Section 6 - Pilot and Pilot Deck

Your browser has disabled scripting - some functions of this album will not be available. Please check your browser configuration and security settings for this site

Up one level

Neidrauer Adventures Photo Album and Blog » Building a Live Steam Locomotive - the Mikado Project » Section 6 - Pilot and Pilot Deck

Nearly Complete! The Pilot (front of engine) and Front Truck. Sheetmetal work for the pilot deck started Jan 2012.

30-Jan-12 The problem of waiting so long to finish this section: with the pilot truck assembled and installed, there is no way for me to get my fingers under the frame to loosen the bolts the bracket will mount to. I end up removing the pilot truck pivot bolts, sliding the bracket down but not removing the truck because all the suspension is still connected.

30-Jan-12 A picture of 'not everything goes to plan'. The original holes in the brackets were spot on, but due to some

22-Jan-12 Footboards and brackets ready for bending. I spent some time trying to figure out what the flat dimentions of the brackets were, in the end my metal bending skills rendered any calculations useless! Also useless, it turns out, are the two footboards. After drilling them I went to bend them only to discover I cut them to their folded length, omitting the step from the flat layout. Oh well, practice makes perfect.

19-Jan-12 Trimming the front angled parts of the deck. I calculated the angle to be 12 degrees. I unlocked the swivel base on my vise, swung it to 12 degrees and cut the part to size. A simple thing to next unlock the vise and swing around to the other side.

19-Jan-12 Trimming the end of the deck to size.

19-Jan-12 Using a boring head/flycutter combination to enlarge the hole to size.

19-Jan-2012 Having finished drilling all the small holes, and re-clamping the setup so I don't drill holes in the vise, I use my favorite quick and dirty method for drilling a large pilot hold beofore boring to size: a bi-metal hole saw. I drill on the slowest backgear speed, with cutting oil, and manually engage the downfeed to keep even pressure.

19-Jan-2012 I have covered a piece of 16 ga (1/16

6-Sept-09 Using a 5 degree tapered end mill, we bevel the bracket pivot hole to allow more vertical motion without enlarging the center bore of the hole. (No additional back-forth play introduced.)

25-July-07 A tough setup: the cast iron tube pilot.

25-July-07 Drilling the front coupler pocket pin hole.

25-July-07 Drilling the front coupler pocket.

1-Aug-07 Another uncoupler lever coupler bracket done, seven to go...

1-Aug-07 Using a stop rod for the vice so we can 'mass produce' eight uncoupler lever brackets. Once we set the X and Y zeros, drilling the four holes per part was quick work.

1-Aug-07 The Flagstand held by the back of the chuck jaws so we can drill and counterbore. This setup allowed us to keep the same chucking as when we turned the bottom (now inside the chuck) and maintain some sense of centering the part.

1-Aug-07 Bill shows me yet another setup for holding parts. In this case, we need to turn the flagstand, but the lantern bracket on the side of the flagstand made it impossible to chuck conventionally. Solution: use the 6-jaw, remove three jaws and put the bracket inbetween to of the jaws. Why not use the 3-jaw? My 6-Jaw is an 'Adjust-Tru' chuck, we can move it around in case the casting is off center.

11-July-07 The finished bumper on the frame.

11-July-07 With the top done, we indicate the back as straight as we can with the casting to drill the holes in this end.

11-July-07 Picking up the centerline from the previous machining steps.

11-July-07 Finishing the bumper top. Bill picks up the reference point the drawing specifies with the wiggler.

The ole' C-clamp vise works again.

Squaring up the angle plate to machine the bottom of the front bumper. We have to use the angle plate because the top of the bumper is unmachined, but the front and back surfaces are so the back reference surface will be bolted to the angle plate. We will use two large parallels to set the machined bumper tabs on and insure the bumper is parallel to the table.

The front is finished.

Indicating the top surface before drilling the coupler pocket bolt holes.

With a machined reference surface on the back, we put some spacers on the table and machine the coupler pocket surface parallel to it.

Drilling and tapping the bumper mounting holes.

Machining the back, but only within the top tabs which will cover the front frame spreader contact surface.

Due to the draft in the casting (taper), we decided to make the top surface the square reference point. Here Bill adjusts the casting for the back operations.

3-July-07 We start on the front bumper beam. Bill and I look at the print and it only calls for the little square tabs to be finished machined. Now I can't believe the bumper-to-front frame spreader contact point, and the coupler pocked mount point wouldn't be machined, but the print only indicates a raw casting-to-machined surface contact. We also don't know how we are supposed to hold this part as we drill and tap holes in the top, bottom, front and back without any machined reference surfaces. We decide to machine the contact sufaces which we will use for holding the casting in the difference orientations.

The pilot wheels under the frame! Yea - another milestone!

