Saturday 7 November 2015

Maintenance Update (chairs, springs, doors, plugs)

Saturday 31st
John T and Bruce tackled more boot scrapers (as there was nothing to do on the loco).  John needle-gunned and wire-brushed six chairs; Bruce applied top coat to eight that were already in the production line, and then slapped black on John's six bottoms.

Wednesday 4th November
Gil, aided by Jeff L [Loco Dept], removed most of the mud-hole doors and boiler wash-out plugs.
John P & Martin C [both Loco Dept] removed the fire bars from the grate.
Bruce stripped and lapped the safety valves.
All of this was in preparation for a boiler inspection next Monday.


During the morning, I needle-gunned and wire-brushed three rail chairs that were boot scrapers back in for refurbishment.  After lunch, I was giving Martin a lesson in lighting-up.  It was a bit tricky, as most locos had had their grates removed, and some locos kept moving about!  What we decided in the end was that next Wednesday 2807 will need a warming fire lighting in readiness for a steam test on the Thursday … Martin can do that!
After the lesson, I returned to the TPO to black the bottoms of the three that I had prepared, plus pick out the gold lettering on six that Bruce had top-coated.

Saturday 7th
John T cleaned the wash-out plugs and the mud-hole doors.  Then he applied primer/undercoat to 7 rail chairs.  Finally, towards the end of the day, when the last few plugs were out, he cleaned these, too.


Gil removed a small cab floor panel in order to gain access to a ferrule that was fouling a wash-out plug (that needed to come out!).

Bruce & Gil cleaned up the safety valve components, ferrules and gauge frame.

The plugs inside the smokebox were determined not to come out, so Ben, Cliff and Andy B [all Loco Dept] tackled these tough ones.  Even then, two plugs are still refusing to come out!  … one in the smokebox and one on top of the boiler, I believe.  Let's hope the Boiler Inspector will let us off those two!!!

After lunch, Bruce was commandeered to help with 4270 … and Gil got swept up by it too.  They assisted in removing plugs and mud-hole doors, but couldn't remove them all because the boiler had not yet been drained.  In fact, because the loco was in the shed and not near a drain, they had to manually bar the loco along to reach the drain!  Bruce clambered up to remove 4270's safety valves, too.  Their brass bonnet is held down using round-headed brass screws, and one of them ….
… proved too tough for Bruce to undo on his own!

Anyway, I think we are pretty much ready for the inspection on Monday, now.

Family chores held me back today, so I only did the afternoon shift.  I assembled 4 boot scrapers, sanded and stained 10 brushes and finished off applying primer/undercoat to the last two chairs in the production line.

Loco Allocations. 2807 is scheduled for the November race trains with No 4270 as a backup.
Nos 5542 and 7820 are scheduled for the Santa Specials.


Roger

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