Latest News

 

December 2023

Work hasn't stopped because it is holiday season, these parts have all been cleaned up for
re-use on the lubrication system in a home workshop. These are the unions that fit to the ends
of the flexible pipes that feed oil to the axleboxes and bogie.

 

The condition of the parts as received, before cleaning up/refurbishment.

 

The associated nuts that secure the unions to the axleboxes and bogie. All the threads have
had a tap run through them, they just await a clean up on the outside now.

 

One of the tender steps being drilled for the mushroom head rivets we will be using to create
the tread. Note the use of a drill template so we only have to do the marking out and centre
punching once, there are a lot of holes. These are the bottom steps which are the longest
ones so the template can just be cut down and used again for the upper, shorter steps.

 

The right leading axlebox now returned after having a new manganese liner fitted and
machined as one of the welds had failed allowing the liner to bulge and preventing fitting.

 

We took advantage of dry bright weather one Sunday in December to do some shotblasting,
probably the last opportunity for a couple of months. There was one piece of the cab that
had been lying around awaiting an opportunity to shotblast it, this is the arch that holds the
shape of the cab roof. The main purpose though was to shotblast as many parts as possible
that we recently stripped off the tender so we could get a coat of paint on them to preserve
them for future use.

 

The support arch for the cab roof after shotblasting and before priming.

 

Some of the parts we managed to shotblast after having a coat of anti-corrosive green primer.

 

November 2023

Having fitted all the axleboxes to the horn guides in the frames and got the axle centres set
up we now need to scrape the bearings in top the journals on the axles. Here the journal
is being blued in readiness to try the axlebox.

 

After the axle is blued the axlebox is lowered onto it and rotated through about 60 degrees
to get an impression on the white metal from the blue to identify the high spots for scraping in.

 

Having identified the high spots the white metail is hand scraped to remove the high spots.

 

We recovered our tender tank from where it had been in store, most of it is only good
for scrap but there are some important parts that we wanted to salvage from it that can
be used for the new tank when we build it. Here it is arriving on the lorry.

 

It looks in a bit of a sorry state here after unloading.

 

The rear steps are still in good condition and will be recovered for re-use as will the lamp
brackets, note that they are configured for western and midland lamps. We believe this
tender was built at Swindon for use with 8Fs that were built there during the second world war.

 

Other parts that can be re-used include the handrails and beading around the top.

 

This is one of the vent pipes that had fallen into the bottom of the tank and which we can
refurbish and re-use. There are two of these, one is misisng so we need to track down
a replacement for the second one.

 

The coal space door was still intact and will be re-furbished for use on the new tender tank.

 

This is a casting that forms part of the water scoop mechanism, the GWR and 1942 date
on the casting prove the Swindon wartime origins of this tender.

 

This is one of the sections of beading we removed, which Toby is cleaning up and removing
all the rivets before we shotblast and paint it to go into store for when we need it.

 

August 2023

The position is checked from centre pops on the buttons on the frames either side of the axlebox
to a very lightly scribed circle on the thrust face that we put on the boxes when they were machined
so we know it is perfectly concentric to the bored journal. The centre pops on the buttons were
checked when we did the setting out from the cylinder blocks, they were out, we had to re-establish
correct centre pops on the buttons to be able to take these measurements here. We are pleased
to confirm these are now spot on, we just have to set out the centres of the leading and trailing axles
from the driving box position.

 

Having checked the axlebox positions relative to the cylinders and set up a dummy axle
we were able to calculate the shims required behind the manganese liners to bring
the axleboxes onto the correct centres. Here we are checking them in their new
position after adjusting the shims.

 

New castings for firehole doors have been delivered and await machining.

 

This is the back face of the firehole doors where you can see the vents that allow a continuous
flow of secondary air to the fire even when the doors are shut.

 

Patterns being made for the gland that fits to the side of the smokebox around the main
steam pipes to keep the smokebox air tight.

 

Another view of the pattern, this is just one half of the gland.

 

This is the second half of the gland still being worked on by the pattern makers.

 

The two halves of a gland borrowed from another engine for the pattern makers to work to. You
can see one of the weaknesses of these parts is the thin flange where a part has broken
away by the bolt hole. These flanges are bing made thicker on the new patterns to try and
overcome this problem.

 

This view shows the curvature in the flanges so that the two halves fit snuggly to the smokebox.

 

July 2023

Leading driving wheels now with second top coat on the wheels and first top coat on the axle.

 

Using a stick micrometer to measure from the front face of the cylinders to the dummy axle
so that we can set the shims on the horn guides correctly and ensure that the driving axle
is in the correct relationship to the cylinders.

 

With the driving boxes up in the horns we have set up a dummy axle so that we can check
dimensions and alignment to be adjusted by shimming the manganese liners. Once the
driving axle is set off the cylinders we will use the position of the driving axle to set the
correct wheel centres for the leading and trailing axles.

 

There have been a number of odd jobs that needed finishing off, having fitted up all the
slidebars some time ago one of these tasks was fitting all the cotters to the slidebar bolts, this
is now complete.

 

Here you can see both driving axleboxes mounted ready for alignment work.

 

WIth the driving axleboxes finished we have started to mount them in the horns ready
for checking alignments.

 

This is the second box that required a weld repair, see nearest corner.

 

One of the boxes after re-welding, the repair is seen on the left.

 

During machining of the axleboxes some splits in the original BR welds holding the manganese liners to the axleboxes
were spotted. Here they have been ground out and studding used to close up the gaps prior to re-welding.

 

The leading wheelset is now in black topcoat. Some more rubbing down and top coats required
before these are ready for fitting the axleboxes.

 

April 2023

The first wheel now in black undercoat following a lot of work filling and rubbing down.

 

The second axlebox now set up in the lathe for turning. We created a dummy centre and used
that to scribe an arc on the white metal thrust face. We then used that arc to set the axlebox
true to the scriber you can see fitted to the toolpost in the photo.

 

The first axlebox completed.

 

Machining the thrust face on the first axlebox in the facing lathe.

 

Machining the bore of the first axlebox.

 

February 2023

Forgings just delivered for the front half of the coupling rods. We already have a full set of
coupling rods but they are the fluted type for the later Black Fives, to be correct we need
the plain fish belly type. We already have the rear half from the trailing crankpin to the gradient
pin and needed the front half. These will ultimately be machined from these forgings.