After silver soldering the three pins for the Fowler traction engine (plans and castings by MJ Engineering) together yesterday I managed to clean them up this morning. If you read my previous post you will know I was not impressed with my work which normally goes well. I put this down to either or both the new flux and the new stick of silver solder. I fully expected the parts to fall apart and a lengthy cleaning up or even making new parts to be required, but the solder did flow in the right places!

Three pins for the Fowler A7 Traction Engine

After a clean up and close inspection I would say they are well and truly brazed together but the process was not as satisfying as the end result. Unusual I know. I still need to work out, perhaps using some test pieces, why things did not go as well as previous silver soldering but at least the pins were ok.

Well I decided that I would spend this week on the saw table (fingers crossed!) whilst I wait for a few items for the Fowler traction engine. Today I completed milling the inserts for the tensioner pulley system and the saw arm guide (see photo's below). Not a great deal done but at least I was out smelling the oil again! 

Once I have done the saw table i will get the tender to a first fixing state before putting it on the back burner to go full steam (sorry_) ahead with the two Seal engines. It seems so long ago since they were out of their boxes!.

Toothed gearing to adjust saw blade height

Fowler awaiting the tender

Fowler awaiting the tender

Well yesterday I managed to get a couple of hours in the workshop and today I got out there again! two days in a row...its a few weeks since I have been well enough to do that.

Having time away from the workshop has given me time to think and I have decided to bring the Fowler more to the fore, well over the next year or so.....The Seal engines are still the first priority followed by the saw table I am making then comes the fowler but next year I will not run multiple projects as I have the last two years. Instead the Fowler will be the only project (there are always the one off's) and a big push made to complete her. Once she has been steamed and a boiler test done she will be put up for sale. I don't see myself running her and its the building I enjoy. That should release funds for something the following year.....

Back to this year though.... I have managed to get the hornplates fitted to the boiler and it was a task I was not looking forward to but in the end it went very well. The picture below shows the assembly made of the parts that I have completed previously and I was surprised in how much has been completed. The gears seem to mesh well and the shafts seem to run nicely so thats a bonus. So I decided today to take the plunge and start on the tender!

Showing the rear of the A7 Fowler traction engine in 2" scale

I bought the tender sides and a brass pack from MJ Engineering and took the opportunity to buy the sides already flanged. Today was spent in forming the base and back plate which fits on the outside of the flanged sides (please see photo below). After a lot of careful 'fiddling' I managed to get a good fit up to the top part (coal extension is included in the MJ tender sides) of the tender although I still have some work to do on the very top part.

The measurements of the hornplates to set the width was done and the neccesary lines scribed (wrongly) on the flanged sides. Before drilling any holes I thought I would check the approximate fitt compared to the hornplates and something seemed to be wrong. re reading the manual soon showed me where I had gone wrong. I hade scribed the line the wrong way around! Instead of pleacing the tender side on the flat side then scribiing, I scribed the lines from the inside instead. After correcting this error the trial went much better.

Temporary trial fittings of the tender construcctions

At this point I decided to call it a day before I made a major mistake (drilling many holes is the next task) and will start afresh the next time when i will try and improve the fit for the coal bunker extension.

I spent quite some time on finishing the profile at the rear of the ash pan, before I can start on the damper. The cast iron casting of the grate was cleaned up on the milling machine and then drilled and tapped 4BA and that's about all a write up I can give really. One of those jobs where time doing was a lot more than time writing (for a change) so here are a couple of photo's.......

Fowler Traction Engine Ash Pan

Today I got into the workshop later in the morning and didn't manage to get much done really. I didn't trust myself to do anything accurate but did manage to burn out my Proxxon drill! Its seems to be one of those months what with all the troubles with changing hosting plans and current poor health. So I know one present i would like for Christmas now, but the trouble is its need now also. The Proxxon is used quite a lot and will certainly be needed over the coming days so it looks like this poor pensioner is going to buy one.

The good news is that the copper for the ash pan arrived late morning so tomorrow I will be able to take my frustrations out on bashing metal. Hopefully there will be some progress photo's of trying to get the metal to go into a different shape than it wants to.........we shall see.

Today I recoverd enough to spend an hour in the workshop so carried on with making the replacement large lever arm. Full details can be found on http://www.mikes-models.com/ccfowlerdiary.html

However some work was carried out on Friday 12th September 2008, in the early morning (before going fishing with my brother Stephen, see http://www.dartmouthfishing.co.uk) which is when I managed to de-stress the bow that resulted from machining in the mill. At least I think that's what happened. My method was to heat it to red hot, then letting it cool down naturally. I was very pleased to see that the arm returned to its flat state.

After cleaning the lever arm up the reverse side was milled to leave one area higher and a start made on the handle which will be silver soldered to the lever. This was achieved by placing a square piece of stock in the 4 jaw chuck and turning a slight taper. The end was achieved by another taper then filed to shape, finished off by using 400 grit wet and dry paper, lubricated with 3 in 1 oil.

The next task will be to mill the sides to the correct dimension and slot cut to enable it to be silver soldered together.

More to follow........