A small locomotive - 'The Crab' - The first locomotive out of the Neidrauer Shops

Neidrauer Adventures Photo Album and Blog » A small locomotive - 'The Crab' - The first locomotive out of the Neidrauer Shops

Summer 2011 - The modified grease fittings work great! The Crab has some lettering on it (NYC), the riding car is working fine and the new NYC Gondola works well as a two-person passenger car. Time to burn some more coal! Winter 2011 - The Crab is readied for the summer season. We are experimenting with modified grease fittings as cylinder cocks. August 2010 - a mild overhaul was completed. Pulled the cab, bunker, boiler and chests, remade the ash pan, eliminated the troublesome axle pumpt, added a new handpump and steam injector. May 2010 - The water pump ram is jamming in the pump bore, causing the wheels to lock up. It will be replaced with an injector. Also the graphite string piston rings will be replaced because they are leaking. August 2009 - Improvements to the water pump and riding car made. *** November 2008 It's Done It Runs!! *** First steam up ever during the Thanksgiving holiday and it ran great! I am so happy!

6-June-2011 Mid-South Live Steamers, crossing the high bridge with a clear stack!

16-Aug A new ash pan is started for the crab. I'll need to go to Joel's shop and use his finger brake to make the inside bends.

Bill drill holes for the knockout plug cutters. These holes will provide side clearance for the axles.

The cardboard mockup of the new pan. It will be a 'catch' style, sitting under the wheels.

11-Aug-10 We take the valve check off and inspect the face for wear. You can see pitting along at the edge of the check, and along the face where water rusted it. Overall the scratches from the valve are not bad in comparison.

Cleaning/Inspecting the cylinder chests. It appears the locomotive was stored with water in the chest, causing rusting an pitting in the chest and putting debris into the piston cylinder.

Scratches on the valve face. Not sure why there is a stain on one end. ?Burned oil?

25-June-2010 A dry (no oil) valve chest. The brown is rust. Now I need to figure out why the fireman's side is not getting oil.

The engineers side valve chest has a nice film of oil all over it, like it should.

I was pretty proud of this ash pan when I first made it, but it sure is sad looking now, bent and twisted. Might be easier to make a new one than try to repair it.

On a coal-fire locomotive, everything ends up filthy dirty and oily.

25-June-10 In the hot St. Louis heat Friday evening, I strip the cab, bunker, boiler and ash pan from the chassis so I can remove the crosshead support brackets to remove and re-pack the pistons.

Not much to see in this picture. Measuring the bore end, it is +.002 larger side to side and +.006 top to bottom.

Top view of the water pump ram. The shiney spot is the wear. It is -.0025 smaller in that spot compared to the side.

Here is the disassembled valve. The stem broke where it meets the valve disk.

A poor man's spanner wrench -- two screwdrivers held with a c-clamp. Hey, it did the job.

Here's the valve with the shroud pushed off. I just happened to have a steel washer with the same size 11/16

8-May-10 While at J. Schmidt's house Saturday for an invitational steamup, the valve seat guide rod broke off. Much to the entertainment of Bill and Tim, the stem flew up and hit me on the top of my head while I was bending over. I thought someone threw something at me!

The brake mechanism is quite simple, all the parts are from the scrapbox.

Design concept layout for a 'Friction Brake' plate-style car brake.

Modifications to the Crab: cutting a hole in the cab floor for the water tank 1/4 NPT drain valve with a hole saw.

The new assembled water pump eccentric strap. The dark smudge on the top of the strap is steam oil covering the oil hole. With just a little time on the track this shiny new part will be covered in coal cinders like the rest of the moving parts!

Backside view of the finished strap. We cut the rest of the corners on the strap to give some more clearance.

Clamping set up #2 - successful! After finding the center of the strap, we move over, drill the ram mounting hole and machine the strap end down to the proper thickness.

Clamping setup #1 to machine the ram mount--a failure. This setup shifted the two halves of the strap, removing our ability to indicate the hole to find the center, which is needed for the next machining operation. If you look closely, you can see parting line in the eccentric hole showing how the two parts have shifted.

The bored eccentric strap showing the finished groove. This is necessary to keep the strap captive on the eccentric.

Using a dial-test indicator to insure the side of the cutter is parallel to the ways, insuring the groove is cut to the proper depth.

