Getting my hands dirty for a change!
Your culprit has just spent two days at Sheffield Park working on the project at the instruction of Matt Holloway, our Project Engineer.
It started with a simple phrase on Thursday morning "Could you needle gun the wheels, but you will need to clean the gunge off first". A simple phrase, but of course nothing is ever that simple! I spent about 5 hours scraping the congealed oil. dust and anything else that may be in the mix off the backs of 1 1/2 wheels. No needle gunning was carried out!
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The back of the Front Left wheel before cleaning commenced (all pictures Clive Emsley)
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The tyre has now been cleaned but there is still the rim to do!
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After the gunge has been removed.
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Not the most pleasant or exciting jobs to do, but without doing it the restoration would not progress! Following the removal of the gunge, the next job will be to needle gun and wire wheel before painting.
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Wheels that have been cleaned and needle gunned and another that has been painted
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The rear and centre wheel sets have been cleaned and needle gunned already and are waiting wire wheel treatment before painting. The right middle wheel has been given a coat of bondaprimer, which is a high quality primer to give a good base for the subsequent coats of paint. These were prepared by Matt and his band of willing helpers last weekend.
The pictures serve to demonstrate the amount of dirty, boring and menial, but vital, work that needs to be carried out before the sight of a pristine P class rolls out of the works in a couple of years!
My second day was still cleaning extremely "cruddy" items, only this time indoors. As it was raining, I thought it would be more comfortable inside the Villas so set to on the cleaning of the cylinder drain cocks. Not only were these disgustingly filthy on the outside there was a fair amount of detritus inside the ports.
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one of the drain cocks waiting to be dismantled and cleaned
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There are five of these located on the cylinder block. All of these are similarly gunged up or at least they were before I started! The congealed grease and dust was roughly scrapped from the castings before the split pins removed and the nut taken off to reduce the items into the 6 parts that make up the cylinder drain cock. Each part was then meticulously cleaned using scrapers, paraffin and brushes. the pictures below show the progress of the cleaning.
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The first one cleaned happens to be an original SECR made one!
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component parts of the cylinder drain cock
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Following cleaning and reassembly
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At Lunchtime I was joined by Matt who spent some time wire wheeling and painting a bit more of the middle wheel set.
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Matt painting the rear of the middle left wheel
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The extent of the painting for today! (daylight and weather were a factor)
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Whilst Matt was using the wire wheel he discovered some makers stamps on the wheels and axles. It seems that at lease the middle wheels were made in Germany by Krupp in 1910, whilst the front and rear axles were manufactured by Vickers Sons and Maxim Ltd. Ironic when only a few years later 27 was in Boulogne doing its bit for the war effort and both Krupp and Vickers were supplying armaments to their respective governments!
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The Krupp makers stamp clearly shown on the middle left wheel
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The makers stamp on the front axle along with the date 1909 (the loco entered service in 1910!)
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So, a fun, interesting and informative couple of days with 27, and here's to many more!
Oh, and whilst I was waiting to get started someone dumped a P class in the loco yard! Bluebell arrived back from its trip away. Almost a case of "here's one we did earlier!
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Bluebell arrives home following her trip away!
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Keep coming back to this page for all the exciting news about 27, and what is happening with the restoration.
Thanks for reading this far!
Clive D. Emsley
Chairman - The Fenchurch Fund
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