1916 65 HP Case Traction Engine 1/16 Scale

[raveney]

Hello,
New project is a 3/4 inch per foot scale model of a Case steam traction engine that is located nearby at a fairgrounds in central Florida. I never gave much thought to these tractors until a colleague at work told me about the Case 150HP that was recreated in the Midwest by a young man named Kory Anderson. Exceptional story and inspiring video here.

CASE 150 HP


I have been watching several threads here by Mike N and 4156DF. Also purchased the well known book by Rudy Kouhoupt. Thought I would start with the front wheels...

Had a scrap of 3" OD SCH5 steel tube left over from a cheesy "Harbah Frait" grinder stand that yielded some rim material. My table top bandsaw cuts pretty square, and was able to slice two 0.75" wide and two 0.16" wide pieces. I trued them on the lathe using a piece of 3" SCH 40 pipe and some shim stock to avoid distortion. These are thinner than what Rudy prescribes as I am attempting to follow the dimensions given in a 1916 Case Catalog.

I chose 1/16 ER70S2 TIG filler wire for the spokes after modeling the wheel in Fusion. Made the hubs on the lathe and rotary table, drilling 0.100" blind holes at 30 degree intervals.

Used the rotary table setup to drill the rims and fixtured the "tire" in place with 18 gauge copper wire rivets.

I just purchased some insulated fire brick which is pretty flat and hard. Used leftover furnace cement to position a few flat washers to the brick centering the rim. The indexed the rim and drilled and set a 3/16" dowel to hold the spindle/hub. Using black flux and map gas I silver brazed it all up.

Upon inspection, the hub spokes may need a redo, but they feel solid. May just leave alone as paint will fill the gaps. The wheel spins true on the axle!

The next one should go much faster. For the rear tire I would really like to change the "grouters" to appear more realistic or 3D, but there are so many (thinking about 64) Any ideas on how to make them? I like the ones in Mike N's thread

 

[raveney]

Hello again,
Completed the other front tire and started the rear tire. I continued the all steel approach as brass is really expensive and I didn't see a need as the plan is to paint them red.


First I CAD rendered a "realistic" wheel with my interpretation of the cleats or grouters and a detailed hub. The hub will be tricky as I believe it will be necessary to solder the 4 corner pieces inside and I haven't solved how to index them. Any other ideas are welcome. There will be 36 spokes and grouters. Each spoke will be 1/16 TIG filler, and each grouter will be 1/8 wide, 3/4 long, and 0.085 tall tapering about 15 degrees. They will be fixtured in place with 18 gauge copper wire "rivets". Going to be tedious....

I used a chunk of 4" SCH 80 dumpster scrap steel pipe for the rims and bored it down to 0.110" thick before chatter became unbearable. I had 3-1/4" stick-out on a 1/2" boring bar, and achieved best results with the feed rate mid position and belts at 350 RPM. Had to dampen the QCTP levers with my hands for each 0.010" DOC pass. Next I will cut two 1-1/2 wide tires and face the saw cuts. The OD is 4.5" which scales to the 72" needed for a Case 65. The 1.5" is a little wider than the 1916 catalog lists (22"), but seems to look better as a rear tire would need traction, right?

 

[GreenTwin]

Hello,
New project is a 3/4 inch per foot scale model of a Case steam traction engine that is located nearby at a fairgrounds in central Florida. I never gave much thought to these tractors until a colleague at work told me about the Case 150HP that was recreated in the Midwest by a young man named Kory Anderson. Exceptional story and inspiring video here.

Kory's story is indeed inspiring.
For those who have not heard it, the short story is that Kory wanted to recreate a 150 hp Case steam tractor (two were build, but none existed).
Kory decided to buy a foundry, and then using the original Case drawings, he created his own patterns, and made his own Case castings.
Kory now owns the only 150 hp Case tractor in the world.

I also follow some of what Kory does at his foundry, via "Modern Casting" magazine, and he takes on challenges that nobody else will attempt.