The two halves of the strap, bolted together, are chucked in the 4-jaw and centered for the boring operation.

Layout concept for the waterpump eccentric strap. Material used was Alloy 954 bronze, 2

9-Sept-09 Machining one-half of the Bronze eccentric strap.

Mid-South Live Steamers, May 1, 2009 Spring Meet. Here is Bill rounding the curve with the crab. The wood jacketing was installed earlier that week.

Photograph (C)2009 F Axtell Kramer
Builder Denis and Dad behind the still-new Crab locomotive on 11-April-2009, the first steam-up of the year for the St. Louis Live Steamers.

The modified air safety valves with shroud installed.

Making a shroud for the safety valves. This will direct the steam upwards instead of out.

During the inagural run of the crab, the hydrostatic lubricator leaked all over the place and did not seem to work. Back in the shop a teardown revealed a big chip out of the bottom of the 3/8

Tim and John discuss all things locomotive.

Tim inspects the smokebox of the Consolidation - while fire is going! Very interesting - you could see how the petticoat worked, the smoke just curled around the petticoat and up the smokestack.

John T. at the throttle of his freshly shopped Atlantic out on the mainline for the first time in a decade or more. Another man with a big smile!

I present to the world the first locomotive out of the Neidrauer shops on its first ever steam up. Big Smile for the very successful run day! It Runs! It Works! And I did it myself.

My excitement builds as the pressure climbs! (the silver paint bucket is my coal bunker).

Saturday, 29-Nov-08, a steamup at Tim M.'s private track at his house. The crab is unloaded and a borrowed flatcar is the engineers seat. To the right John T. fills the tender of his freshly shopped Atlantic, Tim's consolidation awaits its master in the background.

28-Nov-08 The final very tiny parts for the Van Brocklin design cylinder cocks. Cutting the grooves in the .200 long pins, and cutting them to length was a pain.

Friday night, 28-Nov-08. Final test on air before taking it out tomorrow and putting it under steam. (.avi movie)

Forward end of the loco. The flat black boiler is in contrast to the shiny cab.

Along with the plumbing, the Cab and Bunkers are finished.

19-Nov-08 It's coming together! I just need to install a sight glass and the plumbing will be complete.

22-Oct-08 Modifying the hand pump to accept 1/8 NPT fittings and not Model pipe taper fittings. Here we are actually cleaning up the ball check face because a previous drilling operation nicked it.

3-Oct-08 I learn how to bend copper tube, sort of. The main plumbing is completed except for the water glass and the hand pump.

10-Aug-08 A shakey setup to mill the door latch tab on the boiler. This really was not a good setup. I wanted to clamp over the boiler, but my table is not big enough (the boiler covers the t-slots), and I did not have a really large vee-block to clamp with if I turned it perpendicular.

26-July-08 How cool is this? A fire door for the loco held together by just rivets. Based on a design by

22-June-08 The cab sides have been primed

2-Apr-08 Doing a water test on the tank before gluing the last side on. It did not leak, no need to put silicone cauking on the seams like the plans call for.

3-Apr-08 The finished water tank test fitted into the cab.

3-Apr-08 The finished water tank. I chose to shorten the fill pipe so it does not stick up through the cab roof. I also drilled a hole in the side of the fill pipe for the bypass return instead of drilling and tapping another elbow fitting.

30-Mar-08 The coal bunkers after my attempt to TIG weld them. The welds are not pretty, but the sides stay together. I had to modify the design to put the sides and back on the

30-Mar-08 Gluing up the water tank. I used the 18

30-Mar-08 I had to shorten the inside side by 1/8

1-Mar-08 Putting a smooth surface on the top of the welded boiler to provide a better air-tight seal.

Using a large piece of all-thread rod, and bridging the soft copper flues, the boiler is lightly held down to skim the top surface smooth.

The clamping setup for the boiler was interesting - there are pipes protruding below the bottom of the boiler so we could not bolt the boiler to the table flush. We had to use riser blocks, then add shims because the welded bottom was not smooth.

17-Feb-08 Trial fitting of the water tank, still clad in the brown protective paper. I've got to figure out how to hold it during the gluing process. Dad said that when cutting the plastic the ships get everywhere and to wear a hat/mask...I'd recommend a full tyveck jumpsuit with face mask. Or a fancy overhung dust collector over the saw blade. That plastic is worse than cast iron. I don't have to pick that out of my belly button when I'm done working with it....

