2017 POTD Thread Archive

I haven't posted in a while progress on my 14" Rockwell lathe. The headstock is all back together ready to run. I'm rebuilding the apron now and just about have it back together, too. Had to make a replacement gear to replace one that is in bad shape. Here's a picture of the new handwheel shaft with the stock Martin gear I bought next to it along with a new bronze bushing. The old shaft with integral gear is next to the new one.
Ken

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Finishing up my RR trestle - for 12" ga steam locomotive and backyard railway.

Finally got the four stringers installed atop the bents. Iam particularily happy that the 64 cross braces (3/16" x 1" x16") I made up to hold the 4"x6" sringers to the bents are working well. The braces add very significant strength to the structure - in fact impart exceptional rigidity to the overall trestle.

Here are the brackets with a coat of metal primer - good old rust red undercoat!

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And the stringers installed on the bents- all held together nicely with the brackets.

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End of Track!
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That is some toy train, absolutely amazing. What will be the length of track when finished. Next time I get to the states I must come and see this.
 
Hey all, sure come on over! The extra gang has plenty of slots open. We are planning on holding a golden spike ceremony, when ever I finally get done laying track. open to all!

Still have one more bridge to lay in, ( short- only 10' connecting to the trestle), track ballast to lay, and about 30' of excavation through a ridge on the Northern Section.

Glenn

Glenn, you have no idea how tempting that is
:grin:
If you were 1000-2000 miles closer you would have to call the police to get me off your property lol:angel:
Do you build through the winter?
 
Rich, well, I do work through the winter, but shop isn't heated and we get a lot of rain here in the PNW, so it's kind of sporadic as far as track work goes. I had hoped to be done by fall, then start in on rebuilding my old 1904 steam engine this winter. But the trestle has soaked up three months now, so Iam a bit behind in my schedule. Plus it just snowed today in Seattle, with 3" expected by the morning - for the first time in early November in maybe 800,000 years - woops, not true, I forgot the Pleistocene - the last ice age, that glaciated Seattle 15,000 years ago, or so - it must have snowed then. So no telling what conditions will be over the next few months.

Bobshoppy Track length is fairly short - Iam planning on the main line being a loop around the backyard of about 500', plus maybe couple of hundred feet for a siding and the rail car yards next to the shop.

I've been looking for a one mile right of way, in some regional park, or the national forest, but so far to no avail. There are a couple of nonprofit veterans groups locally that do land conversation and some therapy farming for War Veterans. They may be interested in helping create a non profit miniature RR, to teach machining and outdoor conservation and agriculture skills, but finding a proper ROW is a challenge.

Glenn
 
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Rich, well, I do work through the winter, but shop isn't heated and we get a lot of rain here in the PNW, so it's kind of sporadic as far as track work goes. I had hoped to be done by fall, then start in on rebuilding my old 1904 steam engine this winter. But the trestle has soaked up three months now, so Iam a bit behind in my schedule. Plus it just snowed today in Seattle, with 3" expected by the morning - for the first time in early November in maybe 800,000 years - woops, not true, I forgot the Pleistocene - the last ice age, that glaciated Seattle 15,000 years ago, or so - it must have snowed then. So no telling what conditions will be over the next few months.

Bobshoppy Track length is fairly short - Iam planning on the main line being a loop around the backyard of about 500', plus maybe couple of hundred feet for a siding and the rail car yards next to the shop.

I've been looking for a one mile right of way, in some regional park, or the national forest, but so far to no avail. There are a couple of nonprofit veterans groups locally that do land conversation and some therapy farming for War Veterans. They may be interested in helping create a non profit miniature RR, to teach machining and outdoor conservation and agriculture skills, but finding a proper ROW is a challenge.

Glenn
Wow thats some backyard track, although short, especially as I understand it's 12" gauge. Also a lot of work building that trestle. Do you use specially made rail section or make your own" That would be quite a hefty loco. I must make an effort to see this next time I'm stateside.
 
Bobshobby, yep, fairly short track. unfortunately, that's all I have room for around the back of our lot. Iam using old 12# rail - used to be fairly common around the Western US in mining and logging railroads - also on sugarcane plantations in Hawaii when sugar was king. Please feel free to stop by whenever you are close by. I'd be happy to give you a tour.

Glenn
 
South Africa is in the process of changing its ‘standard’ plug design. Going from what was a rather chunky, only used in South Africa (as far I can tell) plug to an IEC plug standard that no one else in the world has adopted. But it is a well thought out standard and I can see it has some technical and safety advantages.
So I installed a new socket and rewired the plugs on my mill and lathe.
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Still not 100% sure how this new, much smaller plug/socket, can be rated the same 16A as the old plug.

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Coming from New Zealand where a larger standard plug was only rated at 10A it doesn’t make sense to my mind, but the smaller size is much more convenient (4 sockets in the space of two of the older socket) so will give it a try.
 
At work we have a slitter for cutting thin metal brazing material into narrower strip to fit the stamp presses or be chopped into short pieces. The original shafts were not really made correctly and we have been wanting to make new ones. Today I finished roughing out 1 of the two arbors that hold the splitter knives. I did this at home as the lathe at work has an issue with the motor. Either it has a bad coil or the smaller Chinese horse power is not allowing me to take a good cut. Anyways I spent about 6 hours hogging away, 0.140" per pass at around 500 rpm, from the 2" shaft 4140 to 1.135" on one side of the thrust bearing shoulder and 1.020" on the other side. Still have to cut the threads and then over to the
cylindrical grinder to finish. The other shaft is shorter on the left side as it is driven by this one.

I likely could of taken more per pass but the chatter was the limiting issue not the power of the lathe.

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G'day Glenn, we have quite a large system of sugar cane railways here in Downunder. The sugar cane area covers 1599km strip of oastal Queenslnd. Most of the track is 2ft gauge with a small amount of 3ft 6inch.

There are about 4,000 kilometres of track, of which about 3,000 kilometres is main line, transporting up to 36 million tonnes of sugar cane to the mills, each season. There are about 250 diesel hydraulic locomotives in use and about 52,000 cane "bins".

Rail in use is almost invariably 31 kg/m (60 lb/yd) on main lines and 22 kg/m (40 lb/yd) on branch lines and sidings There is a somewhat smaller system on the other side of the country in Nth West Western Australia

Not sure when I'll be in USA next, but as my daughter now lives in Colorado I expect it will be within a year or two, and I'll be glad to take up your offer.
 
This is a new thread that I am starting. As the good weather of Spring and Summer rolls around, many of us will go back to the shop to do something. We want to know what you did in your shop today. No limits, just tell us what you did.

Today in my shop, I am installing some shelves using 8x10 brackets I got from Home Depot and some 2x4 sheets of 3/4" MDF I also bought there.
I made this as a part of an Acto tool and cutter grinder recentlyIMG_20160224_181252436.jpg
 
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