Construction Blog
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Smokebox: Welding of the front and rear reinforcing rings into the Smokebox Wrapper is scheduled for this week (wk 26/1/26). Once done, the welding of the Smokebox Door assembly, shown in its finished state at the Greatest Gathering, is planned for the following week. As promised, a start was made with the front reinforcing ring welded to the back of the Smokebox Door Ring. The photo shows it initially tack welded into place, after which it will be fully welded into the Smokebox Wrapper.
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Smokebox: It was decided that before the Smokebox Wrapper was welded into position, it was preferable at this stage to commission some extra items. To this end, front and rear reinforcing rings have been designed as per the LNER 1948 drawings, the rear one to only be tacked welded at the present time - this ring will be finish machined when the boiler is offered to the smokebox. Chimney reinforcing plates are also being designed. An order was placed with CTL Seal mid-December for the manufacture of these two rings. An order has been placed for minor items, for the fitting of both these rings along with the final assembly of the smokebox door components into the Smokebox Wrapper.
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The Smokebox Door assembly is now ready for welding into position into the Wrapper and discussions held with CTL Seal about this work.
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After a very successful three days at the Greatest Gathering, with much interest shown in the Smokebox Door assembly that we had displayed on a pallet, once it was back at Sheffield, some minor adjustments needed to be calculated, before welding of the ring into the Smokebox Wrapper, can take place to the height of the hinge blocks to accomodate laging material in the groove of the smokebox ring. Originally, asbestos lagging rope would have been used, but clearly this is unacceptable in the modern world, so fibre glass lagging rope is now used. A small sample (12") was obtained from the manufacturers, cut into 4 pieces and the door lowered into it to find the depression made. The hinge height was adjusted with appropriately sized washers. The calculations done, a full 30m coil of the rope has been purchased. CTL Seal will manufacture a specially shaped pair of shims to enable the hinges to be seated correctly once they are riveted in place on the door.
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Rolling Chassis: We are pleased to announce that Somers Forge have finished forging the Crank Stub Axles, the Crank Pin and the Sweep Webs with heat treatment and initial machining. All these items have been shipped to Shildon for final machining, where the Coupled Axleboxes and Cannonboxes already reside, fully machined. These items along with the Driving Wheels will be shipped to South Devon Engineering on receipt of the two rear plain axles – the Tyre Plugs and the Timken Roller Bearings are already there.
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Quite a lot to report as we prepared for the 5th Joint Open Day on 12th April.
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Chimney: Work has been speedy, after the contract was placed with William Cook's in January, for the pattern to be made and for casting. Pictured are the two sections of the pattern. The casting, in iron, by a partner company of William Cook's, Ductile Castings Ltd. of Scunthorpe, is now complete.
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Main (Coupled) Wheels - Cannonbox and Axlebox: Work at Shildon (Daniela Works Ltd.) on the Cannonboxes for the main driving wheels continues, with the production of various components to hang the springs from – these are pictured below. In parallel, some machining has been completed on the two Axleboxes (for the front Coupled Driving wheel), in readiness for the Crank Axle forgings; as reported in the last newsletter, these are on order from Somers Forge. An additional lubrication point has been drilled into the two Cannonboxes at each end, a learning from Tornado’s recent overhaul.
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August has seen a flurry of items to report. Not only do we have positive news on the Coupled Wheel front, but we can report progress on the Bogie, the Smokebox and the Cab.
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The machining of the six driving wheels continues. With each centre bore hub machined out to size and polished, attention has moved to the Crank Pin bosses; all six have been had this location bored and whilst in situ the centre hub dimensions were accurately measured using a Faro machine.