With a few weekends of unusually mild weather and help from other loco department volunteers the team successfully finished preparing the frame plates and set about erecting the frames and taking initial steps to leveling them! The above picture shows the new frame plates being erected into position…

It’s been a few months since we’ve had any significant news on the restoration front to share with you, not to say we haven’t been busy but it has involved countless hours upon hours of grinding the various faces of the frames square! With this now completed, and various alignment reference marks spotted, the two frame plates have been split and we can hopefully accelerate now to finishing the prep work on the frames and erecting the basic frame assembly before the years end. Meanwhile whilst all this has been going on Sean has been busy grit blasting and painting up the horn guides and various other components in readiness for remedial work and refitting to the new frames. Offsite the work of machining the Cylinder block should hopefully be well on its way at Statfold Barn and it is hope’d that by the end of the year we should, after collection, be able to setup the new block within the new frames. All in all we should hopefully be on track to fulfilling our aims, from the beginning of the year, to having the frame assembly loosely erected before the years end…

With the weather firmly on our side the team has made great progress towards achieving our goals of working towards erecting the new frames by the end of the year. With a few weekends and a couple of days holiday to spare Matt and Ben have all but completed the drilling of all the holes in the new frame plates. Following on from this the frames now need all of the horn slots machining square and then we should be in a good position to erect the new frames. Also at our last monthly working day in July the team got together and finally took the plunge disassembling the remains of the old frames into a flat pack P tank. We also welcome’d Russ to the team who made himself most helpful drilling and shelling out broken stays in the front counterweight. The opportunity was also taken to have a good clear up of our little site and set-up a new area with better forklift access for assembling the new frames. Temporarily we have placed the cab in this area to help Clive and his team of Network Rail Employees on their Charity works days cleaning up and helping to preserve the cab from any further deterioration from the elements. Offsite the cylinder blocks, as well as all of the fitted bolts and studs, will soon be machined at Statfold Barn with an expected completion date set for the end of October. So hopefully by the “Giants of Steam” event we should have the new block back on site and ready to fit…

Following on from completing the final marking out of the frames earlier in the month a start was made at drilling out and reaming through each individual hole. Prior to this the the two frame plates where carefully position one on top of the other, so that we could assured that both frame plates match each other. The above photo shows Matt machining the first hole…

Talking of you’ve been framed (or at least Matt does) today Matt has also finished the task of painstakingly marking out all of the hole positions for the main frames! just over 400 holes in total and roughly 24 man hours spread over the last couple of months, weather dependent! Following verification and a quick double check, measure twice cut once as the old saying goes, we should be in a position to commence drilling the main frames at our next working day later in the month! Also the Vacuum brake cylinder has been finally fitted together and tested fit for use and has now been put into storage waiting for the time that the new frames are erected and ready to have the cylinder fitted. The picture above shows the tools of the trade scattered on the frames as the rear of the frame plates are marked up! each white chalk pen circle identifies a center pop denoting a hole center…

The Cylinder block has been sent away to our friends at Statfold Engineering Ltd for machining. Undeterred by the English weather, on Friday, Matt and Ben popped up and delivered the cylinder block casting to Statfold Barn for machining. Another little milestone for Projecty 27…

A brief engineering update on the progress made on our monthly working day for February. The above picture shows the first holes drilled in the rear buffer beam! these have been tap’d and are now ready to have, at the time, the rear stowage hook for the coupling to be bolted on (Show’n painted up on the right)…

With the group together for our monthly working day, progress was made on making a start on riveting the rear drag-box up. After a successful day of riveting this plate is now ready for a coat of paint and machining to square this sub-assembly up to aid in the erection of the main frames. Also many thanks for the workshop staff allowing us to use there space and equipment for the day! The above picture shows Matt & Reuben discussing & checking the set-up before work commences…