P2 Locomotive Company and related matters

I'm a bit confused..bronze...steel? The castings which are being hydraulicly tested are steel by their colour. Is it your experience of bronze casting being cross related to steel casting, which I think is your meaning?

 

I wondered the same. They are certainly steel and I agree with your supposition.


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Thank you "Peabody"...we agree..

 

I think this is what was intended:

"Whilst WCCP has extensively subjected the (steel) castings to Non-Destructive Testing (NDT), we are aware that from previous experience with bronze castings, even with X-ray inspection, it is not always possible to see minute pin holes which might give rise to leakage, hence the belt and braces approach."

Therefore the steel castings have been subjected to an hydraulic test to check for porosity.

Foxy

 

Both sets of coupling rods fitted- the locomotive is now officially a Mikado!
https://www.p2steam.com/category/news/

 

Amazing progress. Those rods will never be that clean again! lol

 

Oh - I don't know, see if Sheff can do as good a job as he has on Tornado.

 

hahaha, well have to give him the benefit of the doubt. But as we all know, there is a big difference between looking clean and being clean

 

Nor will the wheel rims!

 

Brilliant progress! I keep checking for news updates but hadn't seen anything since the cancelled Roadshow... Plenty of work going on as usual!

Richard.

 

I often wonder if the work was really accelerated, money no object, how quickly the team could finish this, then build the next in order.

The progress is remarkable, with every update.

 

In theory things may go faster, but in practice, lead times for the components remaining are somewhat fixed. High quality engineering takes time, and there is a law of diminishing returns on how much faster you can go for an unlimited supply of money. You can't machine a coupling rod 3x faster for 3x more money, as tool speeds and feeds are fixed by physics.

 

I am sure with more bodies on CAD workstations, more bodies going through the myriad of tests and certification, and other jobs, the time would be reduced, which was the point.

That's not a criticism of progress to date, which has been fantastic.

 

That's basically true of course, but until the sort of build times achieved by the factories back in the day are achieved then faster is always possible. Perhaps more important is the law of diminishing returns, where the expense of investment in machinery, staff and training required to increase productivity will get disproportionate to the actual time reduction.

 

Ah but that only comes with series mass production, whereas this is more akin to prototyping?

 

That's the point about "money no object" isn't it. With enough money you can jump any queue, be it materials, production capacity etc.

"I'm sorry, we only have one CNC machine and it's doing something else"
"Here's a new house and a gold-plated bentley"
"I'll put that in the skip and start on your project now, sir"

Generally of course "money no object" is almost never the case. The only example I can think of is when the Y2K bug threatened the City.

As a theoretical excercise, with unlimited funds would you be better off jumping the queue at existing operations, or building your own capacity...

 

Anyway, back to reality, it's looking good isn't it? I liked the the skyhooks on the running plate. I wonder if anyone else can retrofit that idea, seems a good way of saving backs...

 

Yep!

 

Heh! I take it the idea may be an innovation, but not necessarily one had by the P2people?

 

It's not strictly relevant to this case but I am reminded of the Engineer's Triangle:

http://www.engineeringexpert.net/En...content/uploads//2010/10/Project_Triangle.png