Saturday

Attendance: 3

Adam got radiator tanks out of coach and began sanding them down on the bench outside. The side frame were fitted with Serck makers plates attached with rivets and Adam was unsure how to remove them so Jason showed him a technique using a hammer & small chisel to knock the rivets heads off with short sharp blows, after being shown Adam then removed the remainder of the plates using this method.

Jim marked up a section of metal to be cut out for welding back into the cooler group. He set up the plasma cutter on the bench outside and cut out two patch plates.

Jason & Jim opened radiator grille door but found that as well as being stiff it would not open fully as the bottom hinge was fouled but a section of body skin that had not been cut out over the hinge, Jason then cut out the offending slither of metal with the dremel drill before the grille door could opened fully.

On inspection of the hinge screws by Jim they did not look good but the decision was made to remove the door so by using an impact driver each of the screws was backed out and when on the last one both Jason & Adam were needed to support the door while the last screws were removed before it could be lowered to the floor.

After Adam had finished drelling and sanding the radiator tanks Jason helped him lift the tanks and side frames into the coach where Adam could begin the task of painting them first using the green primer to touch up the rust patches that he had drelled.

Jason set up the needle gun and gunned around the area where the rad tank mounting block had once been welded in and broken off due to rust jacking.

Jim set up the Plasma cutter along side the loco and got ready to cut out the rusty panel he had marked up, unfortunately the Plasma cutter began malfunctioning and it took some time and a change of tip to realise what the problem was - it won't cut through paint. So the paint around the marked area had to be scraped off with a screw driver before cutting could resume, only then for the overheat cut out to come on after only cutting for about 10 inches or so. It took about 10 mins before it would cool down and cutting could resume but then again you could only cut a short distance before the thermal cut out would come on again this delayed the task.

After the plate was cut the reinforcing bar had to be cut off the back of the plate this had been the source of the rust jacking on this panel and after it was removed it was found to be all crusted up on the inside, so Adam used the needle gun to knock out all the rust then he took it into the coach to drell & grind it out.

Jim then tried to remove the hinges from the grille door but the bolts were well seized in so Jason & Adam carried the grille down to the tent and stowed it alongside the engine for the time being. Adam then began to paint the rad tanks and side frames with grey undercoat in the coach workshop.

Jim now set up the welder, and after dressing the plate he had cut, began to weld it back into place with Jason providing assistance, this was also a tedious task as it took a long time to get the welder set up right so that it would weld properly, it was sputtering quite a bit and annoying Jim who had to ask Jason to constantly adjust the setting on the welder to make it weld better eventually they managed to get the plate welded in both inside & outside, it looked a bit rough but the welds had yet to be ground down and cleaned up. After this it was a matter of re-welding the reinforcing bar and by then it was late afternoon and Jim had to call it a day, it had taken all day just to measure cut and weld in a new plate of metal into the cooler group. Jim departed leaving Jason & Adam to pull the sheet back over the loco not before re-fitting the guard mesh over the fan cowl aperture.

Sunday

Four working members today and after the standard cup of tea before we start work, Jason grabbed an angle-grinder and dressed the previous days exploits in the cooler group.

Rob tackled the air box with another grinder with the intention of removing 60 years worth of paint, oil and other detritus.

Mid morning Dave G turned up and got straight into measuring, cutting and fixing the peg board in No 1 end while Chris G made his way to No 2 end to replace the batons that the peg board will eventually attach to.

Jason made short work of dressing the welds in the cooler group and quickly moved onto painting the repaired area. He then moved into the coach and painted the radiator tanks in the hard wearing black floor paint.

Rob had managed to remove all of the paint from the air box and after prepping, painted the entire area in green anti-corrosive primer.

The next working weekend is on 24/25 October. If you wish to lend a hand please contact Chris Tatton