The Home Machinist!

Ok, This is where I am in the build. After installing both sides, I had to un-press the wheel on one shaft, move it around 5 degrees and the rotation was smooth . The key would be to make a jig for sure, however, when making one of something, a jig just did not fit. Besides, I am having fun learning as I go, so having to extra work helps me understand the how and why, things are done for a reason. I hope not to bore anyone,everyone on here is so accomplished in this field.
As I believe I stated before, the drawings I have are not 100% correct. The couplings once made and installed, the connecting rod would rub, so I needed to re machine them so the coupling would extrude out around .014 allowing clearance .....no more rub!!

Diddler:
One of the most useful things I learned from this group of skilled builders is to always take the time to make whatever fixtures are required to produce accurate work.
It seems to take lots of time, but in the long run the project goes faster and more accurately, with little rework required.
I have a box of fixtures made during the manufacture of two locomotives. They really simplified some of the operations required.

I'm pleased to read you resolved the the driver alignment issues. That is not always the case.
Keep posting. I enjoy seeing your work.
RussN

RussN , Thank you for your kind words, When I scale this Locomotive up, I will be making fixtures for sure.

Diddler

Building the water pump, you can see in the drawing that there is no check valve in this pump. Well we all know that this will not work, the pressure in the boiler would push the water back to the holding tanks. So I designed the two check valves using SS, spring, ball and bolts. I would have posted a vid of the pump working but did not think I could load it.

Does anyone have a drawing of the, or any lamp that would be on the front of my locomotive, they could share with me?

Thanks anyway, I will just scale a lamp that will work.
Finished more work this week, however I did not take any pictures. Bent up the frame work for the boiler/ fire box mounting. I was going to powder coat this but because the fire will be in that area, I will just use High Heat Black. The frame work that will end up holding the water tanks, had to be re-machined ( Yet another blunder on the part of the person who did the drawing) I had to put a notch in the frame for the above pump to fit. I really did not mind, Love working on this Locomotive.

Decauville locomotives were small French narrow gauge machines often sold with portable trackwork for industrial and agricultural use. So in many cases they only ran short distances in daylight and didn't need headlights. If you look at images of Decauville locomotives on Google you will see some with small kerosene lamps.

Any such lamp would be suitable.

Hope that explains why no-one has a good answer for you.

Ken

Nice work. +1 for what GWRDriver said! Looking forward to seeing your build progress to the run stage! And seeing your 7.5” version take shape.

Iam curious if 2.5” gauge is also considered to be garden Railroad gauge? If so, when you get it finished, might be some local Garden RR club tracks in your area you could run it on...

I love these European style turn of the century tank engines. Have often considered how I might build one in 12” or 15” gauge. Nothing to it, except Iam only five years behind restoring the loco Iam presently working on...

Glenn

Thank you for your Kind words Glenn, I am kind of new to the Locomotive build, so there is much for me to learn about this craft. I do believe that the 2.5 gauge is also considered garden. I will keep everyone up on my build as I move forward.

Rick

2.5" gauge is considered to be both 'garden scales' and 'live steam' as in ride-on scale. it's the largest of the scenic scales and the smallest ride-on scale. in England there are two organizations that are for this scale/gauge. Gauge 3 association is all about Garden railways, non-ride on. The 2 1/2" gauge association is ride-on. As GWRdriver has said before: if you say Gauge 3, it usually indicates scenic non-rider operations. if you say 2 1/2" gauge it usually indicates ride-on trains, even though they are the same track gauge and can be interchangeable sometimes.

Thank you Pontiaguy1 for clearing this up for me.
I did not take any pictures this week, for the most part I did calibration of the build so far. I re-machined the axal stops so that when they bottomed out they were equal on all 4 wheels. Doing this removed a slight wobble i felt when rocking the frame side to side. The spring suspension as designed in the drawings is inadequate, when i placed the boiler on the frame the spring design would bottom out . I changed this design to use a larger dia music wire to make a stronger spring along with using a larger dia screw to set the tension, this worked well and now the spring suspension works well. I assembled the linkage for the valve timing, if built as intended in the drawing, it would not have worked, because many parts would have been left off. As I said in the beginning, I go over what I am making several times, making sure I know what the part is supposed to be/ do before I make it. This has saved me a lot of wasted time .
I am learning silver soldering, I do not have the confidence right now to dive in and solder the boiler just yet.
I will take pictures of what I done above and post them , along with the drawing sections I have changed.

I am sending you a few pictures of more progress I have made on the Locomotive.
Shocks: The screw is a bored out 5/16 rod using a 8 turn wound spring made out of .050 music wire, and an 1/8 diameter ball to press down on the axel bearing. The 5/16 rod is locked in place using a SS locking ring.
Water feed adjuster: This I made a little different than the drawings, because that needed an allen wrench to adjust. I extended the rod assembly to go just beyond the face of the boiler. I also made a knob using ¼ diameter brass tubing.
Valve latch: I made this spring loaded latch to lock the lever in to position, it works nicely, However, I need to make a retainer to keep the lever from bending away from the frame. This I will do and send a picture of next week.
Me: I sent you a picture of me.

Forgive me for the names of the pictures, I am sure the parts are called something different........ALL and ALL I am getting there, and loving every step I take.