Project It is just so Super (Sentinel).

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Good lord. Just when I think my practical skills are pretty damn good, I spot your updates chock-full of engineering brilliance on here. Are you Doc Emmett Brown or do you just have years of experience under your belt? Either way it's phenomenal work. I just hope both you and your minions are able to pass on your knowledge for the next generations to use for restoration and building projects. 

[JimH]

It's funny. You look back on what we struggled with in the past and how much has been learned since then. In 1985 the old man bought a roller which we thought we did quite a lot on. However, one of the things it needed was a new HP piston rod but regardless of what we tried we could not get the crosshead off the rod so we lived with the wear in it. You think back now and wonder what the hell we were playing at. Just put the gas axe through the rod, bore the remains out of the crosshead and piston, make a new rod, pop it all back together. Blimey, there is barely a weekend's work in it.

What makes me smile most about this is that I look forward to apprentices 1 through 6 scoffing at how feeble our current efforts were. 

[loserone]

Shut up they're exactly the same

 

[JimH]

It's been a while since the last update. Painting things, deciding it was the wrong paint, watching videos on Youtube by coach painters, finding the very much right paint, finding out that one of the few people who stocked it was just down the road in Falkirk, waiting for it to arrive and putting it on soaked up a bit of time. The other thing now is that there are fewer jobs to do and they all run through one path or another means that things slow down a bit. 

When we made the rear axle we ordered a bit of bar which was about six inches too short. Fortunately someone who has helped out a lot on this job needed a new rear axle for his Aveling tractor and the now scrap bar was just the rightish size so it got turned into a nice new axle. To say that Aveling's engineering prowess was not exactly brilliant so it took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get everything fitted just right. Making crude things work is always hard work. 

 

I know lots of people like these things but I really don't. The hammer and chisel engineering involved makes me cross. This is the winch drum hub which also acts as the drive for the nearside wheel. To make the axle drive the wheel you stick a big pin into one of those four big holes. It's just too agricultural for my liking. 

 

Back to the slightly more sophisticated end of the market this is the not exactly sophisticated arm for the spare wheel. This is suspended from the body and lets you swing the wheel out of the way. All of the spare wheel carriers were a bit Heath Robinson because on the Supers and many DGs were converted to pneumatics. It is nowhere near finished by the way. 

 

And this is the start of the bracket that it will hang from. When it has been machined it will get "roughed up" so it looks more like a casting. It is bolted underneath the body where you can't see it so it isn't that big a deal.

 

And here is the first sign of some colour. Once the front of the body and the back of the cab were painted the body could be dropped back into place. Or at least lowered gently into place. I haven't made my peace with crimson lake yet because I still wanted it to be green. Apparently the estimate of £7K plus VAT for the gold leaf said it wasn't going to be Boots. Shame.

You may also notice that once the body was back on it was possible to do the roof. The front edge looks like crap because I will trim the front and rear once everything is fixed down. The batten crudely screwed to the side is the temporary support while the first sheet of steel is glued on. 

 

The roof is quite big. I am not looking forward to gluing the duck canvas on. I think we'll pull it outside to do that. The curve doesn't look too bad and when you run an eye from one end to the other we got the beams pretty true. It would have been nice to have built all of this on the floor and then lifted it on but then it would also be nice to have a big travelling crane which we don't.  

 

And inside it's a fairly big space. The sides and front are going to be lined with ply so you won't see the angle brackets between the horizontals and the uprights. However, the roof isn't getting lined because I want to at least leave a bit of evidence that it got built right. Inside is going to be painted the same sandy beige as the inside of the cab. 

 

Go on, be a bit impressed. I'm bloody amazed I got things this tight and generally not looking like complete shite. I don't know whether the steel stiffener under the beam was needed but No1 apprentice was happy to stand making them, they are going to get covered up by the ply lining and I doubt that they are doing any harm. 

 

And the other side. A bit of space will be taken up by the water tanks but there is still loads of room for some reason or other.

