Wichendon Machine Shop (restart)

[GeorgeD]

Looking good, Dave.  All those details ought to keep you busy for a while.

George

[PRR Modeler]

Looks great so far Dave.

[nycjeff]

Hello Dave, I've been watching and learning as you go through your process on this build. It's going to look great when you're done. I just hope that all of the details will be visible when you are finished.

[Philip]

  Nice work!

[deemery]

I ordered some Badger Stynylrez "Metal" primer for the belt drive hangers, etc.  It'll be interesting to see how that stuff works on the pewter castings.

Now I know I've put a lot of discussion and detail in this thread.  But I suspect many of you might be interested in a machine shop model, so I wanted to let you-all know the kinds of challenges I've run into on this project.  It's definitely been a marathon, with lots more to go.

add:  There's a great segment on cutting and installing a belt on this video starting about 11:40 or so:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5TCh0jRX1k  One thing I realized after watching this is that you can use two pulleys on one shaft, one idler and one driven, with a double width pulley on the other shaft.  Here's an image from the video that shows 2 pulleys on one side and a double-wide on the other.

In the video, watch how the belt moves from the driven to the idler wheel by the gentle application of the crescent wrench as a shifter.

another add:  I measured my RGM pulleys.  The large thick wheels are 8" wide, each step on the cone pulleys are 4" and the intermediate size wheels are 6".  So that says my belt width should be 4" or about .046.  That should work OK. 

dave

[swisstrain]

I haven't been able to check in in a while - your build is coming along nicely.

Your shop floor is much better researched in terms of placement of machines and to create a logical work arrangements.  I really hope that the removable wall ends up working out, considering all the thought that you are putting into this project.

Will continue to follow.

Urs

[GPdemayo]

Great  progress on the build Dave, excellent details on the machines and power delivery system.....

[deemery]

Well, I got some steam built back up for this.  One problem, how to drill holes in the step pulleys for the shafts.  I don't need through holes, but I want holes deep and tight enough to hold the shaft rods.  I built a little jig to hold them, using my cheap numbered drill bit set.  The bottom hole is the diameter of the smallest pulley in the cone, the top hole is the diameter of the largest pulley.  You can see to the right a hole from the next larger bit that was too big.

Then I needed a way to hold the part while driling.  I drilled a hole to the next larger size in a piece of scrap wood and used that to hold the part vertical while drilling (Proxxon/MicroMark drill press, #67 bit.)


The next problem, one I mentioned yesterday, is getting the soft white metal belt shifter into the #67 hole in the shifter bracket:

I asked over at MRH forum if anyone had a suggestion, I got some but no "obviously this is how to do it."  So my approach will be to carefully scrape and file the shaft to fit.  Here's the RGM instruction, you can see the shifter on the right.


Finally, I got Tamiya "Black iron" paint, and ran that through the Iwata airbrush to paint the brackets.  The challenge is keeping them from getting blown away.  I used Green Frog tape, but 2 came loose, so I put a piece of double stick tape (bottom right), repositioned them (tweezers) and finished spraying.  This looks like a good color.


I'm still pondering a small forge for one corner of the building, found some good picturses on the 'Net that I printed out for inspiration.  But frankly, what I need to do now is a round of pick-up/put-away!

dave

[friscomike]

Howdy Dave,

Nice work on the pulleys, brackets, and shafts.  I like the way you held the parts for drilling.

Have fun,
mike

[deemery]

Howdy Dave,

Nice work on the pulleys, brackets, and shafts.  I like the way you held the parts for drilling.

Have fun,
mike

I've watched a lot of 'historic machine shop' videos and learned some good tips, as well as learning the technology.

dave

[PRR Modeler]

Great job on the shaft parts. I really look forward to seeing it put together.

[Jerry]

Nice job Dave.  And a clever jig to hold them.

Jerry