The Home Machinist!

yes - doesn't have to be bronze - brass will work.

this is what I did with a porous casting







I didn't fool with locite for this, I just heated the casting and froze the sleeve and in it went.

Fred_V wrote:why cast iron for the sleeve? why not bronze? would it work to Loctite it in?

Cost. You won't see the sleeve so it can be cast iron.

Have you seen how much a 6" long piece of 1.500" brass (or bronze) costs these days?

Just make sure you store the locomotive with the pump dry! My dad spent an entire summer rebuilding his locomotive as a kid because the cast iron piston sleeves had rusted the piston in place. Even though he always blew the locomotive out with compressed air after each run, he made sure that he added extra oil from then on!

exactly why I went with brass - pitting...

it is almost impossible to get these things dry.

Few more parts finished up.

"Caps" as the print calls them -- basically keepers that fit into the water check passages in the cylinder:






I've got a piece of bronze material coming to make my steam cylinder sleeve out of. Until then... plenty more parts to make!

Got the steam cylinder sleeve just about finished up this morning. The weather is so nice out I'm going to step outside for a bit and enjoy it!

Cast bronze, courtesy of Rich_D


Setup the cylinder in the 4-jaw and bored out an extra 0.9375"


Closeup of the steam passage that's the cause of all this extra work


Turning a mandrel to machine the sleeve on


Turning the ID of the bronze sleeve to match the mandrel


Turning the OD of the bronze sleeve with it mounted on the mandrel for a press fit into the cylinder


Cylinder and sleeve, ready to be pressed together


Pressing the sleeve in


Nearly finished. Last step is to put it back in the 4-jaw and bore the ID back out to 1.375" and then face off the extra sleeve material on the top end of the cylinder

All better!

curious as to what happened here.

Pipescs wrote:curious as to what happened here.

Sidetracked with other projects, such as my scratch built hopper car
The pump is still in progress and I'll be getting back to it soon. The last work I did was to make a mounting plate for the valve chest casting so I can set it up in any orientation and have it be square from any angle.

Back on this project again... finished fixing my goof on the steam side of the pump from earlier (the hole that drifted). After sleeving the bore I drilled the passage (correctly!) from the opposite end, intersecting the previous hole.
Then machined the slot that connects the passage to the bottom end of the cylinder.
(sorry for the terrible photos -- I cannot locate my flash diffuser for my camera)


Next up I'll finish my fixture to hold the valve casting and start machining it.

Did you ever get your pump going?

David

This darn thing is still sitting on the workbench unfinished. I really, really need to get back on it and get it on the mogul. The English injector I have on the fireman's side right now is pretty much useless and I need to get the pump done.

Married life, career change, and various other things have kept me from having my normal amount of shop time the last couple years. I've also been working on more urgent things than the pump. Perhaps once I finish the current project, replacing the Allen mogul loco brakes with equalized brakes, I'll get back on this.