Week Four

On Tuesday, 5164’s bunker work included welding a thin strip to the top of the centre baffle as it was sitting slightly lower then the two side baffles.  

The coal hole door slides were also bolted into place in preparation for riveting 

and all the rivets put in last week received a clean up to remove any traces of scale.

Work on 4253 involved putting together pre-bent pipe brackets for holding the injector delivery pipes to the cladding, putting together the pipe covers that attach to the clack covers on the safety valve unit (both shown below) 

and putting more cones together that go around the washout plugs.  Friday was purely a 4253 day with more cones and pipe fitting brackets being made and trial fitted.

We also picked up the freshly cast saddles to allow a take-off from 4253’s main steam heat pipe to the gauge.

On Sunday, still more pipe retaining brackets were made 

and a start was made machining the saddle to be a close fit to the pipe to be silver-soldered to it.

The next stage will be to turn the round bit down to size to take a BSP thread for the take-off pipe fixing and then drill it through.  

On the 5164 bunker, we spent a frustratingly long time getting the angled front to the water space to fit into position which involved trimming back the lower edge of the front baffle as it turned out to have a different angle from the side supports.

Week Three

This week started with aligning then bolting and tack welding the baffles into the water space of the 5164 bunker after weld prepping the edges where necessary and then reaming out the holes.

The rear ducket beading was brought in, given a good clean up followed by a coat of primer.

On 4253, thew never-ending job of making backhead cladding joining pieces continued, 

the parts for the delivery pipe covers where they enter the clacks were shaped and then welded together 

and a few more bits of pipework were made and fitted.

On Sunday it was back to the 5164 bunker with the remainder of the baffle welding undertaken 

before riveting the ends of the baffles to the side panels and also where it is sandwiched between the two parts of the centre support struts on the rear panel.

After that, the triangular pieces that form the side closing panels for the recess at the front of the water space were offered up, trimmed as necessary 

and then tack welded into position.  After than the sloped top closing panel had a lifting eye temporarily welded on and was then lifted into the bunker to be lowered into place to check the fit.

Week Two

This week’s work on 4253 included more washout plug cone making 

and then trial fitting 

together with even more  pipe bending 

and fitting in the cab.

For 5164’s bunker, the seams welded last week were all dressed back 

and then the doubling plates were fitted and bolted up 

followed by reaming where necessary.

Sunday was riveting day with, firstly, the front corners finished 

followed by joining the rear corner pieces, side panels, rear top and bottom panels 

and the outer support angles for the rear panels.  At the end of the day, we had put in 497 rivets with only 3 that were deemed unsatisfactory, cut out and redone.  A hard but good days work with the following shots showing the inside 

and outside.

Week One

This week, Tuesday only involved half a day’s work as it was our annual Christmas lunch (always held in January) at The Star pub in Rolvenden and, as usual, it was excellent even though they had suffered a flooding of their cellar that morning due to the heavy rain.  However, we still managed to make more cladding bits for around 4253’s firebox 

and many of the panels for the 5164 bunker had their edges weld prepped followed by fitting some of the joining plates and reaming as necessary 

before bolting on the rear corner pieces.  As the joins in the water space are all to be seam welded on the inside, the joining plates were bolted on the outside so as to align the panels while allowing access to the inside for the actual welding.

On Sunday. the welds were completed and dressed back which involved ensuring plates at the first section of the join were perfectly level, placing a tack and then moving to the next section to repeat the process.

This often involved bolting joining strips across the panels or levering the ends of the corner pieces.

Once completed. The upper rear panel was lifted into place 

and bolted up after which the long process of getting the panels level along the bend radius began.  This shot shows various bits of plate being bolted across the join to make sure its level before the two are seam welded on the inside.

Here, the side joins are having the weld dressed flush while the rear panels are being welded

and this shows all the welds joining the upper rear panel prior to dressing.  

Once completed, it was back to riveting with the front of the side panel on the driver’s side being completed,