 

And that is about it. The next big job is to make the bloody rear doors which I am really not looking forward to because there is no hiding place for any mistakes with them.

 

As an aside, I don't go on about my shitters very often but here's  a little tip I discovered this week. If you have scrawled a post it note on a filing cabinet that the MOT is due 11/04/22 that does not mean that the MOT expires on the 22nd of April <red face>. This is the TT I bought from @Jamie a while back and it is still going strong. It is just sitting here waiting for a replacement O2 probe and a pair of rear tyres so it can go for a slightly late MOT. 

 

[scruff]

I once took a Sentinel man on a Aveling roller, old single cylinder job that runs on hot water, does about 3.8mph  and looks like the Guinness advert, for about four or five miles, his comment at the end was "well, thanks, I now have that out of my system" 😂

[JimH]

I know how he feels. The old man bought a Fowler T3b roller in the mid 80s which we rebuilt and drove for a few years. Fast forward a decade or so and we were driving the first Super over some reasonable distances (longest was a 360 mile round trip) when an almost identical Fowler came up for sale at what I thought was sensible money. Maybe it was the ten year layoff but I thought, "yeah, why not? How bad could it be?." 

After a very brief test run I found that the answer was really, really bad. It made me realise that it was Sentinels or nowt. 

[martc]

I think this is the best place for this photo I happened across...

Turnpike Lane station, under construction 1930 or 1931. The London Underground Piccadilly Line was extended northwards from Finsbury Park to Cockfosters, with work starting in 1930. Tunnelling was complete by the end of 1931 and the extension opened in stages in 1932 and 1933.

2022. Not steam powered.

[JimH]

Bloody hell, they’re loaded.

[JimH]

There is still stuff going on but certain jobs are taking forever. One job that took an age was to epoxy the steel sheets onto the sides of the body. The original design specified Plymax aluminium clad sheets but these days you can't really buy Plymax unless you want a building's worth manufactured to your spec. The other problem I had with using plymax was that you would need to screw through the boards which would leave hundreds of screw heads to fill and I really didn't think that was going to stay looking good for any length of time. So our approach was to building the body then glue the steel (easier to keep paint on them) sheets onto the ply sides using epoxy. 

This meant screwing battens up to rest the sheet on and then try as best we could to keep it pressed to the side while the glue went off. Working with any sort of sticky stuff over that sort of area is a messy job and when you are balanced on a scaffold working vertically then things get even messier. My overalls now stand up by themselves. 

The finished job

 

The edges of the panels are screwed in place and then there are 2x1/2" trims in tulipwood to tidy up the edges, corners and joins in the sheets. It doesn't really come across in the photo but the sides are very, very flat. The other side is done as well so we are nearly done with epoxy. 

The inside got primered and undercoated which made everything look much more jolly

 

And then it got top coated which made it look less primrosey. No1 apprentice did most of this which is handy because there is a lot to paint and you have very little room to move. An exciting, interesting job it is not. However, it looks much nicer than bare wood. 

 

This is the other job that is being painfully slow - the rear doors. Most of the designs for Sentinel bodies used the standard flat bed tail gate with a pair of doors filling in the upper two thirds. Not very dissimilar to this one here

 

The problem with this set up is that it would work really well in a loading bay but living with it as something to play with would be a bloody nightmare because each time you needed to get in the back you would have to both lower the tailgate and open a door and I just knew that what you would end up doing is opening the tailgate, scrambling onto the now horizontal gate the limbo under the top door without opening it. The other massive problem with this design is that I would have to make both a pair of doors and the tailgate and even more hinges. If I had to make a pair of doors than I may as well make two slightly longer doors and that should seriously reduce the number of bits I could make a mess of. 

The other thing I've never taken to is the chevron boarding that was common on such doors. The sides were smooth so the back doors should look the same so in the hope of keeping things flatter I was going to line the doors with 3/4" marine ply with sheet steel glued to it set in an oak frame. 

