I’ll try and keep this blog going now each week as the work progresses. The week has been a busy one with many parts collected and a lot of work done on drawings. The parts for the brake columns are now all at J R Englands in Cleckheaton and they are being made, two for Cambridge 7 and two for Beamish. The steel for the brake beams has been cut and delivered to the fabricators and the rubber suspension parts have been delivered.
Today Malcolm and I along with Mike Cook worked on machining the axleboxes and suspension parts. Malcolm spent the day milling out the slots on the front face of the axleboxes which will take the flat springs that provide the end float for the axles. The slot can just be seen inside the box nearest the camera.
On the left can be seen the sliding collars that are put into the axleboxes that provide a seat for the coil springs and rubber cones.
Mike spent the day machining the suspension rods and I drilled out the sacrificial tubes that fit round them and also drilled the solebar plates that provide the mounting under the solebars for each of the four suspension units.
There are only four but the fifth is going to be posted to Ipswich to act as a drilling guide for the dummy underframe.
All in all a good weeks progress. Hopefully more next week.