Final Week

With the Santa Specials trains starting this weekend, the trailer was loaded up with all the Sales Stand gear and moved up to Tenterden where our new gazebo was erected, the raised floor installed and all the tables, wiring etc. set up ready for the weekend. Typically, it rained for most of Saturday which always adversely affects how much we manage to raise.  

Back at Rolvenden, work continued on the boiler cladding in-fill pieces for the driver’s side with cardboard templates being cut out first before being transferred to metal,

trial fitted and then removed for painting.

More pipework was fitted to the backhead, 

new sections made up, 

a jig made to enable holding brackets to be made for various diameters of pipe and the area is now starting to look quite ‘busy’.

The water feed pipes up to the clacks have also been fully trial fitted and tweaked to get the fit just right.

On the 5164 bunker, the sections of the rear panel that were slit and dressed back to match the curve of the corner pieces last week were welded up and ground flush

and the upper coal floor was positioned and tack welded to the retaining strips along its rear edge and sides 

after which the top beading was removed 

together with some of the rear platework joining strips so that the floor can be lifted out and fully welded next week.  Also, the ducket had the bottom edge ground back in preparation of a ‘skirt’ being made to join it to the upper coal floor and the rear lamp bracket was bolted up 

so that the retaining nuts could be welded on the underside as this area will be inaccessible once the skirt is in place.

Week Four

This week was very much a repeat performance of last week as far as 4253 is concerned.  Yet more pieces of in-fill cladding around the backhead were fabricated and trial fitted

and the final section of water feed pipe to the clack on the driver’s side was finished and then both pipes were annealed.  

The above shot also shows a section of the steam heat pipework on the right set up to have its flange brazed on.   A modification we are making is to fit a deflector plate under the whistle to stop drips of water getting onto the top of boiler and measurements were taken to start fabricating this.  There was a substantial amount of repair work required in that area as a result of the corrosion previously caused so we want to avoid that happening again.  To enable yet more pipework to be made, the duplex vacuum gauge has been temporarily fitted to the backhead.

Finally, a start was made on the fabrication of the covers for the main steam pipes, where they exit the smokebox, by slitting a couple of lengths of pipe into halves.   

On the 5164 bunker, the upper coal floor was moved away from the rear panel to enable weld preps to be put on both the floor and its retaining strip.  

It was then put back in position and the two parts will be tack welded together next week.  We also addressed the discrepancy where the inward curve on the rear corner pieces met the inward bend in the rear panel and left a small gap.  This was corrected by slitting the first 4” of the bend at each end of the rear panel 

after which the area was heated 

and then dressed back with a copper mallet until it matched the curve on the corner pieces.  The area was then grooved out and will be welded up and ground back flush.

Week Three

The week started with yet another modification to the supplied platework for the 5164 bunker as we had to weld up the vertical handrail holes (they were far too big) dress the plate and re-drill to the correct size.  Others continued the work on the cladding sections around the boiler backhead and the following shots show just how complicated these pieces are and why the job is taking so long.

The top part of the fireman’s side is now complete and the driver’s side is progressing well.

Friday saw the remaining grab handle holes for the bunker marked and drilled on the fireman’s side

followed by a trial fitting 

and the last of the holes for the upper coal floor were drilled through the rear retaining strip.  On Sunday, all the diagonal holes on both corner pieces were drilled out full size for the rivets and the grab handle holes were drilled on the driver’s side.

More progress was also made on 4253’s pipework with the final piece of the feed to the clack on the fireman’s side being bent to shape, brazed to the rest of it 

and trial fitted.  

The driver’s side has also been bent and just needs to be joined together.

Week Two

No Updates This Week. Sorry.

Week One

The week started with dressing the angle pieces for the front of the cab that had been trimmed to size the previous week

followed by offering them up to check the fit.

The vertical feed pipes that run through the tanks to the clacks had the flanges cleaned up and the studs fitted 

after which they were blanked off and filled with sand in readiness for bending.

The corner pieces of cladding from the firebox to the backhead continue to take up a lot of time and effort with measuring, marking, 

cutting, 

bending 

and spot welding bits together 

before trial fitting them.

The top ducket section of the 5164 bunker was offered back up to see how well it fitted to the top beading now that the latter has been reshaped to fit the new platework.  

It’s not too bad and showed where the old welds needed to be dressed back in preparation for when it gets welded back on.

On Sunday, we completed the drilling to attach the corner sections of the retaining strip for the top coal floor 

which were then bolted up to pull them into shape after which they were tack welded to the straight pieces of strip either side.  The coal floor itself was then offered up to check the fit against the joining strips 

and this showed that a bit more fettling is required along the back edge before it will sit happily so out it must come again.

More work was done on 4253’s pipework with the vertical clack feeds being heated

and given their initial 90-degree bend 

after which they were temporarily replaced to mark where the next bend needs to be.  

Also, the last bit of pipework for the steam heat had the end connection to the mason’s valve silver soldered on.

Finally, the tallow tray had the retaining brackets marked and drilled after which it was trial filled and given a load bearing test with the traditional engineman’s tea container.