"Inspiring" really does not do Kory justice.
I consider him as being pretty much in a league of his own.


Anyway, that is some superb wheel work in my opinion !
That is going to be a great model you are building; I can just tell.

.

 

[johnmcc69]

I LOVE this!
I like the rear wheel design, I always thought the rear wheels needed to be more aggressive.

Looks like you're off to a good start,

John

 

[raveney]

Anyway, that is some superb wheel work in my opinion !
That is going to be a great model you are building; I can just tell.

Thank you Green Twin, I'm going to try and take my time on this build and add some extra details

I like the rear wheel design, I always thought the rear wheels needed to be more aggressive.

Thank you Johnmcc69, The cleats are going to be tedious the way I'm building them but I think it will look authentic.
Here is a model that matches the rusty old image that I'm using for detail work. It has 30 cleats and I will need to make a LH and RH version.

I indexed the rims that I made last weekend out of the 4" steel pipe and spaced them with aluminum so I wouldn't drill into the chuck jaws. 18 holes each side using a #51 and a center drill to leave some room for brazing.

Then I made a couple hubs out of 1215 steel using dimensions I guessed at based on images online. 1-1/8 OD and 3/4 midsection with a length of 1.250 so the spokes are set in a bit on the rims. 18 spoke holes 0.085 deep. I bored the outer hub so I can make "hub caps" to look like the originals later.

Then I mortared some flat washers to the fire brick, indicated center and drilled the axle to hold things concentric when brazing the spokes.

I used white flux this time rather than black. I also ran out of silver braz and used some hard brazing rods that I had left over from my previous career as a plumber. We used to braze copper for medical gas lines with no flux. Just clean the pipe and fittings with steel wool and purge with nitrogen so everything was clean inside the pipes. I don't remember what the filler was it says silv5 on the rod. It needs much more heat than the Harris type.

As a result my wheels warped a bit and I had to straighten them up on the lathe. They both run true after a hour of rework.

The arrow points to one of two holes i drilled so I can access the #8-32 set screws that were used to secure the wheels to an arbor.
I will probably work on the wheel centers or "hub caps" next while I wait on the silver braz to arrive.
thanks for watching!

 

[Wheat47]

I have set of wheels like yours I'm intending to build sometime. My plan of the moment is to solder the spokes to the hub,
then when all is cooled, red Lock-Tite the spokes to the rims.
Or solder only one spoke at a time, hub and rim and let cool.
Just my thoughts.
As I'm basicly a self-taught machinist, I got several good ideas from your pics.
I like the idea of the setscrew access thru the rim.
I did build a flywheel about 4" in diameter one day, that I used only red Lock-Tite on.
As you say a bit of truing up afterwards, it is still working today.
Thanks for sharing your pic's!!

 

[raveney]

You are welcome Wheat47,
I believe there wouldn't be near as much twist if I had used regular silverbraz 55. You are right about the order of operations. Definitely braze the spokes into the hub first as they are free to expand outward into the through holes in the rim. I also left the rims wide so I could face off once cooled. That was plenty for any wobbling. I am not a real machinist either, but really enjoy learning the craft based on what other generous people are willing to share. The setups especially intrigue me as I never had the shop experience.

The wheel centers came out nicely

Annealed some 0.063 brass strips, bent a radius and soft soldered them to a 1" square piece.

Drilled out the center and soldered in a stub arbor which I chucked in the mini-lathe and turned the OD and face down so it fit inside the recess. Then drilled and reamed the center to axle size 0.250.

Finally, I sand blasted and loctited them into the wheels.

 

[raveney]

Hello again,
the grouters on the original Case tractors were drop forged parts and either bolted or riveted to the rims (not sure which). I have seen pictures of double cleated chevron pattern and single cleats like the picture I am using. The number of cleats varies, but I am going to plan on one cleat right between the spokes so I can get a rivet dolly in there. My plan is to use copper wire stripped out of a piece of Romex I already have for the rivets. I bought a 48" stick of hot rolled 1/8" x 3/4" steel at Tractor Supply nearby. I sketched out an order of operations as these bits will be very small (0.120 x 0.125 x1.575 inches).

