puckotred

This week I tried to finish up the Paddle wheels.  I just about made it, just the nuts on the starboard wheel to finish.
 
The buckets for the paddle wheels were 15 to 16 inches wide, 60 inches long and 1 1/2 inches thick.  Each was attached to the spokes with two U-bolts.  The U-bolts were about 3/4 inch in section with a 2 inch nut.  Some of the bolts were entirely square in section, some were round and as in the photo, some were a little of both.  I'm not sure if there was a reason for the nuts being put on flat side out.

 
The area around where the bolts went through the bucket was reinforced with a short plank about 14 inches by 8 inches by 1 1/2.  Sizes varied and the seemed to be crudely cut.

 
I made several attempts to bend the u-bolts by hand but I couldn't get them to sit properly against the spokes.  I made a simple jig to swage each bolt and it worked well.  I was able to make the entire pile of 96 in less than a half an hour.

 

 

 

 
The individual pieces of the buckets going together.

 

 
The completed port wheel (minus the throw-out bearing) and the almost complete starboard bearing.

 

 

 

 

 
Kevin and I had the pleasure of a visit from Mitch Michelson this week.  Mitch, we enjoyed the day and hope to see you again soon.

This last week was Spring Break for us.  I took a few days off so I didn't get much done.  I was able make a little progress on the paddlewheel.  They just need the buckets and they will be complete.  Hopefully, this next week will be a little more productive.
 
 

 

 

I wanted to thank everyone for the suggestions on modeling the water surface.  I spent the week trying to come up with something and I think I'm leaning towards the woodland scenics  approach.  I have a lot of surface to cover - it could get expensive.
 
This week I tried to reproduce the damage done to the paddlewheels.  Every paddlewheel had some damage to it.  The channels that hold the spokes were broken off in several locations and repaired with custom made forged iron straps.  The inboard port flange was the worst with all the channels broken off.
 
 
Inboard port paddlewheel flange and straps.  Black outline shows the extent of the damage.

 
Strap layout for the mill.  Green outlines are for the inboard flange, black for outboard.

 
Straps milled in brass.

 
Fitting inboard paddlewheel spokes.

 
Flanges soldered to shaft and blackened.

 

 

 
Spokes and staps in place.

 
Wooden spreaders added between spokes.  36 down 252 more to go.

 
I rushed to take photos and forgot to clean up the timbers.  Looking a little hairy in this photo.

With the deck finally complete on the second model,  i was able to convert my mill from a thickness planer back to a mill.  I have been putting off turning the paddlewheel shafts because they have hexagonal bosses that require a dividing head on the mill.  This week I was able to make some progress on the paddlewheels. 
 
Turning the paddlewheel shafts.

 
Milling the hexagonal bosses.

 

 

 
Test fitting the paddlewheel flanges.  On Heroine, all of the flanges were damaged to some extent.  A few had several of the arms broken off and were reinforced by flat iron strap.  Next week I will reproduce this damage and repairs.

 
 
Bearing timbers in place with iron tie rods.

 

 

 
Paddlewheel spokes fresh from the mill.

 
 
The mill cuts the mating pieces so accurately, there is almost no fitting required.  Just a little clean-up and they slid tightly into the channels in the flanges.

 
Test fit of the starboard paddlewheels.

I've spent most of the week finishing the deck planking on the second m0del and trying to catch up on it's machinery.  I was able to assemble the flywheel pair for the first.
 
Unfortunately, I had to cut off the bottom of the flywheels to fit in the waterline model. 
 
Fixture to hold wheel in place while the lower support is glued in place.

 
 
Wheel glued to support.  I used wood glue on the spokes and epoxy on the rim.

 
Lining up the two wheels.

 
Completed wheels in place.

 

 

Hello everybody,
 
I usually post my progress on Saturday morning but tomorrow we have a big family get-together for my mother's birthday tomorrow which will probably keep me away from the computer for most of the day so I decided post these photos today instead.
The flywheels are going together.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to complete the port wheel before the weekend.  I've also made a little more progress with the boiler front.
 
Firebox doors.  Except for two pieces of the firebox opening that suggest an arched door, we have little to go on for the design of the doors so I have kept them fairly simple.

 
 
 

 
Too many pieces to solder at once.  I decided to leave the panel inserts off until after blackening and will epoxy them from behind.

 
 
Test fit of the starboard flywheel spokes.

 
Completed starboard flywheel.

 
Starting on the port flywheel.

 
Starboard view of starboard flywheel.

 
View from port side.

Continuing with the flywheels..
 
probably one of the most frustrating soldering jobs I've had to do.  All sixteen pieces of the flywheel rim had to be positioned to ensure the final shape.  To add to the problem, since the segments were only machined on one face, the internal stresses in the brass cause each piece to bend slightly out of flat. I had to use lots of alligator clips to hold everything together but there was still some movement when it was heated.

