Up one level Neidrauer Live Steam Locomotives Photo Albums » Building a Live Steam Locomotive - the Mikado Project » Section 6 - Pilot and Pilot Deck
Section 6 - Pilot and Pilot Deck
The Pilot (front of engine) and Front Truck. Sheetmetal work for the pilot deck and ladder await.

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MikadoPilotBumper11July07 004 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. MikadoPilotBumper11July07 007 11-July-07 The finished bumper on the frame. MikadoPilotCouplerPocket25July07 001 25-July-07 Drilling the front coupler pocket. MikadoPilotCouplerPocket25July07 002 25-July-07 Drilling the front coupler pocket pin hole. MikadoPilotCouplerPocket25July07 004 25-July-07 A tough setup: the cast iron tube pilot. MikadoPilotFlagStands1Aug07 001 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. MikadoPilotflagStands1Aug07 002 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. MikadoPilotBrackets1Aug07 003 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. MikadoPilotBrackets1Aug07 004 1-Aug-07 Another uncoupler lever coupler bracket done, seven to go... WaterPumpAssembly6Sept09 003 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 and forth play introduced.) IMG_5149 15-Sept-2013 Bending the coupler release lever in a rigged-up bending jig. Two dowel pins serve as bending points, a piece of pipe on top keeps them from spreading apart, c-clamp to stop the wire from rotating and a piece of square channel as the bending arm. IMG_5150 15-Sept-2013 Another view of the bending rig for the coupling lever. IMG_5157 17-Sept-2013 The installed coupling lever. IMG_4139 9-Feb-2012 After some work with the lathe running at low speed and a file, I have a ball! IMG_4140 9-Feb-2012 Milling the ball flat to form the eye. IMG_4141 9-Feb-2012 Relieving the hole to help form the rounded eye bolt. IMG_4142 9-Feb-2012 The finished eye bolt installed on the modified front coupler. A touch of paint will finish it. IMG_4123 4-Feb-2012 Modifying the Superscale coupler to fit the RR Supply front coupler pocket. Machining off the two ears flush with the body. IMG_4127 6-Feb-12 Here's something I had not planned on doing - removing the front coupler pocket from the pilot bumper. The Loctite on the screws worked, it was had to remove them. IMG_4128 6-Feb-12 Enlarging the coupler pin hole to 5/16 IMG_4130 6-Feb-12 Custom fitting the SuperScale coupler to the RR Supply coupler pocket. With a center punched wooden plug in the pin hole, we scribe a line just under 3/4 IMG_4132 6-Jan-12 The rotary table is put back on to machine the front lip of the couple pocket. Here we are centering the table under the spindle. IMG_4133 6-Feb-12 The coupler will not go deep enough into the pocket with the as-cast support lip. We have to remove some of the lip. With an angle block bolted to the rotary, the coupler pocket is centered under the spindle around the coupler pin hole. IMG_4135 6-Feb-12 Machining the front support lip to fit the SuperScale coupler. Although we centered the rotary table under the spindle, and centered the coupler pocket on the coupler pin hole (which is where the lip radius comes from), we failed to move over and indicate the angle plate and make sure it was true to the x-axis (front to back). So even though the part revolved around the couple pin hole correctly, it was crooked to the cutting plane and ended taking more off one side of the lip than the other. IMG_4136 6-Feb-12 Finished the night fabricating an eyebolt for the coupler pin. First step was to turn and thread a 5-40 bolt end. Using Marv Klotz's simple program IMG_4121 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. IMG_4109 19-Jan-2012 I have covered a piece of 16 gauge (1/16 IMG_4110 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 before 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. IMG_4111 19-Jan-12 Using a boring head/flycutter combination to enlarge the hole to size. IMG_4113 19-Jan-12 One ugly setup. I almost didn't publish this, but here's what it comes down to: The sheet metal was clamped down across the vice, the vice was not actually closed since I had to make a cut right where it would be putting clamping pressure. Lacking a foot shear or metal notcher, I mill the pilot deck profile out of the stock. IMG_4114 19-Jan-12 Trimming the end of the deck to size. IMG_4115 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. IMG_4116 22-Jan-12 Footboards and brackets ready for bending. I spent some time trying to figure out what the flat dimensions 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. IMG_4119 30-Jan-12 A picture of 'not everything goes to plan'. The original holes in the brackets were spot on, but due to some
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