And that is what I have been doing for the past few weeks. Just to make everything easier the top of the doors are curved to sit inside the curved roof beams. There are then a couple of ledges to take the top two hingers and it was all designed so the marine ply is fixed in from the rear once the steel is glued to it. This is the story so far lying rear face upwards so you can see the rebate for the ply.  

 

Another view. The bit of wood in the middle running top to bottom is just lying there. It's actually one of the diagonal braces which will get fitted once the plywood is in place. Of course the best thing about this kind of job is that once you have made one you get to make another one all over again. Something to look forward to, anyway. 

 

After that we need to work out some vaguely period looking hinges and catches. And probably some sort of safety device to limit the movement of the doors if the wind catches them. They aren't massively heavy but there is a fair sail area. 

What else have we been up to? A few weeks back we took a drive to visit @nacho man who was kind enough to sell us 50kw of winter motivation. We've been after one of these for a while. They don't come on the market very often and this one is lovely. The ducting hasn't arrived to point one of the outlets into the middle workshop. It is so much easier to get yourself fired up to do some work when the workshop is warm. 

 

And this was the other job. Find out why the Transit was drinking oil. Not the easiest thing in the whole world to remove. 

 

It looked like it had had some work done not long before it was demobbed from emergency pothole patching duties such as a new clutch and cam chain and it bore the marks of having corners cut - half the bolts holding the gearbox to the bell housing missing, for example. 

 

Nothing wildly exciting to report other than wear on the pistons and rings which doesn't seem too grim for 185K. Big ends and mains measure (and look) as good as the day they went in. 

 

When the new pistons and shells arrive it can get popped back together. Everything else is already here. 

And that is about it. Don't expect too much progress because the doors have a while to go yet. And I have a big pile of windows to fit. 

[JimH]

You think you have done a lot and things have moved on but when you start waving the camera around you see it all looks about the same as last time. This is the frame and pivot for the spare wheel installed. There now needs to be a draw bolt and bracket made to hold it in position which is currently being done by a ratchet strap. 

 

The bunker lids were fitted and trimmed to length and then finished off with D beading to the edge and a trim strip top and bottom. No1 apprentice did the fitting of the steel trims. 

 

And this is the start of the linings in the body. The roof isn't getting lined because we don't want to hide those steam bent beams that took so much effort to do. The joints will get covered up with hardwood strips. 

 

The mirrors on these things are worse than useless and people do have a habit of driving touching the water tank so you have no idea who is behind you. As a result we use a rear facing camera which is fine on the S because there is a handy glovebox in front of you to hide the screen. The Supers have no sort of dashboard so something needs to be made up. Another benefit of this is that it gives somewhere to put an additional pressure gauge where the drive can see it without turning their head to the side - you really need to watch the pressure gauge to drive these thing properly. However, it also need to look at least a bit not crap so I've come up with something that sits just under the windscreen  and also lets the camera screen and pressure gauge sit recessed so it isn't hideously obvious when you open the cab door. This is the recessed panel waiting to be welded in. 

 

This is door number 2 ready to go in. These took forever to do and are oak framed and lined with steel faced plywood so it should look good and keep paint on it rather than using aluminum which the original drawing called for. It is not light at all.

 

And this is door number 1 in place so I could measure up door number two. The brackets at the bottom is holding it in place temporarily. If I were to do this again I would make the lower rail deeper than it is because I think that would look better. However, I am not making doors like this ever again. 

 

I was very, very pleased with this gap.

 

What you probably notice is there are no hinges. This is because they haven't been made yet. This little jet cut bits are the start of the hinges.

 

As well as the doors getting nearly done the trim strips started getting fitted. These tidy the corners up and cover the joins in the plywood. Unfortunately when there is a big contrast in the colours of the various bits the damn thing looks even more like a packing case. That should get toned down once it is all the same colour. Note the untrimmed canvas hanging over the front of the cab. Gluing that down took 8 litres of Evo Stik 528 applied on a hot day with not much ventilation. We had to keep going outside for a breather. 

