Hello all,

Rotations around the sun were made. Lathes were bought. Watchmaker training was undergone. A new job was found. But all this has now put me in the position to come back to this blog, or at least the SE&CR. 

Not long after the last entry in June 2021 I cancelled my order with Rails of Sheffield for a D class as I needed the money for other stuff, so the project stalled, and eventually all the engines were sold out. That was until Saturday morning when I opened my inbox to find to my shock that several of the Locomotion editions had been found in the dark passages of the Rails warehouse. And I thought to myself, well, there's no getting out of this! 

Needless to say I placed an order.

Now, I'm not planning on actually finishing this layout as between school and work I haven't got the time. However during my apprenticeship as a watch and clockmaker I learned the art of making very very small metal parts by hand, and to make them look really nice as well. So the intention is I'll do a post or maybe a few of fitting more detail to Ye Olde Wainwright. I'll be starting with remaking the linkage under the Westinghouse pump. This will be made from steel as the original would've been, and highly polished using abrasive stones and ruby's. 

Here is the linkage in question, rather plastic looking in my opinion.

The linkage will be colored to match the coupling rods as well, through a process called bluing. As these are small components I'll be bluing them using brass rather than oil quenching. I'll explain in much greater detail later when we get to that stage. Metal draw hooks are also to be made.

updates are to follow soon.

Douglas