Jonathan St. Mary asked me to post:
As I'm sure you are aware, Jason and I have been tweaking the big lathe for weeks now, trying to get to the point where we could turn and burnish the journals on the driver axles for #9.
Previously, we showed the counter-counterweights which balanced up the wheelsets. Since then, we have adjusted the tailstock, fabricated a new headstock center, re-geared the drivetrain to get a much slower feed rate, and fabricated our latest specialty tool, the journal burnisher. With all the tweaking, Jason was able to turn the journals to an acceptable roundness without an undue amount of taper, and a finish good enough to burnish. The pics are of our new journal burnisher in use. It seems like this part of the project has taken forever, but the lathe tweaks will speed up any more work done with the machine.