Section 6 - Pilot and Pilot Deck

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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 and ladder await.

28-Feb-07 Boring the spring pockets.

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

28-Feb-07 The finished pilot truck frame.

21-Feb-07 Flycutting the pilot truck frame.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

4-Apr-07 The finished Swing Bolster

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.

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

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.

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

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.

The counterbore in action.

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

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.

Two quick setovers around the center line and the .250

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

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

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

20-Apr-07 The finished heart links.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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-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!

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Facing the backside

Drilling the axle hole, undersize

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Heating the large upper bracket for bending.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Drilling and tapping the bumper mounting 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.

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

The front is finished.

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 ole' C-clamp vise works again.

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

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

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 The finished bumper on the frame.

25-July-07 Drilling the front coupler pocket.

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

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

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.

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 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 Another uncoupler lever coupler bracket done, seven to go...

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.)