STEP1
Cut QTY(7) 5" long strips. I will yield 6 cleats from each strip
STEP 2
chamfer the edges on an angle table. 15 degrees and 0.022 depth of cut.
STEP 3
serrate edges into 3 equal parts using hacksaw
STEP 4
slice off the cleats using slitting saw. I ended up dulling the blade I had, and started shooting sparks at the end. A fresh blade finished the job.
STEP 5
made a recess in a set of vice soft jaws to clamp each part repeatably. cut to final length using end mill
STEP 6
Pilot hole and drill through each cleat for rivets using #51 bit

Definitely not a money making job here but it should look wicked when done

 

[raveney]

Very tedious and repetitious work.
I finished making 36 good grouters with 4 rejects and two spares. Cobbled up a rivet cinch and set along with the lower anvil out of 1/4 0-1 tool steel. Made a few trial length rivets and settled on 0.375 length as best. A scrap piece with a 0.350 deep hole allowed me to set the wire into it and snip off very repeatable lengths and not fling them around the shop. Not high tech, but worth mentioning I thought.

After finishing up one wheel, I dressed the sides and top of each cleat so the copper is flush. Very satisfied with the result, but I think I'll find something else to do the rest of the day.

 

[raveney]

Wheels are finished

now we can start the boiler shell. Following Randy's lead about making the shell out of 2 inch steel pipe with the 1-1/2 copper boiler tucked inside. My bandsaw cuts pretty square, but I didn't check the shop cut end on the piece I ordered before I cut to length. It was out of square so I attempted to use my 9x20 lathe steady rest which was too small (2" maximum)....hmmm

I considered making a larger steady rest , but then had a cup of coffee and doodled an idea for a spider center. The 3 jaw chuck grips the pipe internally and stops the threaded shaft from moving into the chuck by the flat washer. The other side is tapped for four 3/4 bits of 10-32 threaded rod and some acorn nuts. It is also centre drilled and held center by the tailstock. One indicates this end and adjusts the acorn nuts outward. Worked fine to square the ends, finish to length and chamfer the edges.

Next it was rough cut using a, (gasp) ,hacksaw until my shoulders hurt and then put in the mill to finish the edges and drill some holes for the various bits. I ordered some real round head copper rivets from Mr Godshall and will start the fake rivet lines next weekend. I have read about one builder snapping dozens of bits off doing this, and will be careful to avoid that using center drills and the mill.

https://godshallscustommachining.com/

 

[johnmcc69]

The wheels look GREAT!
From what I've seen/read, that's the hardest part of the build.

Really nice work!

John

 

[kwoodhands]

Wheels are finished
View attachment 145201
now we can start the boiler shell. Following Randy's lead about making the shell out of 2 inch steel pipe with the 1-1/2 copper boiler tucked inside. My bandsaw cuts pretty square, but I didn't check the shop cut end on the piece I ordered before I cut to length. It was out of square so I attempted to use my 9x20 lathe steady rest which was too small (2" maximum)....hmmm
View attachment 145200
I considered making a larger steady rest , but then had a cup of coffee and doodled an idea for a spider center. The 3 jaw chuck grips the pipe internally and stops the threaded shaft from moving into the chuck by the flat washer. The other side is tapped for four 3/4 bits of 10-32 threaded rod and some acorn nuts. It is also centre drilled and held center by the tailstock. One indicates this end and adjusts the acorn nuts outward. Worked fine to square the ends, finish to length and chamfer the edges.
View attachment 145202
Next it was rough cut using a, (gasp) ,hacksaw until my shoulders hurt and then put in the mill to finish the edges and drill some holes for the various bits. I ordered some real round head copper rivets from Mr Godshall and will start the fake rivet lines next weekend. I have read about one builder snapping dozens of bits off doing this, and will be careful to avoid that using center drills and the mill.

