The Spring Rigging is the suspension on the eight drive wheels. I pretty much followed the Allen Models drawing for the consolidation. My frame members are 3/4 inch wide by 1/2 inch deep. Instead of using fake castings to represent the leaf springs, I made working leaf spring assemblies. I have two different sizes of spring material – 5/8 x 0.043 inch and 3/4 x 0.0625 inch. I purchased the material at a club auction a few years ago; which had been donated by Skip Enck who had used the material for the springs on his big D & H 2-8-0.
Spring steel is very hard and tough to work. I cut the pieces to length with an abrasive wheel in a Dremel tool.
I drilled the center holes in the spring leaves with a carbide tipped drill.
The leaf spring holders for the four rear drivers were made of brass. I filed grooves in the brass strips, folded them and silver brazed the corner joints.
The photo above is three of the rear spring assemblies. There are very complex calculations for making leaf springs. They are way too complex for me, so I made the base of each assembly out of the thicker material and used four pieces of the thinner material on top of each assembly. I tested the assembly by pressing down on the spring on top of a bathroom scale. As the spring flattened out the scale read 35 to 40 pounds. It is strictly a guess. They can be changed after I test run the engine if necessary.
There are six spring assemblies for the four rear drivers as shown above.
The front spring retainers are made of 1/8 inch thick by one inch steel. I milled the grooves in these pieces.
The steel pieces were folded to shape and the corners were silver brazed.
This photo shows the four spring assemblies for the front four drivers. I tapped the correct number of holes, but I somehow miscounted how many shoulder screws would be needed to assemble everything. I am three short.
I will paint all the parts and add the brake rigging and the cylinder mounts to the frame before I attempt a final assembly. I suspect it will be a challenge to put this all together with the wheels in place.
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