Hi again, thought you got rid of me didnt you!?

Nope, back after a while since my last post and alot has happend in the intervening time.

Most importantly the pannier has moved on in leaps and bounds.

If you look back to previous posts you'l see when last shown the frames we all bare metal, i was having varying issues, and it was realy grubby and covered in oil.

After a call from my grandfather to come over and stay for a few days, view latest progress on his 7 1/4 B1 and other things, i realised it would be an excellent opportunity to set all the valve gear, as he is abit of an artist when it comes to sorting the most intricate and tricky part of any loco.Theres really only one way to have valve gear set, anything else is bad.

This was Monday before last, and ideally i would want all the loco frames painted, the valve gear painted where it wasnt rubbing and th rest of the wheelsets finished in maroon. No small order in 5 days till the weekend. To make it worse I had some sixth form inductiojn days mon/tues, so actually had only 3 days to strip the loco so it resemmbled an ikea product, deep clean it to remove any trace of grease (paint wont stick over it), prime in etch primer grey, mask off any bearing surfaces, spray the black bits and hand paint all the red, everything had to receive atleast 2 cots of this (precision paints buffer beam red, pretty good stuff. And then reassemble into somethingi could work with. In 3 days. Let the Marathon begin!

The buffer beams were the first things off. They had been painted red, but this was flaking as the original builder hadnt used any primer, and the rivets he used, not real, just dummy this time we so easy to pop out it was untrue, several had already come loose. So armed with a can of ambercleanse and plenty of kitchen towel, i removed all the grease and removed all the paint by hand. the buffer stocks themselves got the same sort of treatment. they were spin up in the lather and the paint removed. I also replaced the step pads on the them with some lovely cast ones i had left over from my dads Britannia. All the dummy rivets were popped out, partially as they were copper in a steel buffer beam (would have suffered from bi metallic corrosion) drilled out deeper, and replaced with steel ones. The whole beam was then all primed up, everything seperately, and the backs of the beams painted black. The masking tape has been left on to keep the primer pristine for when i put on thestocks and paint the whole lot red.

On Wednesday, the whole frame assembly was stripped down into flat pack. Anything like valve gear was reuced almost as far asit can be disassembled, and placed in panel wipe to remove the grease. The frames were stripped and seperated, and wiped down repeatedly with varying cleaners and panel wipe, before being primed with etch primer. Then the outside of the frames were sprayed black (Halfords satin black aerosol!) and the insides sprayed upto the point of the middle frame stretcher. everything forward of this is painted red. Red was used as a rudimentary form of crack detection, the principle being that dirt gathered in the cracks and showed against the red. Anywhere red received 2 coats of best bufferbeam red bruch painted on, great care being taken to make a sharp edge with the black. This was done by temporairily bolting frame stretcher, motion bracket and cylinder block in and painting upto them.

After that anything else that could be painted, was. The crossheads, the sides all receive a coat of red, as did the lifting arm, the con rods and the coupling rods. The thin parts of the eccentric straps also received a coat of red. As did the rear face (facing inwards to the frame) of the cylinder block. I'll reserve judgement of this for the mo, the cylinder block will get quite hot under steam, and as this is not high temperature paint. So it may flake off, but for now, i dont mind, it wont show.

The rods on a london Transport pannier sport a rather interesting paint scheme. As many may have noticed coupling rodsare rarely painted on a steam loco, even rarer two tone! The LT rods are red with black bosses around the bearings. After a clean up, andf thall the brass bearing surfaces masked up, the rods were primed before after a tricky masking session, the ends around the bosses painted black. After that had dried (a fairly quick time compared to the brush on!) the red was then painted on, in two coats. this was a crucial appearance item, because they are visible items and noticeable, especially if you have a spoiled the paintwork!

The wheelsets were the final major item. The inside wheelset wasnt painted before so after a bath in panel wipe, and a liberal application of masking tape, it was primed, and then painted in my shade of London Transport red. The axleboxes was left in panel wipe for a good few hours and afterf much investigation (caused by me not recording which was round the wheelsets came out, locoframes, even slightly out of alignment are very sensitive to bits not being in the right way round, as i'm sure many have found!) was reassembled.

All this, waiting for parts to dry, especiallly anything in red, and cleaning up and priming of various bolts, took me to friday night. I had arranged to meet my grandfather at the guildford society rally on saturday, and go to his for the week. so it needed to be reassembled that night ideally, so i could set all the valve gear over next (this week) I was up till midnight reassembling frames, and dropping wheelsets back in.i however reached a point where i couldnt do anymore until i had drilled some new oil wells in the con rods, so i finished at half midnight with the engine with rods on, wheels in but no valve gear.

In Farnborough, under the sound of roaring jets at the airshow, i finished the chassis, drilledin oil wells and went through the motions of equally setting the eccentrics, balancing the valves and getting the best out of the valve gear.

We ran it on air, and noticed it was very lumpy, and there was a massive air leak. So after liberal application of thick steam oil, much of the leak in the cylinder was sealed into the valve chest, but the tightness still persisted. i tried several things, with varying success, until on wednesday, i felt reasonably comfortable with putting it back under air.

Wednesday is the trackwork day at the Frimley Lodge miniature railway, and a perfect opportunity for a good air run. So after back breaking work restoring ballast shoring, and a delicious curry, i had the chassi on the steaming bays, and ran it up and down on bay.It was then a case of chocking the chassis up and turning over for about half an hour on the air line. All the time it got steadily freer and knockings became less or more apparent. all in all a useful little session. I'll leave it to a second post to expand and fill in on everything else. Hopefully i'll have a video up as well, just to prove it does work!

Right, sorry this has all kinda been one subject but its been a massive marathon charge to do it! Other things going on have been the odd bits and pieces, sorting the trailer out, the milk van riding truck has received a bit of an overhaul and detailing. And today i worked on the next stage of the engne overhaul, the running plates, springs and brake gear, as well as fixing the outstanding niggles.

Cheers all, next post will hopefully be sooner, though it may not be tillsunday evening, as its off to brent house again on sunday, driving an SR Q1, possibly if i'm lucky mike a 32XX.

Cheers all

Mark