Marion-Osgood Assembly

cjmlarson

Mega Poster
WMSTR Lifetime Member
The assembly of the shovel has started out at the showgrounds. We are trying to get everything assembled that has to be done before we move the carbody onto the concrete slab. We had a good day on Saturday, as we started the assembly. Following are some pictures of the work on Saturday. Hopefully Louie or someone else got some better pictures than what I took with my phone.


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Starting to get rigged up to lift the heavy pieces.


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It's hard to see as the picture is dark, but the A-frame is being lifted into position along with some heavy links at the back of the carbody.


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After we had the long link from the top of the A-frame back down to the back of the carbody in place, Wimpy went up in the man-basket and started to weld this together.


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Just a shot of Wimpy welding up in the man-basket. He finally quit, due to the fact that the wind was blowing so hard that the man basket was moving in mid-air and he could not hold a steady bead with the welder. We will finish the weld at a later date.


Thanks to all who showed up to help, which included Louie, Jim B., Mel, Ryan, Phil, Klinger, Clayton and Wimpy.
 
This past Steam School weekend we started to assemble all of the big pieces onto the shovel. The day before the crane came, we put the crowd engine onto the newly restored boom. We did this because it was laying flat. If we would have waited until the boom was on, it would have been up in the air and at an angle.


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Here we are getting the crowd engine set onto the boom and getting the backlash correct for the gears.


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Here Industrial Builders is getting their 150 ton crane set up to start the lift of the carbody.


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They lifted the carbody up and we turned it 90 degrees so that they could move the crane to sit closer for a much safer setting of the carbody on the axles.


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Klinger and Harvey are discussing their plan.


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Bill, Kee and Curt are also discussing their plan.


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Here Industrial Builders has reset the crane and are getting ready to lift the carbody up so we can turn it and set it on the axles.
 
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We have lifted it and are beginning to set it onto the axles. I should mention, the carbody itself weighed approximately 78,000 lbs. This means everybody was careful to keep their distance as Industrial Builders were doing their job.


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Bill, Kee and Harvey are watching closely as we set the carbody down on the front axle. This picture gives a good idea of the size of this machine.


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Here we have hooked up the chains to the cable circle and are lifting it up so that we can install it on the front of the shovel.


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This picture shows us setting the cable circle down onto its' pivot shaft.


We have more to post, but for those of you that also took pictures, please feel free to post what you have of the assembly.
 
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Here the crew is deciding on the best way to lift the boom up to the shovel. Our first attempt did not have it at enough of an angle, so we decided to hook on the big shaft where the gears mount and this gave us a much better angle. This was due to the fact that the boom could not be mounted level. It had to have at least a 25 degree angle to fit properly.



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Here with the boom at the correct angle, we were attempting to put it into position so we could install the bottom pins.



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The boom was being a little crabby about falling into place easily. So we had to grind a little bit on the inside of the boom and then it eventually fit nicely.



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Once we had the boom mounted at the bottom, we installed the long links that hold the boom up at the top of the A-frame. This keeps the boom at the correct angle all the time.
 
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We did not get a picture of lifting the dipper with the big crane, but if you look in this picture, you can see where the straps were hooked around the dipper. Then we pushed the bucket towards the shovel with the D8. I know in my verbage this sounded like it was easy, but this took some time to get it right.



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Just a view from the very front after sliding the dipper inside of the boom.



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This was Saturday morning when there were no service trucks or cranes around the shovel and the boiler had been lifted onto the carbody. Jane is standing next to the front left wheel to give you a perspective of the size of this machine.

You can't appreciate the size of this shovel without actually stepping up close to it. I know there were others taking pictures that probably show other parts of the assembly. Please post them!

Jane also took a 50 min video of what went on throughout the day. Just so you know, some of that video is quite boring, but does show lifting of every component.
 
Clayton,
Nice pictures. Congratulations to the crew working on this shovel. Very impressive. I always thought I was a Steam nut but the people that put together a project like this are real Steam nuts and very dedicated to WMSTR and the hobby.

Thanks,
Pete
 
I took almost the same photograph, Clayton, of my bride standing next to this to show the grand scale of this machine. I agree that a person just doesn't understand how big this is until you get close. Cotter pins as big as my hand! "There is nothing small about this thing," as Harvey put it when we got a chance to visit. Thanks to all for taking on this project. It is fun seeing it come together!
 
I looked in on the assembly when I was giving my mother a tour on Friday afternoon. It was an impressive site watching all of the people who have been involved with this project bring it to this milestone re-assembly point.

Congratulations all! :congrats:

One of my thoughts as I looked at the assembly to this point... That monster boiler sure got smaller when it landed back on the car body!

Thank you for another great thread Clayton and Jane!
 
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