 

I was quite pleased with the rear mudguard cutaway trim. All trims need to come off again to glue them on with epoxy so water doesn't get behind them. Not looking forward to that job. On top of that we were 3 lengths of poplar short for the other side so we decided to get the same trims for the external boxes which will get slung under the body. Great, now we are 45 lengths short. 

 

No 1 apprentice got the lovely job of sorting out the rough castings for the maker's plates. This is the second one after filing and taping.

 

And this is the first one after that plus buffing and sitting for hours painting them. Now we need to find someone who can engrave the waggon number on them. 

 

And that is about your lot. Next time it will look even more similar. 

In other news the Transit engine was rebuilt and after some farting around with the vapouriser for the DPF it seems just fine now. Oh, and it got a pair of new rear wheels, wheel nuts and wheel studs. Don't ask.

[mk2_craig]

2 hours ago, JimH said:

Oh, and it got a pair of new rear wheels, wheel nuts and wheel studs. Don't ask.

I’m asking. Insufficiently torqued?

[320touring]

This thread continues to thrill and delight in equal measure.

 

Some terrific work going on here, a credit to you all

[JimH]

1 hour ago, mk2_craig said:

I’m asking. Insufficiently torqued?

Not so much insufficiently torqued as completely forgot to tighten them. Three miles at no more than 30mph was enough to trash them. 

Lesson learned, eh? 

[loserone]

Ouch!

[mk2_craig]

25 minutes ago, JimH said:

Not so much insufficiently torqued as completely forgot to tighten them. Three miles at no more than 30mph was enough to trash them. 

Lesson learned, eh? 

Don’t be doing that on the Super!!

[mat_the_cat]

Apologies if this has already been mentioned, but what sort of electrical system did/does this have? I assume there must be one to power the reversing camera, and I guess lights as well although maybe back in the day they were acetylene?

[JimH]

They either had nothing or a 6 volt dynamo which was enough to just about provide power to side and tail lamps. Headlamps, if fitted, were often acetylene because the 6 volt headlamps weren't much cop. We drive on the road at night a fair bit so we need decent lamps including brake lights. We run a low speed 12 volt alternator tucked away in a box to keep things looking right and a couple of butch batteries. 

 

[JimH]

Just a couple of happy snaps. We needed a photograph of the waggon to accompany the application for the registration so a load of bits got slapped on to make it look more finished. Just thought you might like to see it looking vaguely nearly there.

Windscreens in, lamps sort of on, front wings perched in place and looking somewhere near complete. The body trims are partially missing because I'd taken them all off and was epoxying them back in place at the time. The lamps are Lucas King of the Road shells and bezels with modern sealed beam units grafted in. They don't look quite right but old solenoid dip lamps are pretty much useless on the road and you really need to see what the road is doing in this thing. The side lights which are mounted where they are meant to be beside the windscreens but they have orange LED bulbs in them and act as the indicators. Side lamps are now in the headlamps.

And from the other side - a pair of Sentinels. Note the number plate now fitted to the front. We just don't know what is going to be painted on it yet. 

 

And as things get closer to finished the jobs to do list gets longer. Once this lot is ticked off it should be hey ho for the open road. 

 

Getting there...

[LightBulbFun]

7 hours ago, JimH said:

Note the number plate now fitted to the front. We just don't know what is going to be painted on it yet. 

this is genuinely going to be quite exciting for me because the DVLA are almost at the end of their age related series for 1930 and older vehicles

they are currently up to BF9941 and I dont know what will come next!

as the only 2 letter 4 number series left un-issued as far as I am aware is Essex's WC and BF1001-BF4000 has yet to be issued so I wonder what the DVLA will do

thus depending on when the Sentinel gets a suitable mark allocated to it it may be the first of a new series, and answer a long standing question I have had  

if they do issue the first half of BF finally it will probably be from BF1001 onwards as BF1 to BF1000 has been held for DVLA auction issue

and checking just now it looks like WC1-1000 has also been reserved for DVLA auction issue, so if they decide to issue that instead it will be from WC1001 onwards

(I do wonder what happens when they do finally run out of age related marks for 1930 and older vehicles!)

