Working on the Railroad, page 3

Another interesting porject for the boiler is the throttle valve. This is a cast iron valve that is inside the boiler. Since its inside it is part of the boiler, so the code requires it to be new and of certifiede material. So even though the old valve was in fine shape we had to make a new one, and have it cast by a foundry using the proper certified material.

I made the pattern using my CNC router

Here is the new and old throttle castings. The throttle will have some tricky machinig which is still to be done. Its a balanced spindle valve, and has two seats which must both fit exactly.

Boler repair

One of our own locomotives needed major repair work to its boiler, so we have been doing that work as well.

Here I have just handed the red hot rivet into Brian through an inspection hole. He then pushed it up through the hole so I could grab it, with tongs of course, while he set the air buck in behind the rivet.

Here you can see the red hot rivet getting hammered down with the rivet gun. Notice we have bolts in every other hole. We first bolt it together, then ream all the rivet holes. Once half the rivets are in we will remove the bolts, ream those holes, and place the rest of the rivets

We have more boiler work to do, and other machinig jobs, and we hope to build a new post and beam carhouse to store the coaches, so it looks like Ill be working on the railroad for while.

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