Our latest Build 11 work session was held on Monday through Wednesday, June 22 to 24.
We began this work session by installing the leaf springs on the lead truck assembly. These springs went together pretty easily because of their small size.We then moved on to the driver springs – each of which was a two-man lift. Here Gordon Cook has used wedges to spread the hanger to enable the hanger bosses to clear the forward frame. We used the wedges on each of the hangers during installation.Harold Downey and Gordon are wrestling one of the spring hangers onto the forward driver spring.It took the team (Gordon, Harold, Quentin Bethune and Rick Sisson) about a half day to install all the suspension components. It’s looking pretty good now.We installed the transverse equalizer and clevis assembly to tie the forward and rear suspension subassemblies together.Our next task was riveting the remaining brake pot bracket to the rear frame. We again used our Hanna squeeze riveter to do this.Joe Monty is shown preheating the frame in preparation for riveting.For some reason unknown to us, none of the 4 rivets we squeezed were properly formed. Jason Lamontagne proposed a plan to reform the heads using a hand-held rivet gun. We pressed Joe into service again, this time heating the rivet head.Jason is finishing the rivet head while Gordon and Carlos Steinke are holding the buck in place. The buck is a very heavy steel mass that holds the rivet body in place.James Patten joined us in the shop and was tasked with installing threaded studs in the cylinder castings.Quentin was reboring a tapered hole in the rear cylinder head with Gordon holding the work light. Quentin fabricated a sleeve his home shop to allow the tapered reamer to fit one of our machine tool holders. After this operation was done the cylinder head was installed in the cylinder casting.Meanwhile, Earl Leavitt has been busy continuing work on the valve gear components. It’s quite rewarding to see how smoothly the link block slides in the link!Earl has also started boring our rocker boxes. Earl designed and fabricated a fixture to securely mount the rocker box to the lathe as well as a long boring bar with a turning tool in the middle. The rocker box will move from the right to left on the photo while the turning tool bores a cylindrical surface inside the rocker box.Gordon, Quentin and Rick used our Baldwin hydraulic press to form bends in two levers for the brake system. We’re getting good at this because we completed the job in record time with no missteps or errors. Quentin took these home are bored the 2-2/2” hole you see here.Marcel Levesque is making progress on the front and rear oak beams for the locomotive. Marcel has shaped both end beams and is preparing to mount the coupler support casting on the rear beam. We anticipate mounting the rear beam in an upcoming work session.
Speaking of progress, we are rapidly closing in on our $60,000 goal of “Pushing Forward” with only $3400 remaining to unlock the full $60,000 match!
