A very good day in the workshop with Malcolm and Mike. I had picked the stretcher bars up yesterday and all but one of the drawings are now with Jason Reeves who is doing the fabrications. So today Malcolm started off by setting up the cast spring seats on the copying lathe. 16 needed boring out, then the bore needed to have a taper added so that they fit over the rubber cones. A couple of hours later and all were complete. Here are a few of them after I’d painted them in primer.
On top of some of the piles are some sliding collars. Mike meanwhile was machining the suspension rods then Malcolm used the lathe to cut the threads on their ends. I had drilled the four stretcher bars and then couldn’t resist making a trial assembly of a suspension unit. This shows how the rubber cones, which act as dampers, fit over the rods. They just need the coil springs to be delivered.
I was quite pleased with that. Meanwhile Mike started on the pivots for the brake pawls and I started to machine cotter pins to hang the brake blocks on. Malcolm then took pity on me and finished them off in no time and this is the result.
The wheelsets are coming on well and the running gear is on track to be completed by mid March.