3 1/2 inch small boilered TICH

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 are the four final hornblocks after drilling for rivets. Machining of the inside is still required.

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

Hi Ryan, I'm really pleased to see this thread as I have just started a small-boilered Tich and intend to fabricate most of the parts! This will be my first 'big' locomotive, I've only worked in 16mm before. It looks like you've got off to a flying start and I shall be following your build closely! I'm at about the same stage as you, except that instead of making the hornblocks, I'm part way through making the wheels from round mild steel bar. Good luck with the build!

Regards,

John.

Tich, small as it is, has been a battlefield for many, and l sadly there are many partial builds for sale left as casualties. There are various obvious pinch points which scare off folk. Well done for having a go and I hope you are able to complete it in a good time.

Hi guys!

Thanks for the words of wisdom and encouragement!

I have seen far too many pictures of part-built TICH's and I think they are what have spurred me on and made me more determined than ever to finish this.

Just as a matter of interest, what is the correct phonetic pronounciation of TICH? I have heard many variations and would like to know the intended option!

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

Below is the setup I used to machine the axleboxes and hornblocks. The procedure was carried out exactly the way it is described in Curly's book.

Here you can see the final fitting of the axleboxes in the hornblocks which have been machined. You can also see the pump eccentric and collar on the rear axle.

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 wheels for my TICH have been fabricated from scratch as well using slices of EN8.

The slices were faced and a 1.6mm centre hole was drilled all the way through. This was used to locate the boss and was opened out after soldering, for the axle hole.

Below is a picture of one wheel with all parts in place.

The bosses and counterweights were made seperately and fitted within the inner diameter of the wheel.

Below is the result post soldering. I could not pickle the wheels immediately as the material used was EN8 and if subjected to quenching would have resulted in a hard brittle wheel that would prove difficult to machine.

I therefore waited 24 hours before scrubbing the excess flux off and cleaned the wheels up.

After silver soldering, the wheels were machined as per the words and music, using the fabricated backplate described.

Finally the wheels were sandblasted, degreased and masked up for painting. The first coat was an etch primer and then an aerosol to follow, using signal red.

There are still some sticky bits on the wheels from the masking tape used. In this picture the crank pins have been pressed into the wheels already.

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.

The coupling rods were the next stage. The centres of the crank pins should, in theory, be the same as the axle centres, however with human error in the mix, it is always better to check your as built dimension before following the words and music directly. I found that my dimension was almost exactly what is described but not quite and therefore made the appropriate adjustment to size.

A test piece was quickly cut out and drilled to the corresponding measurement and it worked! I did make two and there was some slight binding at a certain point. This was rectified and a design was drawn up and marked out.

Below are the coupling rods on the wheels

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

This is excellent work Ryan. Please keep the pictures coming.

Steve.

Thanks Steve! Much appreciated.

I will do!

Here is a picture of all of the blobs

You will notice on the right side of the picture, the pump eccentric has been painted red in the same fashion as the wheels were. Also, here yoiu can see the suspension springs and the corresponding holes in the axle boxes.

The springs were made on the lathe using piano wire and the screw cutting train on the lathe. The TPI was guessed really, but it seems to work...

The axle driven pump body can also be seen in this picture, however this was a failure and was remade later.

Some other pictures

Here are some close ups of inside. One thing I did include for which is not mentioned in the words and music is additional lubrication for the axles. On the top of each hornblock you will see a small brass block with a hole in it, this is for a lubrication pipe which will be connected up to a manually refillable reservoir.

Above is a better view of the fabricated pump stay.

HI Ryan;

My Tich is my favourite locomotive for taking out to the track. Not an all day steamer (unless you convert it to oil, as per directions in Model Engineer a decade or two ago) but more fun than the larger locomotives.

Slip eccentrics on the front axle - I put mine on the rear, and the ash pan is a bit of a bother!

Are you going to update the boiler to modern construction methods (rivets for side stays, silver soldered, nothing threaded into the boiler shell directly, i.e., not into a bushing) or use the "words and music"?

Keep up the great work -

Another JohnS.