Construction Blog
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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.
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Machining of the six driving wheels at CTL Seal continues. Last week (on 7th May) Tom Ingall visited and filmed the third wheel having its hub machined. The full video is viewable at https://youtu.be/hwe3vVU1SU8.
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As preparations for the Open Day (13th April) proceed, we are glad to report progress on two visually iconic items - the Smokebox and the Bufferbeam. The Wrapper and Liner are made in an extremely tough steel called Corten B, which is highly resistant to corrosion.
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With the Smokebox manufacturing drawings complete, we have started to procure various components. The first order has been made for the Smokebox Wrapper and liner; discussions are ongoing with suppliers for the door, seal and ring.