With the brackets bent, we can now accurately locate the second hole.

Putting the second bent in the bracket. The yellow pipe we are using as a bender is actually a handle for the floor jack.

Heating the large upper bracket for bending.

Bending the brackets. For the smaller lower ones we just used vice-grips to hold them. The big machinist vice is clamped down on the antique Knight drill press.

The pilot truck brackets have been heated and bent. Here they are cooling off.

23-May-07 After soaking in a 250 degree oven for a bit, the wheels are pressed on the axle. Here they are cooling down on the weld-r-que.

finish facing the backside. You can see the casting on the back is offset from the front, which because of the first chucking setup runs true.

An obscured shot of the boring operation. We tried for a 0.001

Drilling the axle hole, undersize

Facing the backside

Third chucking. The wheel is turned around, indicated for true.

After turning the face and O.D., a quick check of the size.

Checking the runout on the second chucking. Since this is a 'adjust-tru' six-jaw chuck, we can center the wheel within a couple of thou.

16-May-07 Steps to machine the pilot wheels. This is the second chucking. In the first chucking the front of the wheel was held and the back rough turned. Most importantly, the boss on the back was turned for chucking in this second step.

9-May-07. Aah. Lathe Work again as we turn the pilot truck axle.

9-May-07 A quick job! Drilling the Pedestal Binders.

1-May-06 The finished Pedestal binders bolted to the pilot truck frame. Yea! Hey, that was four parts and one whole print completed in one four-hour session. Tonight it was a good night!

The Vice Stop in use. Between part changes, the setup is not disturbed, so each part can be quickly set into the same position for drilling and tapping.

1-May-07 Last set on the pedestal blocks: drill the holes in the top and bottom. Bill sets up a 'vice stop' using the angle plate and a piece of bar stock.

A quick way to machine all four blocks to the same size. The every-other orientation insures any angular introduced in the setup is the same for each pair.

A quick alignment with the precision square and the top is skimmed until we have a machined surface. The casting does not allow a lot of material to be removed because the rough size is close to the finished size called for on the print.

With both sides machined, we use the angle plate for the side which faces the axle block.

1-May-07 Starting on the Pedestal blocks. We have to machine these castings on 5 out of 6 sides. Step 1: pick a side and machine it.

Lacking a hydraulic press to bend the truck brackets with, we make a fixture to hold them.

25-Apr-07 Machining the pilot truck brackets on the rotary table.

20-Apr-07 The finished heart links.

A test fitting of the pilot truck frame assembly goes just fine.

Machining the inside radius of the heart link with the rotary table.

18-Apr-07 To finish the heart links, we have to mill a 5/16

Two quick setovers around the center line and the .250

18-Apr-07 Next we start work on the heart links. A piece of aluminum is bolted to the table and a dowel pin in it. The mill head is centered over the pin and the Y axis moved the correct distance. A line on the heart portion of the link dividing it in half is scribed, the heart link is put on the dowel pin and clamped down, then we use the pointed wiggler to center the mill head over the scribe mark.

18-Apr-07 The finished pilot truck axle boxes!

The counterbore in action.

18-Apr-07 Since I did not have the right sized mill to finish the spring pocket, we use a counter-bore drill without the pilot.

18-Apr-07 Cutting the spring pocket. First we start with the closest large cutter I have (3/4

Since the prints reference everything from the back, a quick check to see about how more can be removed from the back while keeping the centerline of the axlebox in the correct spot.

The boring operation complete, the axle box back is faced off.

4-Apr-07 By now, this is almost a familier setup. The front pilot axle box is chucked up in the 4-jaw chuck, centered by eye, and rough bored.

4-Apr-07 The finished Swing Bolster

4-Apr-07 Rough turning the outside of the Swing Bolster.

Is the front of the slot set back the proper distance? Putting an adjustable parallel in the slot and using the depth mic will tell.

11-Apr-07 Familiar milling operation, cutting the guide channel in the axle box. Turning the box over to mill the other side, we rotate it on the plug to maintain the same center distance.

11-Apr-07 Our old friends, the angle plate and aluminum plug are once again re-united. This aluminum plug started out pretty big for the main axle boxes, was turned smaller for the trailing truck boxes and now is a bit smaller for the pilot boxes.

How much do we have to take off? A check with the depth mike from the axle face to the chuck face will tell.

11-Apr-07 Action shot--the axle box has been turned around and tapped square against the chuck face to face the wheel side.

21-Feb-07 We start machining the heart rocker for the pilot trucks. Yeah!

21-Feb-07 Flycutting the pilot truck frame.

28-Feb-07 The finished pilot truck frame.

28-Feb-07 Using pins to locate the pilot truck frame so we can drill the holes in the sides.

28-Feb-07 Boring the spring pockets.