Building Fred

Hi All

As some of you already know, my next project is a live steam locomotive based on plans Dave Watkins drew up based the de Winton "Idris".
It's taken quite a lot of searching to get together suitable materials for the build to start, but I think I have enough together now.

My loco will be called Fred - after my grandfather, who provided me with a nice piece of copper plate and other odds & ends.

First up, I'll do the loco frame. Please excuse the quality of the photographs; there is something wrong with my camera....

Thursday evening after work I managed to get into the shop for an hour and a half. I started with a piece of 1.6mm plate I got off an old UPS cover:


I marked and bandsawed 2 x 24mm wide strips off it - this is oversize so that I can file the sides straight and to the required 22mm width:


Then I clamped the plates and a guide plate together, mounted the whole assembly in the big vise and settled down to an extended period of filing:


One of the things I have not been able to find is suitable 6mm angle for the frame supports and corner pieces, so some improvisation is needed. At noon today on I started in the shop by sawing some square tubing I got out of an old printer in half to get angles. I did this on the bandsaw, using the table blade groove as a guide. It's blade does not run in the exact center of the groove, but I used this to my advantage to get one "good" piece of angle iron from the cut; the other side warped away:

Some more sweat and filing was then applied to the angle to trim it up.

Part of the reason for my late start today was that I needed to go and get paint stripper from town to get the old paint off the plates. What a waste of time. I don't know what kind of paint was on these plates, but the paint stripper did absolutely nothing to it. So I took the lot outside, and used a blow torch to burn off the paint. Then an extended session with a wire wheel in the drill press to get rid of all the last bits still sticking. A bit of a safety note: On many drill presses (like mine) that use a morse taper shank and jacobs taper on the chuck, one of the two tapers is liable to come loose when trying to use loose running toolbits like a wire wheel. To make sure the jacobs part on my setup does not come loose, I fit the chuck to the shank by heating the chuck in the oven and freezing the shank in the deep freeze, then tapping them together. This pretty much a permanent solution; one is very unlikely to get them apart again. To make sure the morse taper does not come apart, I made a ring with 2 rows of grub screws that secures the shank to the spindle after it is inserted. If anybody wants a picture of this, just shout

After the plates were clean, I superglued them together, and swiped permanent marker ink over the one face to do the layout:


Some quality time with the measuring instruments followed, and then a lot of hole-drilling. Part way through chain drilling for the cut-outs, the heat generated started to melt the superglue and the one end of the plates wanted to come apart, so I had to clamp the plates on that side. I let things cool down and drilled the last couple if holes. More filing still required:


Next up was a lot more filing. It was 34 degrees here today, so it was hot job to do the filing, and once done, I called it a day. End of day's work - not much for all the time spent! - Frame sides done, and some 6mm angle:


Regards, Arnold

I'm liking it so far 'A', I've looked at that model several times and then have gotten side tracked with other doings. This is going to be a good thread to follow. Best of luck

BC1
Jim

Hi Arnold

great start :bow:,,,,,this will be one to watch Thm:

Regards Rob

This is great Arnold. This is going to be very enjoyable. I hope to build a loco some day so this is going to be very interesting. Great detail on the build process. Thanks!

You're making a good start of it, Arnold. It's good to see a young feller getting along with a file.
I'm glad to catch this project on its "opening day", too. Some how I seem to always come in on the middle of these things...

Do you have a local railroad club where you will eventually run this loco?

You are sooooo right Dean, about seeing the file put to good use. I gave up on a young fellow that had asked for my help getting started in the hobby and he would never listen or want to use a file. Everything had to be machine cut with him. I couldn't take it anymore and finally told him to ask elsewhere if he was not going to listen. He did not progress much after and is still schlepping. It is an easy art to master but a file takes a bit of patience and a good eye also helps.

BC1
Jim

:bow: Excellent build so far, I'm really interested in watching this one, as there's an Idris on my to-do list. :bow:

The nice thing about building in this scale, easy-to-get O-gauge track!

