I will be posting the build of my TICH as I progress, so far I have been working on her for about a year whenever I have had the oppertunity. I have tried to make most of the parts myself instead of buying castings as they are expensive to import here in South Africa and our postal services are something to be desired.

Here is a picture of my first test fabrication of a hornblock. I needed to include for machining as well, hence it it quite bulky. Also you will see I did not include for the bolting faces required at the bottom.

Below is the back side of the block.

Another view

Edited By Ryan Norton on 17/12/2013 09:34:13

Edited By Ryan Norton on 17/12/2013 09:36:40

Here is a photo of the frame plates finished to size and drilled accordingly. Also you can see the buffer beams and hornblocks.

Below is a view of the buffer beams with angles rivetted on.

All together.

Edited By Ryan Norton on 17/12/2013 09:53:12

I was a little bit aprehensive about fabricating my own cylinders and therefore decided to buy the cylinders and the piston castings as well as other items not readily available in our country from REEVES.

With hind site and what I have learned during this build so far, I would definately have tried to fabricate the cylinders myself.

Below are the items procured from REEVES

In the book, LBSC describes a fabricated pump stay which is made from brass and bent to form the two 90 degree bends. These are further machined to the correct size.

After trying once and failing, I decided to fabricate the stay from three pieces of brass and then machine it.

This worked and you can see the result below. (The allen screws still need to be cut to length)

Also, while I am talking "screws", I have tried where possible to use the suggested screws of imperial nature, however in SA we mostly have metric stuff available and therefore my fastener usage in the build will be a closely fitting mish mash of imperial and metric. Just in case you were wondering.

The next step in the build was to quarter the wheels. This had been frightening me ever since I had read about it as once the wheels are pressed onto the axles there is no going back. I have read many different ways of quartering wheels but settled on the method described by LBSC in keeping with his theme.

The axles were turned down to the appropriate press fit tolerance and the first wheel pressed all the way onto the axle using the bench vice as a press as described. Success, however, now came the difficult part, quartering the wheels.

It is important to remember at this point that if you are using slip eccentrics, now is the time to put them on the front axle. The pump eccentric also needs to be fitted to the rear axle before the other wheel is pressed on.

After much procrastination and messing around I took the plunge. Using LBSC's method for quartering I pressed on both wheels. This method is not the best and can be highly affected by the error of paralax, however if both sets of wheels are finished using the same procedure, in theory there should be no issue, provided the error was the same for both sets.

This was very stressful but worked out in the end.

The coupling rod template can be seen in this picture.

When I have time, I will take some photographs of all of the tools described in the words and music that I have made, which are required for certain machining procedures etc.

I find it fascinating and very satisfying to make things required to make things. It sometimes feels like you are being side tracked but in the end it is all worth while. You just cannot rush…..!!!

Edited By Ryan Norton on 18/12/2013 07:41:12

Thanks Steve! Much appreciated.

I will do!

Some other pictures

As I said yesterday, I would post some pics of the tools described in LBSC's book.

Below are a few that I have had to make thus far (see the captions below the pictures):

From the left, a D-bit, two different size counter-bores, two different size split bushes and the step chuck/bush required for turning the cylinder covers.

Above is the jig described for turning the wheels.

Above is the clamp for machining the hornblocks. The part that looks like an axle box fits into the hornblock, whilst the tee bolt slides into the vertical slide of the lathe. The nut is used to tighten/clamp the horn block to the slide ready for machining.

Here is the crank hole drilling jig. The boss fits snugly into the wheel axle hole and the whole lot is clamped up tightly. The hole is then used as a guide to drill the crank pin holes. This setup allows for very accurate drilling of the pin holes at a specific distance from the axle hole.