 

unless of course your V765 for a genuine period registration mark rather then just an age related mark, in which case nothing I said above is relevant LOL

(but still very exciting to hear your at the registration stage and to see it edging close to completion/the road  )

[High Jetter]

3 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

they are currently up to BF9941 and I dont know what will come next!

BF9942? 🤣

[JimH]

10 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

this is genuinely going to be quite exciting for me because the DVLA are almost at the end of their age related series for 1930 and older vehicles

they are currently up to BF9941 and I dont know what will come next!

as the only 2 letter 4 number series left un-issued as far as I am aware is Essex's WC and BF1001-BF4000 has yet to be issued so I wonder what the DVLA will do

thus depending on when the Sentinel gets a suitable mark allocated to it it may be the first of a new series, and answer a long standing question I have had  

if they do issue the first half of BF finally it will probably be from BF1001 onwards as BF1 to BF1000 has been held for DVLA auction issue

and checking just now it looks like WC1-1000 has also been reserved for DVLA auction issue, so if they decide to issue that instead it will be from WC1001 onwards

(I do wonder what happens when they do finally run out of age related marks for 1930 and older vehicles!)

 

unless of course your V765 for a genuine period registration mark rather then just an age related mark, in which case nothing I said above is relevant LOL

(but still very exciting to hear your at the registration stage and to see it edging close to completion/the road  )

We had three age related plates issued in the past DS 7206, SV5525 and 163 XUP. I didn't mind DS or XUP but I hated the SV one for some reason. Either BF or WC would be good with me.

However, the initial attempt will be to retrieve the plate that was connected to the engine and transmission unit (GD 9834). We feel that we have put a reasonably plausible argument together (and much better than some of the downright blatant frauds that have gone on recently) so fingers crossed and all that. 

[DodgeRover]

11 hours ago, JimH said:

We had three age related plates issued in the past DS 7206, SV5525 and 163 XUP. I didn't mind DS or XUP but I hated the SV one for some reason. Either BF or WC would be good with me.

However, the initial attempt will be to retrieve the plate that was connected to the engine and transmission unit (GD 9834). We feel that we have put a reasonably plausible argument together (and much better than some of the downright blatant frauds that have gone on recently) so fingers crossed and all that. 

Just out of interest how on earth did you manage to track that info down or did records still exist of what wagons got broken up by who and you worked it out that way?

[motorpunk]

@JimH - looking good! 
 

My Dad is a (retired) signwriter who can also do gold leaf. If you need a hand on that front I could put you in touch.

Some pics here - https://www.motorpunk.co.uk/articles/traditional-signwriting/

 

[JimH]

11 hours ago, DodgeRover said:

Just out of interest how on earth did you manage to track that info down or did records still exist of what wagons got broken up by who and you worked it out that way?

There were a few people who bought a fair few of these things as scrappers and they just sort of hung around in their yards. In this one's case there were four wrecks bought by a business and just sat around. Three of the four got saved and the fourth - our one - had the engine bought by Mr Keeley as a spare and the rest went in the melting pot. We have one photograph of GD 9834 taken in the 1950s in the yard prior to being broken up still in its Taroads livery (if it can be called that) who was the last commercial user of the waggon. There are also a few people who are able to recall the waggon in the yard with the others. 

After that you are struggling  - waggon numbers only appeared on a pair of brass plates bolted to the cab and maker's marks on parts was virtually unheard of with the exception of the odd pattern ID number which appears on a tiny handful of components. All you can hope for is that at some point in its working life someone bashed some identifying marks on some part they were working on. In the case of Sentinels they had a reasonably extensive regional workshop network (for the time) so the odds of a waggon finding its way into a shed where there were lots of other Sentinels was quite high. The photo (which I can't find at the moment - someone has been sorting folders out) shows GD 9834 sitting on pneumatics which was a conversions most commonly carried out by Sentinel or their agents. The upshot of this is that you are in with a decent chance of finding waggon number stamps on a bit of the engine or transmission. Fortunately we found a pair of waggon number marks in old style stamps on the main bearing housings. 

