Saturday 11th April

Attendance: 4

Another working weekend on D5705 dawns and Rob was down early getting settled in with Jason arriving some time after and being surprised to see anyone down at the coach before him! The focus of the work would be quite straight forward as the job of continuing with the cooler group overhaul would require much drelling and painting.

The weather was good Rob got the tarp pulled back to let in light and air to the cooler group. Once the air compressor was up and running he set about drelling the support stanchions for the cooling fan motor, however it soon became apparent that a small lighting conduit would be in his way so some time was spent removing the offending conduit which was passed onto Jason who was in the workshop making a start on drelling up some minor parts removed from the cooler group, this set up the work for the morning.

By lunch time Jason had drelled both the fan motor mounting brackets and the lighting conduit and Rob had made good progress with in the cooler group.After lunch work continued and soon two more workers arrived to join them; Volunteer Liaison Chris Tatton had bought along with him a new budding volunteer in the shape of Matt Lindley and after giving him a quick tour of the facilities they joined Jason in the workshop and set about primer painting the items he had drelled earlier.

After this Chris went into the Co-bo cooler group to assist Rob in primer painting the area that he had been drelling and Jason took Matt into the depths of D8233 to slap some undercoat on the Co-Bo cooling Fan & motor but first the motor had to be picked up off the floor and stood on its end. The motor is too heavy for just two guys to man handle so the internal lifting beam was bought through from the nose end and set up and using the block & tackle the motor was carefully upended and the painting could begin. All four items had been painted in light grey primer by Solutions Engineering after overhaul but now they needed to be painted again with the slightly darker shade of the grey undercoat. The motor, fan, cover plate & ‘lamp shade' were all painted and left to dry.

After this Jason & Matt went through into the Co-Bo engine room and began sorting out the pipe work that had been removed from the engine room floor and piled in a heap at the boiler end of the loco. Using some reference photos the pipes were pulled out one at a time and placed on the floor in the positions they originally came from. Although the engine room floor has been drelled and painted, the pipes have not and many are still covered in the thick oily muck that was once caked the floor so it didn't take long before all the guys gloves and hands were covered in it. Chris T was also lending a hand and most of the engine room floor pipes have been placed back were they belong. This a temporary measure to figure out where everything goes and the next job is take the pipes one at a time and process them before putting them back properly, but for now that was the end of the days work, the tarp was pulled back over D5705 and Matt was thanked for his help and he seemed keen to return.

Sunday 12th April:

Attendance: 3

After the pervious days efforts today didn't quite go as planned, there was a lot of painting to be done on bits from the ‘Object'. Jim arrived quite early and he had plans to work on D8233 and make a start on the TMB ducting modifications, however as there was no spare metal plate to work with his attention quickly turned to sorting out the ill fitting R/H nose end door, but before he and Jason got stuck into that Matt had arrived and it was planned to start the day by gloss painting the Co-Bo cooling fan parts. It was another glorious day so the tarp over D8233 was pulled back to the cab and as the three main bits of the fan assembly needed to be gloss painted in different colours they each took a parts and a different colour and started to paint, Jim took the Fan & cover plate down onto a nearby bench and began to paint them gloss red, Matt had the ‘lamp shade' and was slapping on the gloss hemp colour whilst Jason was tackling the fan motor painting that gloss black, this task was soon completed and Jim & Jason got busy with the modifications on the nose end door on D8233 while it was left to Matt to continue the work on D5705.

Back in the work shop Matt undercoated the small parts that he had painted the day before after which the red paint on the fan had dried in the warm sunshine and it was possible to turn it over and paint the other side. After break Jason checked to see if the paint on the motor was dry and on seeing that it was lowered it back down onto the deck and painted the underside of the motor as that bit had been missed.

It had been planned to go back into the Co-Bo today and touch up some primer paining in the cooler group area which had been missed, but as it turned out we never go to the Co-Bo at all and later in the afternoon even Matt found something to do on D8233 by gloss painting both the TMB snail ducts on the workshop bench. That concluded the weekends work on the ‘Object' again many thanks to Matt for coming down he certainly did his bit and said he would come down again which is good as we could use some fresh volunteers. It was a shame that Jim & Jason got sidetracked on the Sunday but that's how it goes when you have a choice of locos to work on I suppose!

The next working weekend is on 25/26 April. If you wish to lend a hand please contact Chris Tatton