Thank you Jim, Rob, Zee, Dean & Vernon

Dean & Jim, as to the filing - thank you. It may be hard work doing all the filing, but it is also very rewarding. I also feel it is good to use basic tools to get a "feel" for working with metal (or any other material for that matter) - if/when one then progresses to power tools, you can do so much better in many instances. I could have used my dremel, but have found that in some cases, manual filing is just as fast (or even faster) and gives better results.

Dean, no, there is no local club. As far as I am aware, I am the only person in Namibia doing live steam / compressed air model engineering. I have some O gauge track on order from EBay, and will set up a nice layout on my front veranda to run the loco. I will also build a Cracker loco and wagons at a later stage. There are RC clubs for aeroplanes and cars here; after finishing some more projects, I intend to display my models at these clubs, as well as our "old wheelers" open days, to see if there are any more Namibians interested in our hobby.

Vernon, I was not able to get ANY O gauge track here in Namibia, and only one South African hobby supplier could get - everything here in Southern Africa is HO - So I've ordered track from overseas.

Regards, Arnold

Arnold,I realize you've made your own angle stock now,but K&B makes 1/4" brass angle,which may/may not be available in SA.
I'll be watching this thread closely,as I intend to make a gauge 1 Idris sometime.(5 year plan :big: :big.
I admire people who can use a file properly.When I'm on the end of one,the workpiece takes on the appearance of a washboard.Guess I need to do it more often,so as to get in some practice.

Thanks bentprop I might be able to find some in RSA; I'm going there in February, and will look around for some hard-to-come-by stock. I hope your five year plan is better than mine that just change every day . Know what you mean about the washboard... more practice definitely makes it better

Didn't get too much done today; just drilling and riveting - and sorted out the camera.

First up, cut the angle to the needed lengths, and clamped to the "inside" surface of the side plates to drill for the rivets. I marked both side plates on the inside with a couple of punch marks so that I would not get them mixed up and end up riveting the angle to the wrong side. All drilled through:


I have never in my life done riveting, except for pop-rivets. Searching around locally, I could not find suitable ones for the project, so some improvisation was needed.
After some testing, I came up with a method that seems to work OK. A piece of 1.5mm copper wire, a pin with a hole drilled in for a short length, and a pin with one end turned down to get in the tight areas, and the point dimpled with a drill to help form rivet heads (sorry for out of focus):


First off, I insert the wire through the plates and into the hole in the pin clamped level with the top of the vise:


Then clip the wire off a short length above the plate:


Hammer it down with the dimpled pin:


The half-formed rivet already stays in place and holds the plates together, but pulls easily out of the bottom pin, so I just did all the rivets on one side (the inside where the "mess" I made will not be as visible :hDe: :


Then turned the whole assembly around - here you can see the other sides of the rivets showing:


I then clipped all the rivets evenly to about 1mm length with a side-cutter and used the dimpled pin to form the rivet heads. By having the excess to an even length, a fairly uniform row of rivet heads were formed on the "presentation" side. End of work today showing one side plate's "inside", the other the presentation side:


The plans calls for "curved" angle and side plates, but I'm not making that. My boiler will be a couple of mm less in diameter than the plans calls for, and will have adequate clearance. Dave Watkins mentions this possibility in his "build log" - with the caveat that an alternate means of securing the boiler will have to be found.

Regards, Arnold

Hi Arnold

you're off to a good start there. I will be following along with great interest.

Cheers, Joe

Looking forward to watching this one 8)

To me you're making great progress Arnold. I managed 4 holes today. ;D

Riveting stuff Arnold Rof} :hDe:


For never had riveted before and having to make your own rivets :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: great job Thm:

Regards Rob

Good going, Arnold.
In the past I've spent hours forming rivets with a ball pein and flat punch. You sure have a better way of doing it!

