bore. The casting was made so it could be held in a large three jaw chuck as in the top photo. The mounting feet just cleared the jaws. The bore was cast about .015 undersize so it could just be zoomed with a 9/16" reamer. Then a split mandrel was made up to hold the cylinder so the ends could be faced off square with the bore. The mandrel was drilled and tapped for a 1/8" iron pipe thread and then split. The cylinder was slipped on and the pipe plug was run in till it expanded the mandrel and gripped the cylinder. The end was faced off and then it was flipped around and the other end was faced. This is as far as I got tonight. The last photo shows the cylinder reamed and faced off. Next up will be fitting the cylinder heads. Then the drive screw and its bearings and the piston rod. The thread for the screw will be #10-24 left hand. In the foreground are some cool universal joints for 1/8" rod. From McMaster of course.These will be for the control rod to the cab. In the cab will be the hand wheel and indicator. As it's a screw reverser you don't have a Johnson bar to visually show the position of the valve gear. So the hand wheel is mounted to the indicator housing. On top of the indicator is a pointer to visually show where you are in relation to forward, centered, or reverse. On the full size engine the indicator lays alongside the fire box but here there just isn't room. So it will be angled toward the center of the cab to make it easier to get at. At least that's the plan for now. More to come.
Jack