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17 comments
thanks. do you cast your parts?
said lrisen
You've done some really nice work there. I hope one day to build a big boy; my dad was a fireman on them, has some amazing stories to tell. Currently we're building a 4400 switcher, to learn the ropes. What's your current status? I'm learning a *lot* from the pictures.
said arloames
I will approach the cylinder situation carefully when I get there... at the rate I'm going on getting access to a mill I won't have to think about cylinders for awhile (seriously there's only one mill on the market in my area that's not either a big cnc rig or a mill/drill!) I wonder why he didnt take you up on your offer? I'm planning on buying two standard clamping sets when I get my hands on a mill. As to rough cutting I'm trying to cut a deal with a local armored car shop that has a water jet cutter... they just might be hungry enough to quote me something within my price range. Otherwise I'm liking your approach of hogging it out as opposed to chain drilling then cutting on a bandsaw. I currently have 2 .5" cobalt endmills (one for roughing and one for finishing) I know I'll need more but I figured it would get me started on one of the mills at my "home track" once I get briefed on that machine.
said MjahnFEF826
If you can get the cylinders from him you better get them in hand! when i talked to him he had none, and was having a hard time finding some one to cast them for him. i even offered to cast him 10 sets for 1. they are also 1.6:1 mime is 1.5:1 I drilled all "corners" and then using a 1 inch TiN HSS roughing mill at 60 RPM and ecocool coolant to hog every thing out 'most' corners were .125r Then an extrs long .25 carbide Tin mill was used to finish. It was all cut from the same set up using only the mill, both plates at the same time. use as many clamps as you have. when the boxes were installed axle 1 and 5 were squared, draw file if need be and work back from there
said lrisen
I'm planning on using Goldmann's Challenger cylinders and following his bolt up pattern there. I've been looking at the setup for the second frame. Please forgive an ignorant question but was that frame cut out solely with the mill or once you cut the "pilot" holes did you unbolt the plates and rough cut the tangent lines with something else? I've been told that if I "hog" the steel out with the mill I will warp the steel. I just bolted up my steel plates as of yesterday and I've been given access to a mill at my home road. I'm hoping I can square up at least one of the frames so I can scribe and rough cut next week. New shop space is always a good thing! It sounds like you're new setup will allow you to get under the locomotive while its on the build track, did I get that right? Please post pics! MJahn
said MjahnFEF826
it's not just the frame that won't show. there are many parts inside the front truck alone. some thing else to keep in mind is, the frame, cylinders and other mountings were cast in one piece, so some kind of provision must be made to bolt them. as in the supports for the valve gear. center the plates on the mill so that "ALL" the journals can be cut on the same set up, by rotating the turret (see pic "milling the rear frame" and "head to the left". I cut the entire frame without unbolting it from the table. I have been working on adding another 400 ft to the shop and have turned all efforts to that starting with the removal of 10 yards of dirt (by hand) using that for a water fall. the finished floor will be 34 inches lower than the existing shop floor which happens to be the exact height of my construction table.
said lrisen
You make a good point on how the frame looks... if it ever ends up upside down I'm going to have a lot more things to stress over than what someone says about how my work looks. How's the progress coming along on the big boy? I'm currently marking up my drawings for reference points and i cut out templates for roughing out... Hoping to have a mill in my garage by September.
said MjahnFEF826
For the frame i clamped both sides to the mill after band sawing out what i could, then used a 1 inch roughing mill to get closer and then finished with a 1/4 end mill. as for the auto adjuster leave it out but cut the back side of the journal to center the axle however as long as the saddle is centerd above the axle it shouldn't matter. as far as warping i used hot rolled plate and did not have a problem with that. not every part is going to turn out perfect, in fact most parts will never be seen unless it ends up upside down.
said lrisen
Thanks for the reminder about the gage being wide... thats something I've heard before but probably wouldn't have connected in time to save my first affected piece. I'll also keep the trailing truck in mind, i just got my plate yesterday so I'm a couple months from thinking about castings. I think I've seen the truck on DLS, but one thing that concerns me about it is that I know how I'd make cosmetic touch ups to it and my personality would drive me NUTS if the truck didn't look right. I was wondering about how you cut your frame. A friend told me that I should rough cut the whole frame before putting it on a mill to prevent warping. Did you rough cut? If you didn't, did you have warping problems?
said MjahnFEF826
If you have the drawings do not deveate from scale BUT keep in mind that the guage will be more than scale so anything that mounts to the frame and ends at the wheel will need to be "off" wide. Study a drawing before cutting/drawing the part. my trailing truck drawing hung on the wall for 1-1/2 years and another year to make the pattern. I do have an unmachined casting i would sell. while it isn't perfect it is solid where it needs to be and it's only half the price as an aluminum one.
said lrisen
Thanks for the insight, I'm hoping to buy my steel plate before the end of June! Also, my casting project turned out successful... my lil' gasser went from barely being able to pull 13 cars to rather easily pulling 29! Have you made any progress on the big boy lately?
said MjahnFEF826
As i see it, if they are longer the ends will get closer together. i have not located the pivot/mount for the truck. There is 3/16 laterial movement to each side on all drive axles so that i can shim for final results. i assume you are refering to scale VS guage, because that can be problematic. the truck was cast to scale, which made the guage a little large but did allow the "rigging" to align through the transition between the wheels (on the frame) to outside the wheels on the truck.
said lrisen
ok. Did you have to extend the equalization rod that goes from the trailing truck s.r. to the main bed s.r. to make it around the sharper radiuses? Sorry that my responses are so slow. Webshots doesn't tell me when an email comes in and I'm going in so many circles that I don't always get to check this site in a timely manner. M.J.
said MjahnFEF826
valve gear? not that far. brakes are the next section i am working on, now that the spring rigging is finished (with alot of temp. pieces till final weigh in)
said lrisen
Thanks. I got drawings from the UPHS and I've been working through them. So far I've stayed away from the idea of casting because I's kind of intimidating and I'm in a suburban area, though a friend and I will be casting lead weights for my switcher in a few weeks. What's your plan for the valvegear? are you going to hand mill or cnc it? M.J.
said MjahnFEF826
I'll see what i can do. Don't let this project fool you. the frames are not that hard to do. i have 3600+ drawings of the locomotive, keeping in mind there are 2,4,6,8,10,16 and sometimes one each of those parts. Learn how to cast iron, convert to 1/8 from full size on the fly, and hurry up and get started. Leon
said lrisen
Hi, I'm hoping to model a bigboy someday. Would it be possible for you to post or email me your cutting diagram you used for the frame? M.J.
said MjahnFEF826
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