Final Week (Written on January 1st 2023) Firstly, a Happy New Years to all our readers! Back to normal this week other than packing away all the sales stand paraphernalia on Tuesday. After that is was back to Project 2 and the usual round of drilling, welding and grinding. Another task was modifying an ‘S’ shaped section by cutting a bit … Read More
Week Four During the week, the current project was bought almost to completion with the final exterior seam being welded and then ground back to give a smooth edge. After that it was more cutting and grinding of parts for the next project which took a couple of people most of a day. The painting of Charwelton was progressed with the … Read More
Final Week During the week we did a bit more drilling and bolting up of bits for future riveting, cleaning up some of the welding done the previous week before applying an undercoat to the outer side. Threads were tapped into flange plates to take studs. The water gauge bracket fabrication was finished off, the machining of the rod bushes … Read More
Week Four During the week, the main focus was progressing the current project which involved finishing the hole drilling, stripping the majority of it apart again so that all the burrs round the drilled holes could be cleaned off prior to the mating surfaces being coated with mastic after which it was all realigned and bolted together again in preparation … Read More
Final Week The machining of the brasses for the connecting rod little ends was started this week and, to obtain the necessary measurements, it was necessary to remove and measure the gudgeon pins from the crossheads. This, of course, was not straightforward and required the manufacture of a puller arrangement to do the job after one of the crossheads had been … Read More
Final Week More realistic temperatures this week so a full three days as usual. 4253 had more work done on the underpinnings by way of fitting castellated nuts and split pins and carefully checking everything from front to rear. The machining of the big end bushes for the con rods has been started and there’s not too much material to take off. … Read More
Final Week A lot of work has gone into the front running plate this week with the pony truck cover’s holding ring receiving it’s final fettling before fitting properly, further adjustment of the pipes from the oil box and the reaming out of the fixing holes. It has taken many hours of labour to get all these components fitting happily … Read More
Final Week This week, the front rear panel for 5668’s tank was painted, bolted on and reamed ready for riveting and a start made on refurbishing the maker’s name plate from the turntable at Robertsbridge. Work continued on assembling the all new components of the front and rear draw hooks and screw couplings and, as the fixing nut for the … Read More