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Pit to Port Project -
January 2006 Update |
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Progress continues……… Spurred on by the knowledge that, unusually for a loco rebuild job, all of the funding is in place, volunteer staff at the B & W have stripped Judy into component parts in record time.
Left - Using the “windy drill” the work of drilling out the firebox stays is in full swing after the boiler was removed from the frames and placed in the B & W workshop
As the inner firebox is beyond repair the copper side stays are being drilled using an oversized drill from the inside. Removal of the foundation ring and firehole door rivets (more drilling) allowed the box to be dropped out of place. By the look of the abandoned visor and ear defenders the driller has sloped off for a tea break.
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The photo (right) shows Martyn Blackwell, B & W CME, removing the last of the girder stays from the inner firebox. This staying method is one commonly found on road steam vehicles and small railway industrials. The girders are bedded to the tubeplate and door plate with stay bolts being passed through the crown and secured to the top of the girder by nuts rather than the typical locomotive boiler arrangement of radial stays through inner and outer firebox. There is a limit to the amount of loading that can be accepted by the vertical plates of the firebox hence the system was not used in locos with large grate areas. Interestingly enough, marine scotch boilers used this arrangement of staying for the combustion chambers.
Quotations are currently being obtained for a new, steel, inner firebox with welded joints as over half of the copper one has wasted to an unacceptable thickness.
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The photo on the left is an unusual view taken from inside the boiler after the inner firebox has been removed. The rectangular components at the top are the palm stay brackets used to connect the barrel directly to the inner firebox
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Meanwhile, plating repairs have been carried out to the smokebox where replacement angle bar sections have been fitted to replace those damaged by the corrosive action of the ash that accumulates in this part of the boiler. Most of the smokebox front plate will be completely replaced.
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This shows the results of twenty years of storage with water leaking into an axlebox. Whilst the bronze bearing remained in excellent condition this practical demonstration of electrolytic action did little for the axle journal and a recovery procedure is now in place
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More evidence of wear. No, not the CME’s thumb, the thinning of the wheel tyre flange! The tyres are also down to the minimum thickness therefore replacements have been ordered. Rather than the accepted method of securing the tyres with a Gibson ring or locating shoulders these were simply shrunk directly to the wheel centre. There were signs that the first set had been secured by set bolts, as was common industrial practice, but the last time the tyres were replaced these had been omitted. Five mph was the usual speed in the harbour which is probably just as well A set of makers drawings has been located and this will help the rebuild as well as providing a valuable education resource.
The saddle tank has been sent to a local fabrication company to be replaced with one made from a low grade stainless steel as this has proved very successful with a similar application. We now have to come up with a way to apply dummy rivet heads in order to replicate the original construction technique
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