Progress February 2025

Week Four

As well as the usual three working days this week, four of us travelled up to Leeds on Monday for the funeral of our old friend and colleague Dick Weeks.  RIP Dick, you will be missed.

Work on Gervase is progressing with the roof section bought in out of the rain so it could be cleaned, the flaking old paint removed 

and a coat of primer applied.

Work started on removing the cylinder heads for inspection and, surprisingly, everything came apart with relative ease.

On 4253, the crinoline work has now moved to fabricating the sections that go round the firebox

so, yet again, the team is cutting and bending steel, positioning and welding on brackets, 

drilling holes, countersinking some of them

and tapping threads for the fixing bolts.

The bracket that goes over the boiler and ties the tanks together received its first coat of gloss

and the pipework team continued with their measuring, heating and bending 

and trial fitting.

Time consuming and repetitive but at least, at the end of each day, a little more of it is completed.

Week Three

This week’s work has mainly revolved around the pipework for 4253’s backhead fittings with various pieces of copper pipe being heated 

and then bent into the required shapes.

Once correct, the pipes have the end connections silver soldered into place 

and are then trial fitted before being taken down again to be polished.

Also, once the position of the pipework has been finalised, for some we then have to make retaining brackets which involves more heating and bending of steel strip 

and further trial fitting and tweaking to get correct.

We also did some more of the vacuum pipework which is in steel and involved welding a number of 45elbows together at various angles with each one tacked into position, trial fitted for the next one to be marked for position and then tacking that one into place.  Once it all fitted comfortably, the pipe was removed again to be fully welded up.

Other work included more crinoline fabrication (just for a change), a start made on cutting out all the sections for the middle cladding on the backhead 

which first involved cutting a plywood template from which to work.

We have also continued with the work on Gervase with various panels getting steam cleaned to remove years of crud, the gauge plinths being given a couple of coats of varnish and the vacuum brake, which was very rusty, being removed and dismantled for cleaning up.

Week Two

This week, the final little jobs were completed on the 541 tender tank so it just needs cleaning out and our temporary lights removed from the interior and then it’s ready to go.  With that done, we made a start on the reassembly of Gervase after its 10 year overhaul 

by cleaning and rubbing down the cab paintwork and rusty pipework.

A coat of primer was then applied 

after which the wooden gauge plinths were removed, cleaned and sanded back ready for varnishing next week.

On 4253, the ever-continuing crinoline work did indeed continue,

the oiled superheater elements were transferred to our container pending fitting 

and the last of the joining pieces were made and trial fitted to the top backhead cladding sections.

The hydrostatic lubricator had its mounting bosses welded to the backhead and was then fitted 

and another round of pipework shaping began.  Plates were brazed onto the open ends, 

the pipes filled with sand followed by heating and bending and then offering up for fit.

Also, the parts for the bracket that attaches the jockey valve quadrant to the regulator boss were finished, welding together, dressed back 

and trial fitted.

Week One

On Tuesday it was our late Christmas lunch held at The Star, Rolvenden which was excellent but meant we only did half a day’s work.  

That work mainly involved the superheater elements that were delivered first thing in the pouring rain and had to be carried into the shed to be dried off and then given a coating of protective oil.

On Friday, it was back to the crinolines with bits being welded together, 

the curves tweaked in the press 

and then trial fitted.  Many shiny bits were bought out of storage to make sure we have everything we need to get on with making the pipework.

Then, the warming valve for the lubricator was fitted to the blower valve and then the valve was bolted back onto the backhead.  We started with bending the steam feed pipes to the jockey valve from the manifold shut offs, silver soldered the ends and trial fitted them.

On Sunday, the final bits of welding were done on the 541 tender tank to tidy up the corners of the beading joins, 

a couple of the superheater elements were trial fitted, 

one on the top row and one on the bottom to double check we have the header in the correct position.

The pipe that comes off the bottom of the brake ejector was heated and bent to provide the  correct off-set to ensure it missed the flare plate after which it was trimmed to length and then welded onto the machined connecting pipework that came with the ejector.

The various backhead cladding pieces had countless more joining holes drilled

and we needed to fabricate a mounting bracket that fits to the regulator boss and supports the linkage to the jockey valve.  For this, we borrowed the one on 6619 to give us a template (shown held below) and cut, bent and drilled the various parts which now just need to be welded together