https://godshallscustommachining.com/
View attachment 145199

I turned a wood plug with a taper . Spotting drill , center drill and mounted between the chuck and tailstock center.
I bought the 2" steel pipe which measures 2" ID. The copper 1-1/2" pipe measures 1-5/8" OD. This made it impossible to have a 5/8" slope. I did find out that the amount of slope is not critical, as long as their is some slope.
I made my wheels from 1/8" thick brass. Annealed several times to bend onto a wood form. I scarfed the joint, screwed the scarf with 2/56 pan head brass screws. The pan head was later filed off. I was afraid to countersink the scarf joint.
I used Silver solder tape under the scarf joint.
I turned the hub, tapped the holes for 3/48. The spokes protruded thru the rim about 1/8". Hard soldered the spokes on the rim , then removed the excess with a 2x 42 belt sander.
It took 3 tries before I built a good boiler. First attempt was never hydraulic tested because it looked lousy. Had a hard time soldering the water tubes. I used this boiler to experiment installing the water tubes. Rudy's method to distort the copper with a 3/16" rod did not work well for me. I tried several different approaches. What worked was drilling the back end where the tubes are not bent with a 5/32" drill straight down. Then I made a 10" long D-bit 3/16" diameter. The long length let me drill the hole almost horizontal without the drill itself in the way. This worked well. I cut the tubes about 1" longer than needed. Chucked the tube with a small piece of steel inside to make sure I did not collapse the tubing.
Then sanded a slight taper on each tube on both ends.
I annealed the bent end 3 times to get the bend without kinking the tubes.. Soldered the tubes.
Then soldered the back head . Next day I attempted to solder the front head. To make a long story short I screwed up big time. I use black flux, I store a small amount from the original jar in a pill bottle. I also use Moly-Dee tapping fluid which is also black and stored in a pill bottle.
I found that Moly -dee is a lousy flux. I then built the 3rd boiler which turned out well. Hydraulic test was perfect the first try, no leaks. Make sure you have a safety valve in your possession before tapping the boiler. Rudy got his from Cole Power Models which is no longer in business. He specifies. 5/16 -27 and 30 lb pressure. I could not find any safety valve with his thread and 30 lb pressure . I believe I saw one safety with 30lb pressure but with 5/16"-24 thread. I wound up making my safety valve .I am not working on the tractor for now, garden comes first.
mike

 

[raveney]

The wheels look GREAT!
From what I've seen/read, that's the hardest part of the build.

Really nice work!

John

Thank you very much John
I believe the smaller diameter (1/16 vs 3/32) spokes along with the increased number of them helped give a better scale appearance. Debatable if that is worth it to the builder or not because of the increased effort required. I'm very pleased that they run true and I was able to use what I had on hand or could salvage out of the scrap yard. Metal is frightfully dear right now
Russ

 

[raveney]

