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I've been lurking around for a few days trying to tease some information out of the Search function, but haven't had a huge amount of luck....maybe someone could help point me in the right direction....
I've undertaken the construction of a Bowser 4-8-2 USRA Mountain. So far so good, at least mostly. I'm having difficulty locating binds in the side rods; I know that they're there, but have had difficulty isolating them. I don't want to open up the side rod holes too far, so I figured go looking for advice before I just try and work them out by trial and error.
Anyone's input would be appreciated. I may post some pictures as this moves along; I'm not very far along, so it's a kind boring at this point, but I've got one picture for each step.
Thanks in advance for any help, even if it's to point me to another area/forum/discussion.
Sounds to me like the drivers are out of quarter. I've worked with a lot of brass steam but never Bowser. Do they come with a way to quarter the drivers or are the pre-assembled on the axels?
The drivers pre-assembled on the axels. The instructions that come with the kit seem to assume that that drivers were quartered properly at the factory and they just suggest reeming out the bore holes on the side rods.
It strikes me that checking the quarter relatively harmless, is there a way to do it without a quartering jig? (I mean really checking, not just looking at it and going "yeah, they're at right-angles.")
I'm not sure how you'd do it without a quartering jig. NWSL sells a basic quatering jig for 40 dollars. If you plan to build a lot of steam engines its definetly worth it, but its a little pricey for something your only going to use once.
Having to ream out the side rods means at least one driver is slightly out of quarter, and although I don't prefer this method, it will get rid of your bind. Just ream as little as possible because sloppy side rods not only look bad, but they can actually hurt an engines pulling ability.
You should be able to isolate where the bind is by removing one crank pin at a time until the bind is gone, then ream only that hole.
John, thanks for the thoughts. I was able to find a NWSL Quarterer at my LHS, I even got a good deal on it as it had been sitting on their self for quite some time...The good deal was a really good thing as I found that the Quarterer does not really function with Rivarossi or Bowser drivers. I'm not sure that problem is with the Rivarossi, but the instructions say it won't work. They also warn that the jig won't work with drivers that have bushings on the axle.....well, guess what Bowser drivers have?
To make a long story short, I found that the Quarterer body comes in two halves. I was able to take one half off. That let me check drivers. They actually all checked out.
In the process of checking the drivers, I also checked the side rods again and found a couple of burrs that I took off. When I put it all back together, I found that I didn't have the binding anymore.....
Whether it was those burrs, or if I corrected some other fault in taking it all apart and putting it back together again, I'm not entirely sure, but it now does work correctly.
Hmm, having only worked with brass steam, I hadn't thought of it not working with Bowser drivers. Sorry bout that. I have found that it works with most brass drivers with the bearings installed though. Good to know you figured it out anyway.
One thing to keep in mind when reaming out siderod holes is use a small rat tailed file and turn the file backwards....this way removes minimum matierial.