Wheel 1 of 4.

 
 
I've been looking forward to building the boilers.  The machining is going to take a while so I decided to jump ahead and let the mill get started while i struggle with the remaining three flywheels.

 
 
Rectangular pieces are backing for the recessed panels in the legs and sides of the boiler front.

 
 
Backing pieces in place.

I've finally gotten around to making the flywheels.  I've been looking forward to it because it is the largest and most impressive piece of machinery that was recovered from the wreck.  Heroine's two flywheels were 14 feet in diameter and each was made up of 16 overlapping identical castings.
 
 
Some of the 64 flywheel rim sections.

 
 
Jig for drilling the 384 holes in the rims.  I'll have to re-make this in steel --  After only 8 rims, the hole is becoming distorted.

 
 
Milling a fixture to hold the rim sections in order to mill the pockets for the spokes.  The original rims had dovetailed pockets and two wedges were driven into the spoke to expand it into the pocket. 

 
 
Fixture in use.

 

 

 

 
Completed pocket.

 

 
 
$50 dollars worth of brass and 21 hours of mill time doesn't look like much.

 
 
Since this is a waterline model, the bottoms of the flywheels will have to be cut off.  To guarantee the alignment of the flywheels I printed out a pattern of each with the proper cut lines.

 
 
Test fit of one of the spokes.

The deck is finally planked on the first model and I've started on the second.  Another shipment of boxwood arrived and I hope I bought enough to finish this time.
 
I did a little more work on the cam frames and started on the spokes for the flywheel.
 
Soldering the spreaders for the cam frames.

 

 
Completed cam frames.  The cams were 24" X 24", the distance between the cam frames is 24 1/2"

 
 
Finally, one deck complete.

 

 
 
Flywheel spokes fresh from the mill.  The channels for the spokes in the flanges were of different depths on the port and starboard sides requiring them to be cut slightly different.

 

 
The outer face was beveled slightly from 5 inches at the flange to 4 inches at the rim.  The mill could only cut one side so the bevel was added later.
 

 
Test fitting the spokes.  The mill cuts the interfaces so cleanly that there is almost no hand fitting necessary. This will save a lot of time on the 96 paddlewheel spokes when I get to them.

The deck planking is slowly going in.  It's amazing how many 4 inch wide planks it takes to cover a significant part of the deck.  Between strakes, I finally had a chance to get back to the machinery.  I was able to finish the cam frames and start on the flywheel shafts.
 
Cam frame parts fresh from the mill.

 

 
The five frames in the back show the steps in shaping and finishing the cam frame.  The middle frame on the bottom row has the pivot cut off.  The aft frames are not connected to the valves so it is not needed.  I have been debating on whether to include the repair on one of the frames.  Since it was found in the hold as a spare, It wouldn't be accurate to include it with the working machinery.  On the other hand, it is a good example of the extensive repairs on the vessel.

 
Cam frames as they would have been positioned in relation to the cam.  The stroke of this cam and cam frame was 6 inches.

 
 
Using a beam from a beam compass to align the two outboard flywheel shafts.

 
Pieces of the flywheel shaft.  On the original, the flange for the cam was cast in place.  In order to include the fake bolt heads, I had to machine it separately and slip it onto the shaft.  This also required that I turn the shaft in two pieces.

 
Shafts in their bearings with flywheel flanges attached.

 

 
 

Hello,
 
I hope everyone had a great New Years!  I spent the last week playing catch-up after taking some time off with the family.
 
The rest of the machinery requires some of the deck to be in place so that took up most of my time this last week.  Heroine's planking isn't pretty!  The widths of her planking range from 3" up to 15" and there is very little pattern to it.  In the stern, the port side planking ranges from 6 to 10 inches and the corresponding area to starboard is made up of 3 to 6 inch planking.  Although some of it is repairs,  some of it looks like they ran out of the wide planks quickly and made due with whatever they had.
 
 
Guard planking completed.  Kevin discovered the remains of black paint on the hull timbers and the guard cap.  He believes the Upper works were white with black trim.

 

 

 

 

 
Starting to add deck planking.  One of Heroine's cam frames in back for scale.

 
 
This cam frame was in the bow compartment as a spare.  It was late coming out of conservation and I haven't had time to model it in AutoCAD for machining.  That will be my first task for next week.

 
Close up of repair to cam frame.

 
Close up of wedge in one arm of the cam frame.  It appears that when the splint was riveted to the frame there was still some play so they drove this wedge in.

I was almost able to complete the engine this week.  All that remains are the throttle handle and feewater preheater on the exhaust.  I fitted the flywheel bearings and the cam frame supports.  The next step will be position the remaining six bearings in-line with the flywheel bearings.  I'm planning on using a round beam from a beam compass and sleeves turned to the proper journal diameters to guarentee alignment.
 