17-Feb-08 After 8 hours of fiddling around with the table saw, making a zero-clearance insert (see the wood piece), and making a replacement part for the fence, I can get back to the task at hand: cutting the plastic sheet to size and making the 6 sides of the water tank.

3-Feb-08 Plodding along on the chain gang. Cutting, Drilling, Tapping and finishing the 10 angle-brackets into identical parts is as close to production machine work as I've ever done. It took me a couple of hours to finish them, with plenty of time before the Super Bowl started.

The completed brackets to assemble the cab.

3-Feb-08 While picking up some stock for the Mikado at the Metals Supermarket, I had them shear the cab pieces from the single sheet of 1/8

29-Jan-08 The folded ash pan, ready for welding.

29-Jan-08 The folded ash pan. In the background is the curved-bent cab roof.

29-Jan-08 The ash pan ready to be bent in the brake. After two years of design ideas, the simple 'box' design seemed best.

I enlist the help of my friend Ted, who tries to explain the elevation and plan view techniques for sheetmetal layout work.

My sketches of the ashpan. Now, how to make it in sheet metal.

28-Jan-06 Prototyping the ashpan space. The drawings provided to not include the ashpan, so I have to make them myself.

More long-distance ashpan design work. A picture is quicker than words.

Here is my design thoughts for the ashpan. I can make a cone out of sheetmetal easy enough, but how do I put a rectangular opening on it??

16-Jan-06 Weldbutchery on display. The fitted grates and brackets on the bottom of the boiler.

16-Jan-06 Grate brackets welded in place.

16-Jan-06 Some ugly, but functional Stainless Steel welds.

14-Dec-05 The temporary steam line used to run the chassie on air. I later found out the fittings I bought were for plastic tubing, not copper tube, and will have to be replaced.

14-Dec-05 In the past year the new side rods, cranks and crank pins have been completed, along with the valve chest and valve motion. I have to do some work to get the binding out when everything is tight.

Here's how the Crab looks as of 14-December, 2005. The chassie is done and the running gear has been run on air. I start experimenting with plumbing layouts.

Cutting a slot in the cylinder cocks. These are a scaled up version of an original design by W. Van Brocklin, Jr, from

Two chest covers, drilled and ready to be cut apart.

The valve chest approaching the finished size.

Having drilled all the outside hold-down holes in the chest, I drill pilot holes on the inside to quickly remove material.

Drilling the holes for the hold-down bolts in the steam chest.

July 2005, machining the valve chest to size.

5-Mar-05 The sacrificial table is back on the mill table and the new side rods are being machined. Small cutting passes and slow speeds made doing one side a long process. From setup to completion, the first right side rods took 10 hours to complete. I hope the left side goes quicker.

3-Mar-05 The valve chests mounted. This was the first real progress on this engine in over 2 1/2 years.

3-Mar-05 The finished cylinder and valve chest mounting plate. This was fun to do--simple milling, drilling and tapping thanks to my Digital Read Out.

27-Feb-05 The finished valve chests. I am really happy with how they came out.

27-Feb-05 Tapping the Valve chest bolt holes. These cast iron valve chests were machined at Joel's shop on his big Cincinati Toolmaster mill. I could take 50 thou cutting passes on his mill, whereas on my lighter Bridgeport I only take half that amount (25 thou), so his machine saved me half the machining time. The right equipment can make a difference!

19-Feb-05 I discovered there was still binding when the wheels rolled, even after I re-made all new crank arms and side rods. Feeling frustrated, I took the frame apart, pinned the left and right sides together to find out what was going on. And I

19-Feb-05 I didn't like the design of the original crank arms, so I'm make six new ones with a different design. Here I've drilled and reamed three out of a single bar. I will cut them apart in a later step.

28-Nov-04 Nice shiny brass stuffing boxes for the valves. It was 3-day holiday weekend and the big mill was tied up, so I looked around for a lathe project. All four parts only took about four hours of shop time, with no scrap parts...maybe I'm learning....

15-Aug-04 The cut, trimmed and radiused deck plating ready for bolting onto the frame. I decided not to overhang the deck over the cranks.