You might expect that at this point it would be a simple matter of dropping the drivers into the chassis, screwing the engine truck on and sending the whole assembly out for a test roll. Sadly, no. Somehow, the design for 622´s springs got changed, and a whole lot of extra metal got added. So, before I could get the engine on her drivers properly, … Continue reading 622 on her wheels
The engine truck, which I primed yesterday, went together more or less as planned this morning before I left for work. Unlike #10, which has tiny equalizing beams and floating bearings trapped in rigid sideframes, #622 allows the whole sideframes to rock. The bearings are simple holes in the sideframes, meaning the wheels are permanently fixed, but obviating the need for some sort of retention … Continue reading Engine truck wheels
With the drivers quartered, the long axles have now served their purpose. I started cutting the first one with a jeweller’s saw. An hour and two blades later, I decided to switch to a cut-off disk and the Dremel tool. I took it slow to avoid melting the spokes or (worse) the axle-wheel joint, and I was very careful around the crankpins as they would … Continue reading Removing the long axles
There is a saying in the Maker community: if you can’t make it perfect, make it adjustable. The corollary is surely that if you can’t make it adjustable, make it perfect. These drivers are a one-shot deal. Either I get the quartering perfect, or I’m soaking them in acetone to loosen the epoxy, which will melt the spokes and take me back about four weeks. … Continue reading Drivers quartered
I decided to use the quartering jig to hold onto the crankpins while the epoxy holding them in place cured. The theory was that regardless of where the actual holes in the wheels wound up, the vital metric was the distance between wheel centre and the crankpin itself. So, I gave the quartering jig bosses a quick spritz with mold release and dropped the crankpins … Continue reading Crankpins installed
You may recall that one of the previous methods to wreck a driver was to drill the hole for the crankpin off-centre. Actually, that didn’t completely wreck the driver: once the spokes had been taken out, it looked salvageable. A short length of steel soldered in the hole and filed flush made it look as good as new. When drilling the new hole, however, I … Continue reading Another way to wreck a driver
The crankpins leverage M0.6 bolts, with nuts buried in housings inside the back of the wheel. Those nuts are really tiny – 1 mm across the flats, and so, I had always thought I would glue them into the back of the crankpins, rather than risk having them work loose and disappear amongst the ballast. The only question was how? This weekend was the pitched … Continue reading Crankpin nuts: a war of attrition