I turned a wood plug with a taper . Spotting drill , center drill and mounted between the chuck and tailstock center.
I bought the 2" steel pipe which measures 2" ID. The copper 1-1/2" pipe measures 1-5/8" OD. This made it impossible to have a 5/8" slope. I did find out that the amount of slope is not critical, as long as their is some slope.
I made my wheels from 1/8" thick brass. Annealed several times to bend onto a wood form. I scarfed the joint, screwed the scarf with 2/56 pan head brass screws. The pan head was later filed off. I was afraid to countersink the scarf joint.
I used Silver solder tape under the scarf joint.
I turned the hub, tapped the holes for 3/48. The spokes protruded thru the rim about 1/8". Hard soldered the spokes on the rim , then removed the excess with a 2x 42 belt sander.
It took 3 tries before I built a good boiler. First attempt was never hydraulic tested because it looked lousy. Had a hard time soldering the water tubes. I used this boiler to experiment installing the water tubes. Rudy's method to distort the copper with a 3/16" rod did not work well for me. I tried several different approaches. What worked was drilling the back end where the tubes are not bent with a 5/32" drill straight down. Then I made a 10" long D-bit 3/16" diameter. The long length let me drill the hole almost horizontal without the drill itself in the way. This worked well. I cut the tubes about 1" longer than needed. Chucked the tube with a small piece of steel inside to make sure I did not collapse the tubing.
Then sanded a slight taper on each tube on both ends.
I annealed the bent end 3 times to get the bend without kinking the tubes.. Soldered the tubes.
Then soldered the back head . Next day I attempted to solder the front head. To make a long story short I screwed up big time. I use black flux, I store a small amount from the original jar in a pill bottle. I also use Moly-Dee tapping fluid which is also black and stored in a pill bottle.
I found that Moly -dee is a lousy flux. I then built the 3rd boiler which turned out well. Hydraulic test was perfect the first try, no leaks. Make sure you have a safety valve in your possession before tapping the boiler. Rudy got his from Cole Power Models which is no longer in business. He specifies. 5/16 -27 and 30 lb pressure. I could not find any safety valve with his thread and 30 lb pressure . I believe I saw one safety with 30lb pressure but with 5/16"-24 thread. I wound up making my safety valve .I am not working on the tractor for now, garden comes first.
mike

Thank you for the helpful tips Mike,
I didn't even think of a wood plug. I was distracted by the seam weld inside the pipe but your idea would definitely worked for me also.

The tip on the dee bit is a good one also. Jamming a steel rod into the boiler side wall and bending didn't seem very controlled. I envision localized thinning around the joint as the copper stretches, but this boiler has been made hundreds of times.

I put a relief valve in the cart when I went shopping at Mr Goodshalls, but thank you for the reminder. It's 1/4-40 thread and 40 psi so I will hydro the boiler at a higher test pressure, probably 100 psig just to be safe. Back when I was a new construction plumber, we hydro tested everything at 200 psig, so that the inspector would see above 150 on the gauge after the test water cooled and shrank over night. We used weaker lead free solder, but the fittings had very good overlap. Nowadays nobody uses copper any more, CPVC and PEX here in Florida.

Did you make a whistle?
What about the clutch?

Russ

 

[raveney]

Hello all,
To imitate the real tractor closer, I doubled down on the rivets on the right hand side. I made the spacing slightly closer than Rudy suggested also. I saw this technique used on this forum from a build back in 2009 titled "Building Rudy's Steam Tractor" and liked it a lot. Thank you Dennis if you're still watching. I considered just epoxying these "show" rivets in, but noticed how the OP used a c-clamp and thought I would do something similar. I didn't have any deep throat clamps, so I made one from a scrap piece of 3/4" x 4" angle iron. Spent nearly all day whittling it down to shape and making the hardened rivet snaps and press handle. It sure worked out in the end though. The rivet heads are extremely consistent and I'm sure I'll get my time back as the build progresses. I made the throat about 8" deep so it will reach anything on this traction engine.

No snapped drill bits in the boiler shell, but I did chowder a center drill in the rivet press while building it. The press screw thread is 1/4"-20 for 3/4" depth. I used a piece of 7/16" O-1 tool steel. The bottom rivet snap is necked down to 3/16" diameter and threaded in from the outside to make it adjustable also. I didn't make a drawing, just built it by eye using what I had on hand.

 

[kwoodhands]

Hello all,
To imitate the real tractor closer, I doubled down on the rivets on the right hand side. I made the spacing slightly closer than Rudy suggested also. I saw this technique used on this forum from a build back in 2009 titled "Building Rudy's Steam Tractor" and liked it a lot. Thank you Dennis if you're still watching. I considered just epoxying these "show" rivets in, but noticed how the OP used a c-clamp and thought I would do something similar. I didn't have any deep throat clamps, so I made one from a scrap piece of 3/4" x 4" angle iron. Spent nearly all day whittling it down to shape and making the hardened rivet snaps and press handle. It sure worked out in the end though. The rivet heads are extremely consistent and I'm sure I'll get my time back as the build progresses. I made the throat about 8" deep so it will reach anything on this traction engine.

