JimH

That is the signwriter done now so it is all done bar the varnishing. The only thing that has gone on the back is a discrete fleet number. The design of the rear doors made it all but impossible to put anything on them. Look ma! Pneumatic tyres! Nearside lettering all done and not yet dusted. This was the wheat sheafs about half way through. Adding the detail... And the finished item. So there you go. The first entry I made in a blog elsewhere was March 2016 and by that point we had spent a couple of months sketching out ideas and starting to collect stuff so that is a little under 8 years to get it done. The black Super took a little over four years to finish. In our defence I have built a house at the same time (and a chunk of another) and this one has had significantly more time and money sank into getting it right. Still, job jobbed. I reckon my next project should be to learn how to take photos that aren't shite.

This is pretty much spot on. It wasn't that long ago that these things were still being cut up because while we could see the point of saving them it would have taken so much time and effort and many of the things you needed to be able to do were maybe not impossible but almost certainly improbable. That attitude was easy to take because there was always something in better condition to use instead. The well has been dry for a long time so people are having to take on bigger and bigger projects and as a result the collective capability has improved no end. On top of that modern technology helps no end too.

They always get sold once we are bored of them. The S4 has now been sold and will be going to its new owner soon. The Super won't be around forever. As for next the Merryweather needs its new boiler made so we can start playing with that again and I am still quite keen on doing this XI project. Now the S has gone that should fund something else. I'm quite keen on a Foden overtype but we shall see.

Not been around much lately and there hadn't been much progress because the signwriter had been delayed by other work. However, he is no longer been delayed and progress has now been made. So, how it started... And as on a couple of days ago, how it's going... To say we are quite pleased with how this has turned out is a slight to moderate understatement. It's been a non-trivial painting job because there is a lot going on with the lettering down the side. However, the overall effect seems to have been worth it. Sadly, it's got done just in time for winter so it will probably not be out again until the weather warms up again.

Looks like a Standard to me but you can't see much detail of the cab so hard to say.

I have no idea. It might be worth asking on that forum. There are a few people still running them on their Bristols.

You might find this thread handy too: http://www.bristolcars.info/forums/8-10-cyl-bristol-cars/41-instructions-removal-refitting-tyres-avon-safety-wheels.html

First time I have seen an Avon safety wheel not on a Bristol.

The fire engine needs its new boiler, the other house needs the bay windows rebuilt (and a shitload of other stuff) and I've got quite keen on this Lotus XI thingie.

In case you wonder what the cream panel is about the only picture we have found of a UCBS wagon is this Albion here. Clearly newer than the Super's era but not by that much. The signwriter's job is to take this picture and translate it to the Super's somewhat different topology.

And finally the other day it got dragged it outside to get some sun on its back.

It's pretty hot in the shed so painting is either done early on or late in the evening at the moment. That is pretty much all of the red done now so bits are starting to go back on for final touching in of bolt heads and the like. It took a while to get the head board back in place but I reckon it is all looking pretty purposeful now. That is the first coat of cream on the body as well. The cream band not only breaks up the side quite nicely it makes it look much older. Obviously it looks messy because the masking tape is still on it. Better view from the nearside. The nearside door is back on as well so it is all looking very complete. Rear wings varnished and ready to go on. There are a couple of extra steady brackets to make for these once they are in their final place. And the front wings in the same state. These might get some extra varnish once they are on to thicken up the coting where they get kicked as you clamber into the cab. We got those elevating trollies for about £25 at a fire sale when one of our clients shut down a factory. They are one of the handiest things we have. The tool lockers are back on and now they are in black they don't look too obvious. The door is still in undercoat which is why it looks slightly odd. They don't look too bad from the rear, either. The old man had fun painting the rear doors which aren't fiddly in the slightest. Once they have been top coated the LED rear lights can get popped in. Now we just need to see when the signwriter chap can put in a visit.

There is a bit of catching up to do. A couple of happy snaps to show how things are going. The cab has had its second (and final) coat and the body its first. The finish on the body looks a bit odd here because it has been denibbed with 800 mainly to matt the finish down a little to make it easier to know where the second coat goes. Putting gloss on gloss will drive you bonkers. This was the first coat on the body before it was flatted. And the other side from the rear. As you can probably imagine painting the rear doors was bit of a nightmare because they are so fiddly. Fortunately the Owatrol lets the paint flow so nicely you can keep the amount of paint you are working with to a minimum so you don't get runs or sags over corners, edges or bolt heads. Not a single run or sag, not even around the hinges where it is easy to catch the brush by accident. Does this give an idea of the finish straight off the brush? This Owatrol stuff is amazing. Once the cream panel has been done it will get left in the sun for a couple of weeks to let it gas off and then we can let the signwriter lad loose on it. After that it will get a coat or two of varnish which can then get a final polish.

