Enigma (Liverpool Lion)

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
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Forming the large and small ends of the cranks using filing buttons.

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The first picture shows the large end formed and the second the finished cranks. I've also made the crank pins.
The spacer blocks between each pair of axle box guides are shown with their rivets flushed off. I decided to have mine with the rivets showing and by doing this, the cranks now foul on the rivet heads. Tomorrow, I'm going to make some 0.025" spacers so that the cranks clear the heads. It's never ending, maybe I'll get something right first time soon :).

Jon
 

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Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
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Rear dummy leaf springs fitted and held in place with 14BA screws. Holes were drilled and then tapped in the frame, the springs drilled clearance and counter bored with a 1/16" end mill to take the head of the screw.
There is no springing on this axle at the moment and the only thing that I can think of is to fix a rod from the leaf spring that will pass through a coil spring. The other end of the rod will locate in a hole in the axle box and be free to move. The only problem with this is that the coil spring will be quite visible spoiling the aesthetics. The problem is, I cant' think of another way of springing the axle. Would it harm the running if there were no coil spring? Any thoughts?
The reason for fixing the leaf spring with screws is because it's a bit busy around that area. If I spray paint the chassis, there could be problems with paint being able to penetrate that area and even cleaning, prior to whatever finish I use, may not be too easy.
not sure why the second photo has turned up where it has.

Jon
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Tim Watson

Western Thunderer
How about a transverse phosphor bronze wire mounted somewhere centrally and bearing down from behind the frames? BTW, will the cranks be narrowed down between the pin and the round end on the axle - quite tricky filing that.

Tim
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
Jon,

I can't see how much clearance there is between the faces of the wheel tyres and the back sides of the inner hornguides, but it might be possible to get a wire spring system behind the frame in the manner of CSV or individual wire springs acting on the axleboxes, with small brackets from the axleboxes to contact the wire.

Jim.
 

Spitfire2865

Western Thunderer
IIRC, I stuck a hole into the bottom of the spring casting. If that were opened up to accept a coil spring, you could space it all out so it naturally rides bottomed out on the rear axle, but in the case of a dip, it can push down to maintain footing. Shouldnt be too noticeable.
 

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
Tim
I'm very green when it comes to using phosphor bronze wire for anything :). Not sure what BTW stands for but, I was going to leave the cranks as they are. My filing isn't that good.

Jim
I don't know who or what a CSV is, I'm afraid.

Trevor
IIRC?

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I think that it is back to the drawing board re the suspension or at least my try. I fixed theses pins into the leaf spring so that there would be some connection between axle box and spring as per the prototype. The only problem here is that because of the spacer blocks, which I riveted in place, there's not enough room to slide them in place. Luckily, they are only fixed with araldite so, the pins came out okay. My idea was that the pin would travel into the box by about .080" and I was going to try a coil spring just to see what it would look like, how noticeable it would be. I'm glad that I made the leaf springs detachable.
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This is the hole in the box where the pin would have slid up and down. I suppose, I could reverse the scenario and have the pin fixed in the box and for it to slide in the leaf spring.

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The gap between the wheel and the axle box is .050".

Jon
 

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
In this picture, the pins are lose and just long enough so that they won't fall out when the loco is picked up. They are shown fully compressed and the travel will be the distance from the base of the box to within .020" of the lower edge of the guide. However, for me it's not ideal as the springs show, obviously, but I can't think of another solution. If I blackened the springs, maybe they wouldn't show so much.
Time for a cuppa...

Jon

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Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
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Two pictures showing the quartering of the wheels with crank pins made especially for this operation. The pictures show the leading and the driving axles. I mounted the axles onto the frames this morning only to find that, as the pins are bolted from the back of the crank, that there wasn't any clearance for the nut, and the pins are a little long)! I'm going to reduce the width of the nuts and the length of the pins themselves to see if this gives me the clearance that I need. If that doesn't work, I'm going to have to apply heat and hope that it breaks the Loctite seal, take all apart and make new axles. A pain in the proverbial but that's life, sometimes.

Jon
 

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
I did make new axles but didn't take into account the width of the parting tool so, had to make them all again, which turns out to be three sets to date!! While I was at it, I made new crank pins as well. I cut the originals a bit short as they were fouling the axle box fixings. I also replaced the fixing nuts with some 10BA opened out to 8BA nuts and they look much neater that way.

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Here we have the outer wrapper, throat plate and back head for the firebox. I did think that it was a good idea to use real rivets but after marking out, drilling and de burring both sides, I'm not quite so sure now. Also, there may be a problem with trying to rivet the wrapper in place due to space restrictions. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it but fingers crossed that it's not a very long bridge. I cut the former out of 1/2" stuff as that was all that I had but the work has improved the muscles in my arms.

I was musing over the drawings for the smoke box this morning while drinking my first cup of the day. When scaling down the dimensions, I very soon realised that there may be trouble ahead. The actual width of the smoke box scales at 2.279 and the G3 back to back measurement is 2.281. It doesn't take a genius to work out that that isn't going to work, another bridge to cross.

