Workshop Update 14th August

Friday, 14th August, 2015

Richard has been working on parts for the superheater header. He has made a tool for the seats, 21 off 1 inch studs and the 1 ¼ inch studs. He started making the nuts for these studs and these have now been finished off by Jeannie.

The ash pan has been turned the right way up and Dave and Harry have ground smooth the welded edges.

Bob started on tidying up the brake rigging split pins and Harry finished them off after he and  Dave had fitted the boiler feed pipes clamp bracket and blow down bracket. Harry has packed the driver’s side cylinder end with lagging and fitted the covers.

Sharon and Bob have checked over all the bolts, split pins and flange bolts on the vacuum system pipework.

Nigel and Allan have completed the last pair of crinoline securing brackets. Nigel has started making the bright cotters for the cross heads.

Our painters have continued their sterling work with Mark and Colin working on the cab and cab roof and Hughie, Jim and Bob finishing sanding down the smokebox and applying the first coat of black. The cylinder covers and front steelwork has also been primed. Hughie has started to clean up the wheel coupling rods.

Nigel and Phil have been finishing and fitting the axle box dust covers.

Nigel and Harry bolted on the chimney and fitted the doubling plate to the top of the smokebox. Allan then seal welded the plate and tacked on the securing nuts.

Magic Andy, our copper pipe bender, returned and adjusted the boiler steam feed delivery pipes, bent more pipes on the injector and braised the joining flanges to them.

Harry has fitted the fireman’s side steps.

Sharon and Nigel have finished off fitting the soft felt in the dust cover clamps on the pont and bogie axles.

On the Ivatt, Dave, Dan and Jimmy have now removed the two heavily corroded front leading sandboxes and are now tackling the moving of the axle boxes in the horns. They have now removed split pins with a drift turned by Richard.

Dave has started to clean up the Ivatt coupling rods.

Our shop coach sales staff keep busy with a steadily increasing number of visitors due to our recent new publicity boards. They are wanting to buy all kinds of model railway items to sell in the shop coach.

Alan and Dan did great work on cleaning up the weeds overgrowing the rails in front of the workshop, which now looks a lot tidier.

Dave and Jason have worked on a fund raising video for an internet appeal that is being prepared.

Members of the workshop team have been given  Health & Safety training on the use of the scaffold tower by a member of the ELR staff.

Pictures are :

                       Our paint team inspecting the smokebox

                       Checking the fixings for the vacuum system pipework

                       Some of the workshop team taking a welcome break