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 off one end and welding it on the other as the bend wasn’t quite in the right place.

On top of that, we continued with the painting of Charwelton’s wheel sets.

On Sunday we started to assembly more of Project 2 but quickly ran into a problem when things wouldn’t line up as expected which involved a lot of head scratching as all the parts concerned appeared to be the correct size.

 Eventually, the fault was located – a line of holes in the pre drilled platework that were lower than they should have been.  Pending deciding how that was to be resolved, we continued with the end panels which, again, involved much measuring, cutting, welding, grinding and drilling

Finally, if you enjoy reading about our activities every week, go to the How To Help button at the top of the site, then select the Three Ways to Help option and donate a tenner.  It’s only a small sum but, if enough of you do it, it will make a huge difference to how quickly we can get the finished boiler returned and 4253 returned to steam.  We shall very shortly have to cover the cost of the new crown stays plus the flue tubes and that will represent a considerable sum so please, if you can, help us to get the job finished as quickly as possible.

Week Three

No update this week due to technical difficulties.

Week Two

Three working days and two sales days this week.  Project 1 was moved outside to enable a final bit of welding to be done once it was upright plus some paint on the rear panels.

Others continued working on Charwelton in the shed painting the bunker and the trailing axle wheel set.

4253’s second big end bush had the slot milled into it for the felt oil pad and, on Friday, the panels for project 2 were delivered and immediately given a coat of grey undercoat.

Saturday and Sunday saw the sales team in action raising funds on Tenterden Station during the Santa Specials

while, on Sunday, a small team started work on project 2 by bolting some panels together,

tack welding angle into place to join sections

and ended up with quite a bit of progress made.

Sunday was particularly cold with everything frozen at Rolvenden including the tea urn!  Tenterden Station was not much better and when the snow started to fall in earnest late afternoon we called it a day, packed everything away and went home to thaw out.

Week One

This week the first half of the project is almost finished having received a good rubbing down

followed by a coat of black gloss.

The work we are doing on Charwelton has progressed with the wheel sets swapped around so we could paint the leading axle set plus the first gloss coat applied to the bunker.

More work has been done on the bushes for 4253’s rods with them being set up in the mill 

so the slots for the oil pads could be machined.

At HBSS, the boiler has had the firebox lap seam rivets corked

and the main steam pipe and steam collector have been trial fitted.

In addition, the sales team spent all of Saturday and Sunday with the Tombola and sales stand at the Santa Specials to raise funds as they will be every weekend up to Christmas plus the 22^nd, 23^rd and 24^th.