Dean

Thank you for your kind responses everyone

Zee, EVERY hole counts! (especially if you have only one 1.5mm drill, and have to drill lots of holes with it, and it's Sunday, so you can't pop out for a new one if it breaks ;D)

Rob, now why was I sort of expecting a response like that ??? Rof} Rof} - Thank you very much ;D

Dean, thank you; I'm not sure if it's necessarily a "better" way, but it worked for me

Kind regards, Arnold

Wow - what a week...

After a month's wait, I finally received the railroad track I ordered, but the people at trainz.com sent me the wrong tracks... When I placed a complaint, their inventory manager responded that I need not send the wrong track back because of the international shipping costs, and that the correct track would be dispatched immediately. If they come through on this, I would qualify it as GREAT service; If not, I'm out of pocket a lot of money - I'll see which in 4-5 weeks...

My old faithful camera has finally given up the ghost after many thousands of photos, so this morning I splurged on a new one. I'm still learning it's ins & outs, so the photos below might not be quite up to standard... (though mine has never really been )

On to work.
Yesterday evening, I finished the front and rear frame plates. Just more sawing & filing & paint removal & hole drilling, so not a lot missed without having a camera.

I made one build "error" so far; I didn't drill & thread the angle pieces that would make the front & rear frame plates bolt to the side plates before riveting the angles to the side plates... Drilling & tapping the holes were now pretty difficult. To do this, I used some threaded rod through the holes for the wheel bearings to set the side frames to the correct width apart. A strongish magnet helped to keep the end plates in place so that I could clamp them up:


As I had to manage the entire frame, and had to drill on the ends, I decided that it might be easier to just clamp the whole assembly in the bench vice, and drill the 1.6mm holes with the Dremel. BIG mistake. My 20 year old Dremel does not have speed control and runs at 15000 rpm (I think), and on the second hole, I didn't dive in positively enough, and this happened to the 1.6mm drill bit because of friction:

This also work-hardened the hole in question a LOT!

After that, I "fudged up" a way to hold the assembly in the drill press. I couldn't properly clamp it, so held it by hand with the toolmaker's clamps resting and providing some support in the ring normally used to secure the drill table. Forgot to take a photo of that setup; if anyone's interested I can take a "staged" one at some point. Fortunately, I had a couple more 1.6mm drill bits to finish the job. The work-hardened hole blunted another one...

Tapping the holes was fun. All went well, except for the work-hardened hole... I broke a tap for the first time in my life; so destiny has finally caught up with me; it was bound to happen at some point:

Fortunately the hole was nearly done and the broken bit came out easily with the automatic center punch. I just _very_ carefully used the plug tap to finish the hole; lots of to-ing and fro-ing, and lots of lube.

I haven't been able to find any 2mm screws locally. Ordering from RSA/Overseas takes weeks, so for now, I'll just make up my own ones. One partly made from excess I cut off 5mm bolts from the scrap bin:


When parting off the screws-in-making, they want to disappear in the swarf, so I just used a spray can bottle cap to catch them:


End of work today; not a lot to show, but a most interesting experience so far. The frame taking shape; bolted together with screws-in-making, and a countersink screw-in-making bottom right. I stopped, as my concentration was going haywire. I think I need to experiment with an angled-tip parting tool as well, as the parting excess on the screws are going to be a pain to remove:


Regards, Arnold
PS - is anybody else still having problems with the post preview, or is it just me?

What kind of o scale rail are you looking for tubular or solid?. Were did you purchase the plans from? I run O in 3 rail but it would be fun to have an outside RR

Hey Arnold,

I have to tell you that your post on filing your frames was an inspiration to me. I was working on a piston rod guide (crosshead) yesterday that involved a lot of filing and sanding. I thought about you and your work and it helped me believe I could do a decent job on mine. Thanks.

As for the preview...there's a work-around for it. There was a recent post on it from Kevin...sorry I don't remember the details.

Nice work. Very interested in watching this.

It's coming along, Arnold. You have a lot of work invested in the frame already!

To clean up the head of the screw where the parting tool leaves a bur you can tap a piece of round or square stock that is a convenient size to handle, and thread the little screw into it finger tight. Then hold it in a vise for filing. You're good at that filing stuff!

Dean