2-1/2" NG class A shay.

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Brian Hilgert
Posts: 302
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2013 8:35 am
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Re: 2-1/2" NG class A shay.

Post by Brian Hilgert »

The full exhaust pipe. The one feature that I wanted to capture is the size of the piping that runs along the side of the boiler. In scale, these are 4" pipes. Scaled down comes real close to .875". To get to the scale size I actually used two pieces of copper pipe, one inside of the other. the inside is 1/2" and the outside is 3/4" (.875" OD). I'm hoping that this acts a insulated pipe to keep the exhaust hot until it gets to the smokebox. This might not be an issue but the theory sounds good. lol.
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Finished pipes mounted.
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The piping inside of the smokebox is also completed but still needs soldered. The steel pipe is just for alignment. I still need to figure out the blast nozzle and petticoat pipes. Soot n Cinders was gracious enough to share the dimensions of his smoke box inners as he did some flow simulations within Solidworks. My blast nozzle is higher than his because I am coming into the smokebox from the side where he comes in from the bottom. I'm hoping to be able to use his information but I will have to see if it will work out.
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Brian Hilgert
Posts: 302
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2013 8:35 am
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Re: 2-1/2" NG class A shay.

Post by Brian Hilgert »

Moving on to the Turret.
I am lucky enough to have the actual drawings for the 20 Ton Shay turret from Lima.
11404 Steam Turret - Straight Boilers.jpg


To make the Turret a little more user friendly for our oversized fingers, I did redesign it oversized while still trying to keep it proportional.

The first two pictures are of all the individual pieces before silver soldering.
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The following is after silver soldering, I got it a bit too hot and rounded the edge on the one boss. luckfully, I left excess material to be machined off later.
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rrnut-2
Posts: 691
Joined: Mon Jul 18, 2011 7:40 pm
Location: Bennington, NH

Re: 2-1/2" NG class A shay.

Post by rrnut-2 »

When I had built my wife's Shay, I had put a 1/2" pipe inside of a 3/4" pipe and stuffed kawool in between the pipes. It has worked well for the past 30 years.

Right now, I am adding a 3rd truck and brakes.

Jim B
Brian Hilgert
Posts: 302
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2013 8:35 am
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Re: 2-1/2" NG class A shay.

Post by Brian Hilgert »

More parts for the turret,
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I still need to tap some of the pipe threads a little deeper
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Brian Hilgert
Posts: 302
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2013 8:35 am
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Re: 2-1/2" NG class A shay.

Post by Brian Hilgert »

Gorgeous machine work on that stack!
Thank you!
It came out a lot better than I expected.

B
Scott Baldridge
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2015 4:20 pm

Re: 2-1/2" NG class A shay.

Post by Scott Baldridge »

Brian,

It just keeps getting better and better! Love the work you did on the stack!

Scott
Brian Hilgert
Posts: 302
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2013 8:35 am
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Re: 2-1/2" NG class A shay.

Post by Brian Hilgert »

Thanks Scott. I appreciate the comments. My dad showed me some pictures of your Heisler. Very Nice!
Scott Baldridge
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2015 4:20 pm

Re: 2-1/2" NG class A shay.

Post by Scott Baldridge »

Brian,Thanks for the compliment on the Heisler. Its such a small project in comparison to your shay.
FKreider
Posts: 338
Joined: Fri Feb 02, 2018 8:44 pm
Location: Massachusetts

Re: 2-1/2" NG class A shay.

Post by FKreider »

Did you have your engine on display at the cabin fever show back in January?
-Frank K.
Brian Hilgert
Posts: 302
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2013 8:35 am
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Re: 2-1/2" NG class A shay.

Post by Brian Hilgert »

Its such a small project in comparison to your shay.
- Still a work of Art!
Did you have your engine on display at the cabin fever show back in January?
Yes Sir, Below is a pic of it at the show.
IMG_2064 resize.jpg
Brian Hilgert
Posts: 302
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2013 8:35 am
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Re: 2-1/2" NG class A shay.

Post by Brian Hilgert »

I started on the Smoke box front and decided to machine my own instead of using castings. The smoke box door was designed in cad using the Lima drawings as a reference. Within the cad drawing, I plotted out the X/Y for the dome part of the door, chucked up a 1" thick steel disc and started cutting with a 1/4" radius tool bit.
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I got to the following point then realized something was wrong...
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There is suppose to be a half round bead at the base of the dome. After taking a step back, looking at the drawings, taking dimensions, looking at the drawings, checking X/Y data, taking dimensions..... I finally realized the my X/Y data was based on 1/4" Dia and not 1/4" Radius. For the Dome part, It was not off by more that .010, but when going around the small bead, it pretty much wiped it out. By the time I noticed the problem, it was too late... so on to plan B. I machined off the bead completely and filed/smoothed the dome.
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Next was to turn the half round bead separately out of a scrap piece of thick walled pipe.
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I still need to drill and tap the back side of the bead to mount it to the door.
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Brian Hilgert
Posts: 302
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2013 8:35 am
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Re: 2-1/2" NG class A shay.

Post by Brian Hilgert »

The Smoke box front was also started. Nothing too exciting
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