3" Burrell Traction Engine build.

Work Continues... Since the weather has been unkind outside, its therefore good times in the workshop! Not so good for my fence pannels but work has continued steadily with the front fork bearings and thrust washer. Also following an open day at our model club where I took my Minnie to display it, and had it running on compressed air all day. Some of the castings now have all the rough edges removed, and the chimney cap has moved on from a rough casting to looking a bit more presentable. The chimney has also been rolled, all be it a bit rough at the moment, a better photo to follow when I'm a bit more happy with it. Currently held in shape while the metal relaxes, and need to decide if I'm going to bronze tack weld/braze it. Started work on the yoke and machining the boss in the center for later holding of the work. Few extra clamps employed as it did move on me but prefer to ensure things go smooth even if it is a little bit of an overkill.  Ho...

  Burrell Traction Engine - Bearings, Perch bracket, Chimney base, Chimney cap... The current part I have been working on is the front fork, this is a cast iron part and as such has a good bearing surface for use with a steel liner I'm told. However, the drawing calls for a bronze liner but states that this is optional. In previous times bronze was cheap and used extensively on old drawings but being relatively new to the model engineering hobby I decided to follow the drawing. The bearing though being quite long, I didn't have a piece of bronze that long, but I did have 2 smaller offcuts for other parts I have made in the past. I decided to make it in 2 parts rather like an upper and lower bearing with a small space in the middle to pack with grease. In the future, I'm going to look into using Oilite bearings for similar parts. The thought of boring a large hole in a solid piece of bronze and all the waste material produced in order to obtain just a thin wall bus...