Oh you lucky people - a double update. Time for things to get shiny. Although the primers and undercoats were sprayed on the top has to be brushed. These things just don't look right sprayed and the finish needs a bit of texture in it to look right. There is, however, a big difference between a bit of texture and looking like a lock up Tetrosyl job. Top coat is a mixture of Craftmaster (black) and Masons P Type (crimson). The bit that makes all the difference is the addition of Owatrol paint conditioner which lets the paint flow like the flowiest thing that is having a particularly fluid day. These are the rear wings finished off. They were painted a couple of days ago so some dust has settled on them. However, you can probably make out the finish. Not three bad at all. This is a front wing. And this is the front tool locker. The doors were painted separately so we could paint around the door shut. I really should not be trusted with a camera but if I turn the flash off you should be able to make out that the finish is not bad at all for a brush. And the other door giving a slightly better view of the finish. This is after one coat so the depth should get a little better after the next coat and varnish. Here is the front apron after the first coat. The cheek plates weren't a million miles out shapewise. By the way, admire the fancy throttle valve heat shield which I thought was looking pretty cool and groovy. And a flash free ooh look at the finish shot. We cannot keep the place very dust free so crap will settle on it overnight. After a few weeks to harden off it will get a polish which deals with most of the imperfections. The next bit to paint is the small acreage of box body side. The the outer edges of the masked panel shows the extent of the panel of pale cream onto which will be painted "UNITED" in the same crimson as the body. "Cooperative Bakery Society" will be painted in cream underneath that. The cream panel breaks up the side a bit more. The line between the cream and the cream and the crimson will be covered with a freehand border in something like lime green so make it look suitably warm and waney. Here is the headboard after one coat. These will be fitted before the last coat goes on. And if you stand back things look not too bad at all. The front apron will have a full height "UNITED" the top edge of which follows the wave of the apron plate. Getting there...

Nothing wildly exciting - just stuff in undercoat. The headboard in undercoat. This will need to be fitted before it can be painted properly because edges over the butt joints need to be dressed down so they sit right. Mirror brackets which bolt to the ash bend so need to be the same colour. A few years ago I would polish these but we all do stupid things when we are young, don't we? They are screwed to bits of wood to keep them upright. The rear tool lockers. I pissed away all of last weekend finishing these off so they could be primered. It took an age to get them right. The little slot is to take the LED rear lights. And the front tool locker in primer. All of these lockers will be painted black. Rest of the body and front panel in undercoat. This isn't a million miles off what the final colour will be. More of the front panel. It's been denibbed with P400 which is why it looks matt and swirly. And the doors in undercoat. Blimey, isn't this exciting? And that is about it. There isn't much else to do until the masking comes off and things get accessible again. I've just finished the very last, full and final we really mean it this time jobs to do list and it is only about four pages long. The grim realisation is that the damn thing is nearly finished. Now we'll have to find something else to do.

I had a similar situation a while back wondering why VCDS would not communicate with an A6's tranmission control module which was refusing to do anything. It was only when it soaked through my bonce that there may be a connection between the wet carpet and the location of the control unit that the real problem was diagnosed.

Hmmm. It's under the driver's seat which is wet.

I call bullshit. Everyone knows that a box of tissues on the parcel shelf is the automotive equivalent of growing pampas grass in your front garden.

They both sit drained over winter because it is too easy to break something if they freeze up. Once we are happy it is not going to get cold enough we will start testing it on the track before venturing out onto the highway.

And now this month's one. Here is the rear doors with the bolts that I made for them. They are not there yet but getting close. The offside door will never open so is bolted shut on the inside top and bottom. The bolts drop in and then swing over onto pins held in place with wedges. This will let me put a padlock through the wedge to lock it closed. I need to find some suitably old looking chain to stop the wedges from getting lost. And standing back a bit we see the bolts in all their glory. The bit of steel sheet on the roof is me trying to work out what the rain guard should look like (and so far failing). Ooooh, what is that peeking out the bottom corner? The signwriter called in to discuss the job (it is non-trivial) and while he was here painted the number plates. They look pretty damn fine to me. He also did the 20 plate to tell the local constabulary that having pneumatic tyres means we can do another 8mph. New plate on the front, too. Done right these hand painted plates look the mutt's. This isn't meant to be there but the original mirrors on these things are shockingly bad so we do not want to be on the road without a rear facing camera. On the S4 there was a handy glove box on the dashboard that the screen can be hidden in. However, on the Supers there is no dashboard, let alone a glove box so I welded up a sort of a dashboard that bolts in place. The other thing that is a pain in the very literal neck is that the pressure gauge is on the nearside so you have to keep turning your head every few seconds to see how things are going. I always said with the next Super I wanted a second gauge that the driver could see in front of them. I made the dashboard a wee bit bigger to fit such a gauge in. The final benefit is that it gives you a little shelf to sit your fruit tea on. The big open space next to the gauge is where the screen mounts. The wing looks odd because it is just resting on the wheel out of harm's way. The thing behind the wing is the offside store box which I have been making. These look a bit odd in wood and steel colour but will be painted black when they are done so they should not be too noticeable. It will be somewhere handy to keep oil and grease and spares. Again look odd from the rear because they are not black. What I will also use the box for is to mount the small yet modern LED lights for tail, brakes and indicators. Hopefully they won't be too obvious when they are not lit up. I know modern lights look shite but they are pretty small and it really is a good idea to have decent lights if you are on the road at night. Finally, the loader is having its arm rebuilt. It was last owned by a farmer so maintenance was a wee bit sketchy. No shortage of pins and bushes to remanufacture. We said it didn't need done because we don't use it much but it was too buggered to ignore.