So, not exactly a watertight case but very much more watertight that some that have gone on recently involving little bits of boilers that were found in woods. Ho hum.

[JimH]

10 hours ago, motorpunk said:

@JimH - looking good! 
 

My Dad is a (retired) signwriter who can also do gold leaf. If you need a hand on that front I could put you in touch.

Some pics here - https://www.motorpunk.co.uk/articles/traditional-signwriting/

Cheers for that. At he moment we have someone penciled in for next year (we want to test the body on the road for a bit before it gets money spent on paint and letters) to do the signwriting but if that falls though I'll get back to you. 

Apparently this one won't be done in leaf after we got the quote for the acres of leaf that it would have needed. 

[JimH]

A door looking pretty much the same as it did before.

 

But wait. Aren't those hinges? Do you mean it actually...

 

Yes it actually opens. And closes. And stays exactly where I put it so the fit lines are still spot on. I am very, very pleased with this because I am a woodworking incompetent and the wood for this body wasn't exactly given away so if it went wrong I'd have been in schtuck.

There is a middle hinge still to go in but I wanted to get the second door on to minimise the risk of painful rework if I'd put things in the wrong place. You can't get hinges that look right any more so we made these. 

 

The design of the hinge means that they fold back quite close to the body. Close enough to hold them in place with a reasonably stout tie bar - if the wind catches these things they will really hurt someone. They are very, very heavy. 

 

While I am here we popped down to Preston(ish) to pick up the headboard that someone made for us. Although it was pretty simple it really needed a bead swaged onto it top and bottom and we didn't fancy stumping up for a swage for just one job. It's made in four pieces. I'm messing about at the moment trying to pull the curve to match the curve on the cab roof. 

 

Some had headboards as advertising space but they made a useful place to throw rolled up tarpaulins. The main reason was that they look quite good when you have a big body on the back.

 

This is the short section which makes up the rear section. It doesn't hold the same height all the way round but drops down and gives it a bit more shape. You can see the beads that have been swaged on. 

 

And finally the boiler is getting stripped down for its annual inspection. The thing hasn't had a fire in it since the last hot inspection and it's being inspected again. *rolls eyes*

 

That's it for this time. Not much but I wanted to show if the opening door cos I'm dead proud of it. 

 

[JimH]

There has been a lot of work being done but most of it is of the mind numbingly dull variety. I'll sort a better update out later but for now here are a couple of photos. Both Sentinels were due their hot test this week so we took the opportunity to at least see if the Super could run under its own steam. 

The inspector was supposed to be here on Tuesday but he forgot about it which meant we had to get them both going again on Wednesday which gave us a chance to sort out a few teething troubles for the next day. Tuesday was all foggy but at least it moved under its own power even if the steam brake valve was messing about and wouldn't stop it. It looks a bit crap without the rear wings and the cock eyed headlamps hardly help the look but at least it has seen daylight now. What it did remind me of is what a delight Supers are to drive.

 

Yesterday the sun came out and the brakes worked properly so I felt more confident taking it up a small hill. The bits sticking up from the cab roof are the start of the brackets for the headboard - it was supposed to rain and I didn't want it to get the bare steel wet. I'm pretty pleased with the look of the body. The curve of the roof is right and it looks suitably butch. 

 

More later.

[JimH]

It has been cold lately which makes it very difficult to get motivated to freeze your knackers off in the workshop. However, there has been some progress on the body. After a lot of work the rear doors are pretty much finished. I made a massive mistake going for three hinges because since everything is very stout nothing bends so the three hinges have to be absolutely bang in line which the nearside door was but the offside one wasn't and it took a great deal of blood, sweat and rage to get it right again. We seem to be somewhere now. 

The offside door is going to be held shut semi-permanently with brackets just so there is only one door to cause injury and there is no reason to ever have both doors open at the same time. The nearside door glides around with fingertip pressure so I'm quite please with that. 