No snapped drill bits in the boiler shell, but I did chowder a center drill in the rivet press while building it. The press screw thread is 1/4"-20 for 3/4" depth. I used a piece of 7/16" O-1 tool steel. The bottom rivet snap is necked down to 3/16" diameter and threaded in from the outside to make it adjustable also. I didn't make a drawing, just built it by eye using what I had on hand.View attachment 145364View attachment 145365View attachment 145366

I like your C -clamp. I did not use rivets but used 1/72 SHCS .
The tapped holes were 60 % . I still broke one tap. The screws look like rivets . If i had seen your C-clamp idea i would have used rivets. I haven't used rivets before and was wary.

 

[johnmcc69]

Looks GREAT!
I love the press/C-Clamp set up!

John

 

[raveney]

Thank you for the comments. As the build continues on, the c-clamp rivet press is really making this enjoyable. Five years or so ago I remember the frustration using rivet snaps on a PM research horizontal boiler build with 1/8" domed rivets. This is definitely the more civilized way to go.

I made some rivet length gauges (lower right hand corner) using small bits of scrap. They are the approximate thickness of the material being joined plus a "set" allowance of 150% of rivet shank diameter. I just drilled five holes, insert rivets and cut flush with side cutters. Sometimes you have to gently tap the rivet in using a soft faced hammer because of the cut end.

I am using a homemade sheet metal brake for the 22 gauge parts that I made for my Demon V8 fuel cell to bend the sheet metal. Made the firebox throat, riveted it all up and realized I forgot to put the steering brackets on. While redoing that, I decided to make the ash louver on the bottom as a separate part instead of the cut and bend detail suggested by Rudy.

I am also planning to alter course and make the steering axles differently. The originals are tapered round centers with a relatively small diameter pivot (blue arrow). I think I should make that out of O-1 and harden it as it would probably bend easily in this scale. Rudy's part is much beefier, but the smaller parts often look better in scale I think. Minor detail, but it is out front so visually important I think.

Opinions and recommendations?

 

[raveney]

Made the "Horn plates" out of 20 gauge steel instead of the 22 gauge so I could add fake stay rivets like the real boiler. Should add some rigidity to the framework too. The axle and gearing tie into these plates. Ran out of the super nice 1/16" Goodhsall rivets and am using cheapo metric (2.5 mm) copper rivets from Amazon. They are not as soft, and I didn't make new rivet head arbors because I don't have any metric ball endmills (or any metric bits). I do have several metric taps because all my machinery is metric.

Anyhow, the rivet heads squeeze out a tiny bit leaving some flashing, but not really noticeable. Let me know what you think. I countersunk the backside and sanded the rivets flush using a Tiger Paw disc in my grinder. After a trial fitup, I noticed that it might look better if I added another three stays where the yellow arrow is. The phillips head screws are temporary, and I will make some 4-40 scale hex bolts tomorrow.

Does anyone know how much tilt to put on the boiler shell? Seems like the flue action would work better if the front was elevated higher than the rear. Kind of like a 60's Gasser drag car?

 

[johnmcc69]

All that I can add is that it looks great!

I'm not sure about that front axle ("Perch") mount though. It seems strange how small it was on the real machine. I like your idea though...

Thinking ahead...I think the rear platform was too short from the plans, there was something up with that when I modeled it in CAD. Take a look when you make that.

Years back, maybe it was Dennis who built it, but he created a more realistic crosshead guide for this that really looked good, I think he also changed the gear ratio.

I think there may be another build of this tractor on this site.

This is looking really nice.

John