Saturday 04 October. Today’s attendance was three.

To begin with Rob Mason was arriving early on site and made a start by doing a bit more painting in the Co-Bo. A short while after Jason arrived and after a break to have a cuppa and figure out what jobs to do, it was decided as the weather was not too clever to concentrate on drelling work under the loco tarpaulin and make a start in the generator area. Rob got the needle gun out to do the insides of the side frame but it was found that the small needle gun had seized since it was last used a fortnight ago, some time was wasted while Jason stripped it down, un-seized the piston & lubricated the gun before reassembly in the workshop, eventually managing to get it to work so Rob could get on with his work, at this point Dave Mylett appeared and decided to do some electrical conduit drelling in the support coach workshop.

Jason set about making a start on drelling & painting the back of the engine and generator cradle, It had to be de-greased first after lunch Rob had finish his gunning and started drelling the R/H side frame. Jason took the needle gun & gunned the back of the engine, to finish off the day Rob slapped some green primer paint on the side frame he had just drelled and after a tidy up that completed the days work.

Sunday 05 October. Attendance: Four working members today.

Jason & Simon began the day with Simon opting to needle gun, drell & paint the opposite side frame to the one Rob did the previous day whilst Jason drelled the back of the engine to smooth over the gunning marks. Later that morning Chris Mason appeared and soon after that Jim arrived with a car boot for of old Railway Magazines that had to be offloaded as stock for the sales stand.

Simon undercoated the R/H side, Jason & Chris.M slapped green primer on the back of the engine and Jim had been given the job of gloss painting the cab bulkhead, a job that had been left over from the engine change week last October. Simon managed to primer paint the L/H side frame that he had drelled.

After this it was decided to test the Plazma Cutter the group had bought and get some lengths of channel cut as mounting stands for the TMB in the nose end, needless to say the cheap & cheerful Chinese made Plazma Cutter was having difficulty cutting though the thick channel and after a short while it started to cut out and as time was getting on at this point we called it a day and packed everything away ending the days activities. It had been a slow weekend but given the circumstances we did as well as could have been expected plus it was nice to see Chris Mason come along again as we could always use new volunteers !

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

Above : The painting of the rear engine area has now begun with the green primer. © C15PS