 

The nearside door opens...

 

As does the offside one. They both close onto little steel on steel wedges to take the load off the hinges when the doors are shut. 

 

And when you close them they line up just dandy

 

And the shutlines stay just so too. I've never fitted up something as crude and as heavy as this so I'm a bit chuffed that I don't need to make too many excuses about my workmanship. What you can't make out in the pictures is that the countersunk set screws holding the hinges in are socket head which is no good at all. It either needs the sockets welded up or I need to find some suitable slotted set screws. This isn't so easy when they start to get bigger. 

 

And when both are open you get to see the now fully lined interior. This isn't fully screwed into place and there needs to be trims fitted to hide the joins in the boards but that is is somewhere close. The two coffins are the extra water tanks. which are piped to the original tank under the floor. The job over crimble is to make the two boxes to cover these up and make everything look pretty. The light baton isn't staying, it's just so I can see what I am doing. Everything will be painted the same colour as the inside of the cab. We also need to sort out some proper lights in there. 

 

I can't quite remember the calculation but I think we have about 380 gallons of water in total. This gives us a fairly easy 70 miles between stops. They also give somewhere to sit when it is raining. 

 

This is one of the frames for the storage boxes that are slung under the floor aft of the rear wings and give somewhere handy to keep oil, grease and other nasty things you don't want to put in the back. These weren't standard fitment but many waggons were fitted with them because they were always tight for storage space. They will be clad with steel faced plywood and trimmed to match the body. I haven't decided how they will be accessed. 

 

The other job that has taken a while is getting the headboard fitted properly. This was made in four sections because it is pretty big thing to wrestle with. All joints are just bolted butts to keep things simple but they do need to be fitted well to look OK. 

 

What took the time was getting the curve right to match the curve of the ash bend. There is a 12 foot radius on this bit so while it looks flat it is only when you hold a straight edge up to it you see the bend properly. Getting this curve right took a while. The last thing to do will be to decide what gets painted on it.

 

And the finishedish item from the front. It seems to divide opinion - we think it looks pretty good but disapproval among the apprentices is pretty much universal. Apprentice No6 is very outspoken while Apprentice No4 just makes retching noises when she sees it. No pleasing some folk. 

 

If there is one job that is good to do is something that involves a lot of welding and grinding because it generates a bit of heat and keeps you warm. This is one part of the retaining screw assembly for the spare wheel mounting. This is the bracket that fixes to the underside of the chassis rail.

 

And this is the retaining screw under construction. The nut needs finished with some lugs to wind it on and it obviously needs a lot of fettling before it looks like a casting. 

 

Some of you might recognise the threaded part. The thing is that the thread needs to be square so it looks right but it also needs to be a bit on the "loose" side so the nut doesn't bind up on the thread even if it is a bit on the dry side (read "painted"). While discussing how to get this right someone looked down at the scaffold next to us and said, "we'll just get a new screw leg". The lugged nut had the lugs cut off and then machined so it could be pressed into the bigger body you see in the photo above. 

 

And that is pretty much that. Hopefully the oil fired heater will be operational in the next week or so then things might get a bit warmer in the big shed. 

[mat777]

Just come across this topic, bravo Jim! 

Big steam fan here (former miniature owner), looking forward to see this beauty on the road  

In terms of the boiler, I didn't realise they had such a crazy tube arrangement! Is it, in a way back to front? As from the look of it the fire is in the middle of a water jacket, and the tubes of water pass through it - compared to normally where the tubes carry hot gas through a horizontal boiler full of water?

[JimH]

It is your standard (apart from the oddball tube pattern) water tube boiler. These are not so common in road steam engines which are mostly firetube loco boilers but most waggons used water tube boilers. Yorkshire were a noteable exception which used a weirdo split firetube arrangement. I haven't thought about it properly but I'd guess in numbers the water tube boiler is more common in industry. 

The Yorkshire boiler was odd...