Main and Coupling Rods

The rods and many parts for the Walshaert motion work were water-jet cut from 8 mm (a little under 3/8") steel plate by Laserle Oy, the same company that cut the 3mm plate for the frame and cab with a laser beam, as seen on a previous page. The water cutting caused slight surface rust, but a quick polishing took care of that.

The next step was the fluting of the main and coupling rods, an easy operation on the vertical mill. The only critical thing was to get the rod parallell to the mill table...

A little paint in the flutes, and the motion work starts to look interesting!

I've also machined the return crank, which is only temporarily attached to the main crank pin for these photos. The hornblocks are now also attached to the frame, and I was pleased to find that the wheels turn nicely, without binding. This means the quartering of the wheels was successful!

Note the big end of the main rod: you might think it is made of several pieces, since you can see some "joins" - but this is make-believe! The rod is a single, solid piece - I engraved thin lines to mark the parts that on the prototype build up the rod end and the wedge originally used to tighten the bearing. With the PTFE/bronze/steel ring bearings I'm going to install, I won't need a wedge!


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