C2 PROJECT
C2 Photo Album
album:August 2017
Andrew did a great job cleaning up this old tool locker and stencilling it for us. We now have a place to keep our lathe and milling tools in the Boston Lodge machine shop, rather than having to carry them back and forth from our shed every day.
Dave 2 has been milling a long block of steel into a channel shape for use as tender brake brackets
Dave 1 grinding out the remnants of some 'rough' Chinese workmanship on the tender, ready to patch in a replacement piece of plate.
Loco brake stretcher ends. The stretchers and pins were machined by Paul; Andrew welded them together.
These are the eyes for the safety chains that will provide a secondary connection between loco and tender. They will also provide additional fixings for the loco rear bufferbeam.
Sliding plate for the chopper coupling on the tender, made by Dave 1.
Andrew has finished fabricating the chopper coupling for the tender, and is making progress with the hook, pin, eccentric and bob-weight.
Loco brake stretcher set up for welding. The elaborate clamping arrangements ensured that the pins remained in line and minimised weld distortion.
Andrew welds up a brake stretcher.
Dave 1 and Paul made these plates to fill holes gas-cut in the tender frame. Although it will all be out of sight underneath, we still want it to look neat!
Colin and Paul did a lot of work on the steam brake crank at the previous working party. Paul put the finishing touchers to its shape and tapped the hole for the return spring. It's now ready to be cleaned up and painted.
Paul used the 'Wanderer' mill to slot the ends of the old brake stretchers, ready for the new pins to be fitted.
Once the bacon was cooked, the wheelset was lowered into the hot tyre and left to cool.
Mmmmm - I smell bacon in the workshop! The works staff were fitting new tyres to the pony-truck wheelsets of NG/G16 Garratt 130, and had taken advantage of the tyre heating rig to cook breakfast! Happily they shared some with us too.
Number 4 in the news! Apart from this website we don't do much publicity, but at Quirks we caught the attention of Cliff Thomas of the Railway Magazine and this piece appeared in their June edition.
We're looking at increasing our range of merchandise, and have been considering some mugs. This sample reproduces artwork of number 4 painted by our friend Peter Dennis.
Another possible mug is this colour-changing one. When cold, it appears all black. However, fill it with a hot drink and the body of the mug turns white, revealing the design. This side features the number '4', as badly painted on the smokebox of our loco in later years!
The other side features the Chinese forestry railways logo, which is also the loco of our project.
Who is skinny enough to fit through the firehole door? Not many people in the C2 Project, but we did find someone! Retired Boston Lodge staff member Jo Clulow inspects the firebox tubeplate, before we lifted the boiler.
We haven't done a lot of practical work on the boiler since receiving the loco, although we did complete a hydraulic test which happily failed to find any leaks. As other parts of the loco progress, it's time to start preparing the boiler for a through internal internal inspection. The first stage is to remove the tubes, and we made this tube extractor to assist with the work.
The assembly jig for the brake block carriers was a good team effort. Paul machined one part, Dave 1 the other, and Alan welded them together!
A stack of newly delivered profiles for the loco brake gear. These include parts for the brake hangers, brake block carriers, and pull rods.
A stack of gently curved plates, the correct radius for the brake block carriers. These were rolled from flat bar by Sam and James.
Machining the loco brake hanger brackets. After cleaning up and measuring, we decided to saw off the worn spigots, machine them all back to a common dimension, and we will then drill out and press-fit a new stainless steel spigot.
The loco brake hanger brackets after the machining was completed.
Colin prepared the new loco brake weighshaft bearing housings for welding. Here a weld-prep has been machined on the flange.
One of the loco brake hanger brackets was just too grotty to re-use so we have made a new one! Again this was a team effort between Colin, Paul and Dave 2. The spigot will be replaced with a length of ground stainless steel bar pressed into the hole.
Eight loco brake hanger brackets, ready for boring the central hole. Three are original castings, four are Chinese fabrications, and we have made one new one.
The loco brake hangers have bosses at each end to provide a larger bearing surface. Colin machined up 16 of these (8 of each size) and they will be welded to the new brake hanger profiles.
A demonstration of the brake block carrier assembly jig, which will be used while welding together the four components of each carrier. Two examples of the original Chinese components are shown behind - these were castings. For various reasons we only have 5 of them and we need 14, so we're making 10 new ones.
Dave 1 completed the machining of the tender brake hanger brackets, which are quite different to those on the loco. Here are four of them ready for final cleaning up.
Dave 1 de-burring the edges of a tender brake hanger bracket.
Final positioning of the boiler on its new stands and a crib of sleepers at the front end.
As well as providing better access, the new height of the boiler is close to the height it will be eventually, when mounted on the frames. Suddenly it looks bigger than before!
We spent some time with packings and shims to get the boiler perfectly stable and firm on the crib of sleepers, bearing equally on all of them.
As we are now preparing to start work on the boiler, we need better access to the firebox and underside. We decided to raise it by a couple of feet. This apparently simple lifting job required the construction of some hefty stands to support the firebox without blocking access from underneath.
James poses with the giant 'mangle' used for rolling the plate for the brake block carriers. There's a smaller one in the workshop but this historic tool is the best for heavy work.
Machining a steel channel, for manufacture of the tender brake hanger brackets.
The six complete tender brake hanger brackets. The two Daves have done a great job of these.
The new table for supporting our surface plate, made by Alan and Chantele.
