04-07-10 Projects Update
May 19th, 2010 by Brian Wise GM/CMO
Officially, it’s supposed to be Spring, yet even today we had snow falling at the Mineral Shop most of the day. For our first passenger operation of the 2010 season (Easter Bunny trains on April 3rd), we had more than 2 inches of snow on the ground! It certainly looks and feels like Winter, but the calendar keeps reminding us that there are not so many days before Memorial Day weekend arrives and the summer operating season begins in ernest.
We are still trying as hard as we can to get our ex-Rayonier Baldwin 2-8-2 #70 (nee-Polson Logging) returned to service by June. We are making good progress, but there are always other projects that pop up as well. Just in case the #70 isn’t ready by June, we’ve pulled our three-truck Heisler #91 out of storage and are readying it for service. The #91 has been stored since 2007 (following repairs to our ALCO 2-8-2T #17) and so requires a fair bit of TLC to get it ready. The boiler is currently being prepared for its FRA 5-year inspection and hydrostatic test. We’ve also decided to replace two of the tires on the front truck. We could re-profile them on our 60″ lathe, but then we’d have to re-profile all 12 tires to make them the same diameter. By having two new tires rolled and machined to match the others, we wind up with new tires and two spares. Using the time honored method of heating the tires with a “ring of fire,” we removed the two tires on the right side of the front truck so that all of the pertinent measurements could be taken for ordering the replacements.
(Photo 1) Machinist Stathi Pappas, Marcel Saterdal and Scott Gordon watch and wait for one of the Heisler’s tires to heat up sufficiently to be knocked off the wheel center with large bronze hammers. A bigger propane tank would eventually be needed to get the job done.
(Photo 2) The first tire is on the ground to cool, and the second tire has been removed from the wheel center and is hanging on the fixture attached to the wheel (fabricated to aid with the removal and installation of the tires).
Work on the #70 has been revolving around two fronts: more boiler repairs and the trailing truck. There were two areas on the boiler that required the attention of a certified welder. We had both areas radiographed to ascertain the extent of the work required, then brought in a boiler contractor to perform the welded repairs. One of these areas was at a double-riveted seam at the junction of the firebox wrapper sheet and the throat sheet. We had to remove sections of both of the overlapping sheets in the seam. This included removing four rivets. After the new flush patches were welded in, the four rivet holes were redrilled and reemed out to accept new rivets. Since machinist Stathi Pappas has considerable experience with riveting, we decided to do the final work ourselves. The process is illustrated below:
(Photo 3) Before we installed the rivets into the boiler, Stathi set up a test run to check out the special tooling we made to “buck” the rivet inside the boiler. Here I’m inserting a very hot rivet into a test hole.
(Photo 4) After the rivet was inserted into the hole, a special shaped “snap” was placed over the head of the rivet, then a steel wedge inserted behind the snap. The back side of the wedge is bearing against a parallel piece of steel (welded to the table). Pulling on the wedge forces the snap against the rivet head while Stathi uses an air riveting gun to form the outer end of the rivet.
(Photo 5) Here’s the inside of the #70’s boiler as seen thru the front tube sheet. That’s me figuring out how I’m going to heat a rivet white hot, insert it into the hole it belongs in, then place the snap and wedge to back up the rivet and all in 5 seconds or less before the rivet has a chance to cool down. The rivets go into holes located near my knees in this photo. Half of the tubes were removed from the boiler specifically so we could make this riveted repair.
(Photo 6) Here you can see the location of the rivet holes in the double-riveted seam on the right. That’s the boiler’s rear tube sheet on the left. You can see through the boiler tube holes into the firebox proper. This photo shows the specially shaped “snap” that fits over the head of the rivet, and the (now modified) wedge that will back-up the snap and allow me to “buck” the rivets as they are driven with an air gun on the outside of the boiler. Three new rivets have already been installed.
(Photo 7) This is what it looks like when the snap and the wedge are in place to allow the new rivet to be “bucked” against the tube sheet knuckle. While Stathi is outside the boiler bearing against the air gun, I’m inside the boiler pulling on the wedge handle and forcing it against the snap as hard as I can and at the same time.
(Photo 8) Here are the four new rivets from the inside.
(Photo 9) And here are the four new rivets from the outside. The small hole to the right of the rivets is for a staybolt. It was necessary to remove one staybolt during the flush patch procedure. The staybolt has since been replaced.
Since these photos were taken, we have had an FRA inspector review our repairs and perform an internal inspection of the boiler. This was required before we could move forward with putting the tubes back into the boiler and making it water tight. To that end, Stathi has also been machining new pieces for the boiler that have either been missing or damaged, such as a whole new shut-off valve for the boiler’s steam turret. The turret is a large casting that mounts to the top of the boiler inside the cab. The turret is where the various valves are located that control the steam to the air compressor, dynamo and injectors. The turret has since been mounted to the boiler as well. My next blog installment should have photos of the new boiler tubes going back in.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.