Valve levers fresh from the mill and before and after soldering.

 
Valve levers and risers.

 
 
Assembled valve levers before blackening.

 
 
After blackening.

 
 
Cam frame supports and flywheel bearings after blackening.

 

 

 

 
 
Port view of nearly completed engine.

 
 
Starboard view.

With the end of the semester approaching, I wasn't able to get a lot done this week. 
i was able to do a little more work on the engine.  I rebuilt the rockers to the simpler configuration and finished the packing for the valves and almost finished the supports for the poppet levers.  I started to blacken the engine but  it didn't take in some spots so next week I'll go over it once again.
 
 

 

I decided to take a break from the soldering this week and finish up the hull planking and cylinder timbers on the second hull.  Some of the machinery requires that some of the deck planking is in place and I'm hoping to be able to take care of that this next week.
 
The cylinder timbers notched for the frames and the wedges that position the top timber.

 

 
 
Cylinder timbers in place.

 
The mill continued to make bearings while I completed the hull.  From left to right are the Inboard flywheel shaft bearings, the outboard flywheel shaft bearings, and the outboard paddlewheel bearings.  I still need to complete the inboard paddlewheel bearings and the bronze sleeves for all the bearings.

 
Last week I mentioned the steam wiper arrangement and realized I didn't have it correct.  In order to utilize the full stroke/ cut-off cam arrangement that was common, both cams would have to be on the same side of the engine.  We know Heroine had two cams, one on either side of the flywheel.  Unfortunately, we have no other example of a riverboat engine with a centerline engine and flywheel.  This arrangement is more like a stationary engine that you would find in a factory.  It seems that this engine probably had a very simple valve assembly with just two full stroke cams.  The momemtum from the flywheel would have smoothed out the motion at the ends of the stroke.  Starting and reversing could have been accomplished just by lifting the proper levers by hand.  I could be wrong about this but it seems the most likely arrangement.  If anyone has ideas about this I would love to hear them.
 
Profile of engine and flywheel.

 
Engine half-way through a stroke. Port cam is fully forward opening forward exhaust valve, Starboard cam is fully aft opening aft steam valve.

I was just able to finish the steam wipers and the throttle housing before the holiday break.  I played around a little with the lighting and exposure time and think the photos turned out a little better.  I think the secret is as little light as possible when photographing brass.
 

The 8 year old computer that runs my mill gave out early in the week.  It has made a lot of parts in the last 2 years and was well worth the $28 that I paid for it from Ebay.  I just paid $50 for a replacement and hope it performs as well.  I was only able to make a handfull of parts but, I finally got the time to start assembling the engine.
 
 
Parts for the cam frame supports.

 
Completed cam frame supports.

 
 
The engine minus the rods levers and wipers for the poppet valves.

 

 
I have never been able to photograph brass well.  The suface shows every scuff and rub mark.  Blackening will give it a much more even appearance.

 
Steam wipers and supports.

Peter, thanks for the pic. A black stain (maybe ebony?) would do the job I see. Will have to scrape the red paint off from the tight little corners since the carriage is quite small...     
 
We'll hope that the quality of the kit will continue. 

Peter, thanks for the pic. A black stain (maybe ebony?) would do the job I see. Will have to scrape the red paint off from the tight little corners since the carriage is quite small...     
 
We'll hope that the quality of the kit will continue. 

Peter, thanks for the pic. A black stain (maybe ebony?) would do the job I see. Will have to scrape the red paint off from the tight little corners since the carriage is quite small...     
 
We'll hope that the quality of the kit will continue. 

Peter, thanks for the pic. A black stain (maybe ebony?) would do the job I see. Will have to scrape the red paint off from the tight little corners since the carriage is quite small...     
 
We'll hope that the quality of the kit will continue. 

At the Vasa Museum, I believe they have left gun carriages natural wood on their models, Here's an example from the Kronan exhibit at Kalmar Museum though:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Kalmar_museum_Kronan_(ship).JPG
 
/Peter

Here's a zoom in of Part #5 and #5a:
 

 
No sanding. That's a nice fit!

Here's a zoom in of Part #5 and #5a:
 

 
No sanding. That's a nice fit!

Here's a zoom in of Part #5 and #5a:
 

 
No sanding. That's a nice fit!

This looks like rather impressive gun casting. (My Corel kit came with some generic guns, not anything like the actual Vasa guns)
I don't think it would be a 1 pounder or 3 pounder though.
They would be a lot more slender.
Looks like a 'Stormstycke' that goes on the forecastle.
Also, red for the Vasa carriages is probably not historically correct.
The accounts book states black paint purchased specifically for the gun carriages.
Seems to be a great kit so far.
 
/Peter