Forgot to post this last month. Not much by way of updates so far this year for a number of reasons. To start with here is the spare wheel carrier getting close to being finished. This is the sort of thing that brings it home just how much work has been done over the last six years. For years one of the jobs on the list was "Make spare wheel carrier" which is pretty quick to say and it was given very little head space until it was needed. The first thing you need to start thinking about is what design to use. Since these things were built on solids originally the pneumatics and by extension the spare wheel arrangement was the responsibility of the factory, the regional service depots and the workshops of the people who operated them. Sentinel's drawing archive lists at least 8 different designs (searching the archive is no mean feat because all you have is the most scant description and about 10,000 drawings) which range from plausible to a draughie's flight of fancy. One is for a flat bed which involves a slot-in davit with a block and tackle to haul the wheel onto the back where it was clamped behind the cab. Aye right. So you work up a design and then start building it. Wheel frame, wheel frame pivot block, draw bolt, draw bolt pivot frame, nut, spacer for the nut and draw bolt protection tube. They are just the big bits. The wheel frame alone has eight separate components. The nut has four. This whole thing has soaked up weeks of work. Just to make the bloody thing that holds the spare wheel in place. Enough whining. This is another job that has been on the list for ages. Despite being very big there is very little room for storing stuff on these things. You have plenty of space for load but pretty much all other available space is taken up with coal. The upshot is that there was no room for oil, tools, spares or your lunch so the ones that were driven longer distances (there were a few) grew boxes in this space. One DG6 flatbed I found grew an extra pair of water tanks which I thought was quite cool. These are the boxes so far. Angle iron frame, clad in plywood and then sheet steel epoxied over the ply so the construction matched the body. The corners will have poplar trims to match the trims on the body so hopefully it should look all about the same. Haven't quite worked out the door arrangement yet. Next are the boxes to hide the water tanks. The nearside one also hides the main battery while the offside one has the modern greasing system in it for the front axle. Again, the edges will all be trimmed in poplar to make everything look neat and tidy. I loath working with plywood. Baffles for the water tanks ready to go in. And the lids for the tanks ready to go on. Exciting, huh? Sadly as it becomes more complete there are diminishingly few things lying around to photograph. The other job that is ongoing at the moment is wiring the thing up but there is nothing very exciting to look at there. So here are some other things that are lying around. This thing is orsum. You go into the big shed freezing your knackers off, turn this on and half an hour later everything is toasty. At the moment it costs about £2.00 per hour to run but it is a small price to pay when considering improved productivity. The flexible duct was for testing to see how it would heat the other workshops and it is would be worth running some permanent ducting. It can also be poked into the Super's body for extra super warmth. This was purchased from the farmer next door. We had a 3CX before but it was a bit big for most of what we wanted to do. There is a bucket on order for it and the old man has gone down to Darlington today to pick up a set of pallet forks for it. Should be handy to have around. Note insignia in background.

You can knock it down a bit because coal is about 80%ish carbon. The CO2 will be down a bit because combustion is far from perfect and there is a bit of CO and other odds and sods thrown out the top. None of them good 'n' healthy 'n' full of Ns. The Commercial Motor test results of 15 miles to the cwt are a bit on the low side. The waggon will have been loaded but they should have been able to do better than that. I suspect a less than qualified driver/stoker combo is to blame. Running light (well as light as you can with that much water on your back) our last super would do about 20 miles to the cwt and the S can do between 25 and 28 miles per cwt. Period road tests gave the S as high as 32miles/cwt but they weren't trying to keep up a bit better with modern traffic. However, all those numbers are only achievable with a good waggon. Once the bores and rings have worn and, far more likely, the valve seats are cratered then coal consumption goes through the roof. Many of the dogs dragging themselves along the road these days are not even getting into double figures.

It's been a while since the last update and in that time very little photogenic has happened. Plenty of work on wiring, storage boxes, water tanks and rear door locks but much of it is too dull for words let alone photos. However, to tide you over here is a picture of a V5. Not the original one I'm afraid but I can live with that.

This. Definitely do this. The only reason to ever visit Inverness is that is justifies a visit to Dingwall to step back a few decades and give my valued life partner a Porky Bender.

Of the undertypes they all, with the exception of Yorkshire, went for a vertical water tube arrangement. Each tried to do something different with regards to firing and washing out but most of these solutions were a bit, well, crap. I can’t quite remember if it were Garret, Atkinson or Clayton who solved the problem of firing by poking a chute through the cab floor that you just kept hoping there was the right amount in there. There were monstrous access panels that let you remove them to clean the tubes which you wouldn’t have a hope in hell of bouncing the design through modern standards and as many superheater designs as there were waggon types. Foden went a bit doolally and pushed the vertical boiler on its side and gave it a mackled up combustion space but that caused more problems than it solved. The design used by Sentinel was a pretty dull but it did seem to work well and went from the beginning to the end without serious revision with the possible exception of the silly spiral pattern tube nest of the Super but that was only an aberation.