The Home Machinist!

Yesterday I also found some longer 3/4 bolts that will work for the pivot pins on my riding car. The bolt will go in from the bottom through the truck, then a nut is ran down the bolt until it bottoms out on the shoulder. Then a flat washer, then it goes through the frame, then a tension indicating washer, then another flat washer, and nut. The unthreaded shoulder of the bolt is a nice fit in the inside of the bronze spherical bushing so it can articulate yet not rattle. The bolt head will keep the truck attached to the frame.

The shop was able to nest in my bearing standoff plates for the trucks in the laser cutter today:

Test fitting a truck onto my riding car. I also wanted the coupler to self center, so I drilled a couple shallow pockets in each side of the shank, slipped some springs into them, and then carefully reinstalled the coupler.

In the 3rd picture you can see the 4 brackets that will support the bearings on top of the bolster, the big bolt in the center goes through a spherical bushing in the bolster. This will allow this truck to articulate and tackle up to a 1" per 12" change in grade, independent of the springs(not installed yet).

Bad news on the physical side of things. I got a metal sliver rammed into my finger tip that got infected, and it turned out that there was also a small benign tumor in the end of the finger. I had surgery on it Monday and my right hand is on "light duty" for the next couple weeks, so I'm not sure I'll be able to make any progress until it heals up.

Sorry to hear that.
Best Wishes for a swift and satisfactory recovery!
~RN

At least you can count to 5. Light duty will pass. Getting a temporary disability with a hand will make you take stock of how good you really are. I feel for you having been jammed up a few times.

Ryan, indeed Yes. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Glenn

Thanks guys, yes there was fishy smelling stuff coming out of it, and I knew it was time to go to the DR. If I had waited much longer, I may have been looking at only counting to 4-1/2 on that hand.

So I heard back from the engineer who just ran a free "napkin calculation" on my bridge. C12's vertical with C4 or 4" HSS cross-members is supposed to be good for a 5 ton live load at a minimum

Well the finger has almost finished healing, it just has a little spot in the end of it about 3/32" round that needs to heal up. I think Tuesday I'm going to get back into building things.
I visited my dad's place today and found the spare cylinder head we rebuilt for the boats 4-cylinder red-block Volvo, and I found he saved all the old valves, springs, and retainers, so I have 8ea 105# springs about 1-1/4" in diameter and 1-1/2" long with retainers that I am going to use on my locomotive's trucks. I'd held off on having the truck sides laser cut because I wanted to assure the springs fit right, so now I can finish their CAD drawing and get them cut out.

Hmmph! Take it slow and easy. It is real easy to chomp at the bit and make things worse than you started. A day or two of full healing will last the rest of your days. A good time for planning and daydreaming instead of risk. Go slow, there will be a better time.