The central trap door on the Sir Sagramore ashpan now has a control / locking device. It’s a bit unorthodox but it will hold the trap door shut when running.
The linkages ended up with a rod pointing backwards at 45deg from the base of the footplate, with it pulled up to close the trap door. I therefore made a steel toggle that holds the rod in the open position:
It rotates 90deg. and pushes in towards the backhead to open the trap door for ash disposal:
I wasn’t convinced by the appearance of the toggle and it was also a bit slippery to handle. I therefore made a hand wheel to make it easier to hold and also reduced the locking pillar in size. The wheel was turned as a blank and mounted on a mandrel, Loctited in place. This was then drilled on the rotary table.
The outer ring was then turned off to give the ‘grippy’ outer part of the hand wheel.
After rounding off the edges the front face was given a rebate using a graver.
The locking toggle components can be seen here, before assembly. The hand wheel was simply soft soldered onto the steel toggle, and held in place with a 10BA nut, with it pivoting freely on the rod - a piece of coat hanger suitably turned down & threaded.
Finally an exciting video showing it in action!
Back to small scale stuff now.
Tim