When thinking about the batteries et al for the loco, I thought that all was going to be dead easy as it would all fit into the boiler barrel and smoke box. In theory yes, but the doors to the box are rectangular which will make sliding in a battery pack not very easy at all in fact, impossible. At the moment, I'm thinking of leaving the fitting of the smoke box to the boiler barrel until all of the bits and pieces are in situ. I've just got to think of a reversible means of fixing in case anything goes wrong and the electrics need to be taken out. With a round door there wouldn't have been this problem. These bridges are building up :).

Jon
 

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
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A dummy run to see how the main springs fit and look. The fittings that pass through the frames are made up from a piece of brass rod threaded 12BA and then silver soldered onto a piece of brass tube. The nuts are 14BA opened up and tapped 12BA. There will be another nut to act as a lock nut. The hangers are pieces of nickel silver and the pins being 14BA cheese head screws with the heads turned down until the slot disappears. That's it for the frames for the time being and it's back to the boiler.

Jon
 

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
I couldn't buy a commercially made door, not even for ready money, so, I made one. It looks a bit wonky which could be the sloping latch tricking the eye but, I think that it's okay. The hinge plate will be bolted as will the latch but the rest will be riveted.

Jon

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Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
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A TALE OF WOE.
I managed to solder up the fire box but, I forgot to allow for the thickness of the wrapper, twice, and the height of the rivet heads as well making the whole thing too tight to comfortably fit between the wheels! I made up a spacer out of a piece of brass hexagon to keep the backplate and the throat plate at the correct distance apart and somehow, once bolted up, the setup jumped out of my hands and landed on the floor. Because the plates were still soft from annealing, it didn't look a pretty sight once I'd picked it up. I straightened up the plates as best I could but the rivets prevented me from making a really good job. The actual soldering went okay apart from the fact that some of the solder ran over the rivets. Most cleaned off but from the cleaning process, I've ended up with square rivet heads, third picture. I used a fibre glass pen, fine emery and a brass rotary brush held in the dremel. If I clean off the rivet heads where they are adjacent to the wheels, I may get enough clearance for the thing to work. Because everything is so tight, I'll have to make sure that the boiler and smokebox line up perfectly or I will be starting again. Somehow I managed to rivet the boiler ring onto the throatplate too high which will mean that the boiler will sit higher than it should. This could be a blessing in disguise as it will mean that there is more space to accommodate the motor which was a little tight.
As mentioned in a much earlier post, the name of this engine will be ENIGMA, which I am now starting to think will suit her very well.

Jon
 

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
I ground off the heads of the rivets and still not enough clearance and so, I've scrapped the firebox. I did manage to save the door but not the boiler ring. Things are always so much harder to take apart carefully than they are to fix in place. I'm going to have to make the box as per the old one in looks but not in width. Because the rivets are an integral part of the boiler, as they are exposed, I will still include them but I may go down the route of embossing. I can't think of another way of making the firebox other than the way I made it before i.e., with flanged plates and a soldered on wrapper. Any hints or tips will be gratefully received if anyone can think of another way.

Jon
 

Spitfire2865

Western Thunderer
The firebox on my American had to be thinned quite a bit to clear the frames. I was lucky however that the firebox was tapered downward from the round top, not parallel like yours so narrowing the interframe area was easy.
Id say you have to just make the whole thing smaller. It was very well done however, even if it didnt fit.
 

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
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A couple of pictures of my Salter Safety Valves with the one on the right in it's exploded view to show how they go together. I've yet to make the 'eye' as can just be seen on the original. Fiddly things to turn but, I got there eventually. the second picture shows them against yet another picture but this time of the originals as fitted to the full size Lion. The yoke/bracket will be the next things to make.

Jon
 

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
I have been steadily working on this project but it is a case of doing a bit and then stopping until I have this or that part before I can carry on. There are a lot of pieces in the workshop waiting to be put together and when they are, I will post some pictures. In the meantime, I have made a start on the splashers. The parts were very kindly cut out for me by Jamie page on his pantograph machine, thank you Jamie. The first picture shows the soldering process which I carried out with a soldering iron and Carrs 221 degree lead/silver solder at least, that's what it says on the packet. The next picture when they are cleaned up together with the rolled splasher tops. The spider, which is an extension of the decorative brass bands, will be trimmed away after all soldering is complete. I measured up to find out how wide the tops would need to be and came up with 10mm. That is, before I realised that I needed to mount a spring first and then take another measurement which turned out to be 7mm. While I was trying to get this new measurement, it occurred to me that because things are quite tight between the side of the frame and the wheel that I may not be able to use the splashers as there just isn't enough clearance. However, I'm going to make them up and then have another look to see if there is enough clearance. I'm not suggesting that the gap will have grown over-night more that it may be easier to check when the tops are in place. :) If there isn't enough room then, I'll tuck them away for the next scratch build. Having said that though, scratch building a loco in my opinion is far, far more difficult than scratch building the odd wagon or two.

Jon

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