I spent the day playing with boot scrapers (so, my apologies for things missed or messed up). There was only one left in the F&W, so I had to deliver the three that were ready, and then hastily complete some more to restock the café.
John G was also in painting mode. I believe that he touched up various black bits on the tender frames and the wheels. He then applied black enamel to the RHS cylinder cladding.
It’s a bit annoying how metal particles settle all over the loco, after we’d painted it all, and turn to rust.
I wish people would do their cutting outside or in the workshop, and not in the running shed!
David & Gil dedicated their day to the second damper door. They removed it (with a little help from Brian, I think) and then straightened it up using the press. Bruce made some fresh spacers for the hinges, having discovered that two of the spacers had been made of mesh!
Brian refilled the boiler (it having been drained in anticipation of going to Didcot) and the Loco Dept filled the tender with water.
Now that it was full of water, Bruce measured the height of the tender to see how level it was after our fiddling with the springs. Near enough level. Slightly up at the front (but there’s no coal on yet). He decided not to play any more with the springs!
Bruce had some thoughts about fitting rail guards to the tender rear. However, Carpo joined in, and it is now on Plan C. Plan A had guards attached to the steps (see blue arrows). Plan C has much smaller ones attached to the rear brake hangers (yellow arrow). A bonus is that if they should hit something, the tender brakes will go on!
2807 is currently rostered to be in service from 12th to 17th April inclusive.
Saturday 8th
There’s a bit of a lowatus, really, since we’ve nowhere to go. Bruce and Gilbert we so stuck for
something to do that they even went and helped Dinmore Manor. The Manor chaps were having
trouble getting their cylinder cover off, so B+G made them a puller. It was easy enough to get the
cover off, really; it’s just that it didn’t want to come off.
John T noted the boot scraper stock situation and immediately set to, needle-gunning rail chairs. He
dedicated the entire day to this task, completing 10 by end of play.
I subsequently wire-brushed six of John’s chairs. By this time, Gil was so stuck for something to do
that he volunteered to paint their bottoms black! He’d already painted the cylinder puller in yellow.
Bruce had wandered off looking at the guard irons on the tenders of the other locos. He also took
numerous measurements in order to produce a scale drawing of the proposed solution for our
tender. He’s going to print off the iron (if he’d got a 3D printer, he could print off the whole thing!)
for a test viewing.
This must be visiting season, because on Wednesday we’d had Ken S. and his mate visit for a cuppa, and today we had the granddaughter of Jack Humphries come to see the engine that her granddad had worked on.
This photo, taken by Mark Taft in 1996, shows Gilbert, Bruce and Jack when the frames where being lowered onto the wheels in Toddington yard. The team achieved this major milestone using just brain & brawn - no crane involved: just Jack and a jack!
Roger
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