Disney American

[JBodenmann]

Hello My Friends
Here is a bit of an update on the little tea kettle. Mostly just simple moulding to hold in the raised panels and windows. The only tricky part was the curved moulding holding in the raised panel at the front of the cab. I scratched my head a bit on this one. One way to make this part is with fixtures that hold the panel when shaping the edge. For just two pieces this is a lot of fiddling about. As the moulding is mostly curved with a tiny straight length at the end I just cut out curved pieces of MDF to guide the moulding when it was zoomed on the router table. The straight bit at the end was hand carved. Sometimes you can get away with soaking thin moulding in fabric softener for a few days. This will turn it into a wet noodle and then you can clamp it around a form and let it dry there. This moulding is walnut which doesn't accept the fabric softener very well, and a bit thick so that wouldn't have worked here. Some early engines have thin curved moulding at the tops of the cab windows and this little trick has worked for this in the past.
See you later alligator.
Jack

[JBodenmann]

Hello My Friends
Here are a few things that you may find useful. The top three photos here show a handy little set up when using the disc sander. Just a simple piece of plywood with a 90 degree corner clamped to the table. When fitting up moulding like we have here it is rough cut with the band saw and then fitted and sanded to length using the disc sander. The pictures show that you can sand both right hand and left hand miters with the set up, and also 90 degree joints without having to re set anything. The bottom two snappies show a set up for making curved moulding with the router table. The piece to be shaped must match the curvature of the guide. Watch your fingers! The router was not running for the photos and I use a push stick on the tail end of the moulding when actually running the part.
Happy Model Building.
Jack

[Greg_Lewis]

...
Watch your fingers! The router was not running for the photos and I use a push stick on the tail end of the moulding when actually running the part. ...

Read that again, friends. Jack mentions it casually in passing but I think woodworking machinery may be more dangerous than our metal mashing stuff. I came within a millimeter of losing a fingertip on my table saw. The first thing I did after stopping the bleeding was to make a set of push sticks, which I now use, along with feather boards, on every cut that's not against the miter gauge. Angled cuts and ripping are particularly dangerous. Push pads came with the jointer and are also always used. It takes only a few minutes to make the proper tools, and less than 1/100 of a second to lop off a body part.

[JBodenmann]

Hello My Friends
Here is something that you may find useful. Sometimes when modeling early engines or rolling stock we find that square head fasteners were once very popular. This is a small but important detail. I recall once seeing a beautiful model wood caboose in one of the magazines. Someone spent a lot of time on this model and for the most part it was a fine model……except for a giant slot head screw right there in front of god and everybody. It stuck out like a sore thumb, probably scaled out to about three inches across. A model is only as good as it's weakest point….. So here is a little trick for creating little square head fasteners out of both brass wood screws and machine screws. The top photo shows a piece of wood drilled to hold the brass screws so that we can easily fill the slots with solder. Stick the screws into the wood, drill the holes so the screws can just be gently shoved in. Then flux them with no corrode flux, and fill the slots with solder using the soldering iron. Get some solder on the iron and touch the screw for a second or two, slurp, the solder should fill the slot just like that. After they are soldered soak and rinse them a bit in lacquer thinner to remove the flux. In the next step we will be holding them with a collet or chuck, and as the flux is corrosive to steel we want to clean it off. Photo two shows the little screws ( #3 ) being sized and squared up using the milling machine and spindex. Then each screw is given a couple licks across the top of the head with a file. The bottom photo shows a gaggle of our little screws and the driver that was made to drive them. The driver is made from a square head drive wood screw. The screw was welded to a small rod about the same diameter as the screw, and a little wood handle was made up. Years ago I made a lot of these screws by just filing the heads square and using a home made end wrench for a size gauge. Easy Peasy!
Have Fun
Jack

[ccvstmr]

Jack...interesting detail creation and methodology to go with that. Nice touch. Don't think you noted the dimension across the flats. Another approach...soft solder a small square brass nut (or even a hex nut if desired) under the screw head and mill off the round head when cool enough to handle. The method can work with small stainless fasteners too...just takes more heat and flux to join the parts.

On a caboose rebuild...I was drilling and tapping 2-56 square nuts with a 4-40 thread. Once again...there are many ways to get from start to finished detail parts with a little imagination (and some time). Thanks for sharing another method. Carl B.

[Harlock]

Jack;

Indeed more than one way to skin this cat. Here is our method:
http://www.chaski.org/homemachinist/vie ... 99#p225299

This method allows you to make both simulated nut-and-bolt and bolt head depending on if you let the thread stick through the square.

Once you get a cadence going it goes pretty quick. There are hundreds of fake square bolts and bolt-nut combos on the boxcar that are actually lags as shown.

[JBodenmann]

Hello My Friends
Here are a few snappies that you might like. Check valves, turrets and such and one thrown in at the end just for fun.
Happy Model Building
Jack

[JBodenmann]

Two More for now.

[NP317]

That last photo of the three pilots makes me weak in the knees!
Incredible work you do!
~RN

[JBodenmann]

Hello My Friends
Thanks for the compliment RN. All three engines were in the shop, lining them up and taking a photo seemed like the thing to do.
Jack

[JBodenmann]

Hello My Friends
Here is a bit of an update on the little American. Mainly fiddling around with the valve gear and main rods. Mostly parts that Dr. Thee made back in the 1960's. He made many fine parts, but assembled little. Lots of fiddling and fitting of things together. The half brasses were all bored undersize so, they were reamed with a .001" oversize reamer to fit the crank pins. They are still a little tight and might need a bit more attention.
These goodies have been in a box for the last fifty years so there was a good bit of rust to be cleaned up and then a lot of metal finishing. The blades needed pins so these were made up. The blades were already threaded for the pins, some crazy thread somewhat larger than #6 -40 but smaller than #8. So they were drilled out a bit and threaded #8- 48 and some little threaded pins and lock nuts made up with 7/32" hex. I like these fine threads when dealing with thin material and locknuts like we have here. Then the pins were well case hardened. Work like this makes me think of the mechanics at the builders in the old days. They took the parts from the machine shop and fitted everything together and made it all work. These were the magicians with the hammer, chisel, files, and shims. Very skilled men. Fiddle and fit, fiddle and fit, just a job for a bozo like me!

[JBodenmann]

While we're having fun, here are a couple more. The cab has been varnished and sanded twice. It will get at least one more sanding and another coat of varnish. One of the challenges when sanding things like this is to get the flat surfaces flat, without rounding over the crisp details of the moulding. Early engines like this are such a delight to build as they combined some very lovely materials. Varnished and painted wood along with painted and polished metal. Rich paint colors, gold leaf along with the polished brass and steel. Ahh beautiful! Too much fun!
Jack