Saturday 12th Sep 2009

Attendance: 5

Today began with some glorious weather and a favourable forecast for the rest of the weekend so as it would probably be the last chance this year to get the external bodywork painting progressed the decision was taken to pull the tarp right back and work on painting the roof and body side doors, but before this got started Jason had a little unfinished business up at Castlecroft and went up there to remove 2" isolating cock from 31556 something that he had failed to do during the previous work weekend due to time constraints and lack of suitable tools, but this time he came prepared and managed to get the part off plus a few other bits and bobs and took them all down to the store before returning to Baron street by which time Jim, Rob, Chris & Andy Walton had turned up and pulled back the tarp over the loco and back to the cab in readiness for work to precede.

Chris B & Andy W started off with painting the undercoat onto some of the L/H body side doors, Chris would be doing the outside and Andy the inside, together they managed to get all 3 pairs of the engine room doors undercoated, Rob meanwhile had set himself up with the air compressor and needle gun and was busy gunning the R/H shoulder of the roof and after completing that he moved unto the cant rail grilles and gunned them off also, Jason was now providing assistance to Jim who was adjusting the fit of the L/H rear generator compartment door, after cutting one hinge to try and adjust it it was found that both hinges needed to be cut off and re-welded, this done the door fit needed further adjustment by grinding down the edges a little so that they would fit in properly with the opposite door.

By this time the undercoat on the engine room doors had dried and Andy set about gloss painting the inside the first two pairs of L/H engine room doors using the wood pigeon gloss, Rob had now finished gunning and moved onto drelling to smooth of the rough finish left by the needle gunning, after than Rob started to drell the R/H roof hatch aperture after which he applied green primer to the whole area that he had been working on, while this was going on Chris had been gloss painting the R/H nose end door using the dark green gloss starting with the grilles first then moving onto the outer door skin, once that was complete he did the same to the door on the L/H side of the nose and then moved onto the engine room doors managing to gloss the first pair of L/H engine room doors.

JG ground off the old spot welds left after the from the body skin from the L/H rear side frame section just in front of the cab, once this was done welding primer was painted onto the metal and measurement were taken for the new piece of skin plate to be cut, Jason them marked out the plate to be cut and using the bench outside the coach the section was cut carefully using an angle grinder with the thin cutting disc, some minor trimming & grinding of the edges was needed but soon it was offered up into position to check the fit and was pretty much bang on, from there the plate was taken inside the coach workshop and using the bench drill a number of welding large holes were cut into the metals, a pilot drill was used first then stepped out to a large diameter drill, WD40 was used to keep the drill cool but it still needed to be re-sharpened by Jim more than once, after this the plate was taken to the loco and painted both sides with the welding primer twice before being allowed to dry and then Jason held it in place while Jim applied a couple of tack welds, after this he continued to weld in all the spots until the plate was firmly welded into place, the remaining weld blobs had to be ground flush with the plate and Jim had made a start on this but time was getting on and all the tools had to be packed away.

Now as there was still paint on the loco that was still tacky and it appeared as though the weather would be good for the following day a decision was taken to leave the tarp open over night, so D8233 would spend the night alfresco for the first time in years.

Sunday 13th Aug 2009

Attendance: 5

The weather today was not quite so nice but at least it had not rained overnight and D8233 was no worse for wear for spending the night uncovered, the main advantage to having the tarp back was that work could be picked up quickly and so it would be, Adam was here today and decided to carry on with the painting of the roof mainly in the area of the L/H roof hatch aperture as the hatch was still in position, Jason gave Adam a hand to remove the hatch and lower it safely to the ground before he got set up to gun & drell the sound to the L/H hatch aperture, Jason on the other hand got set up with the angle grinder and ground off the rest of the weld spots on the L/H/R side frame body panel, after which he applied a coat of green primer to the panel to cover it up.

Chris B on the other hand, had got the ladder out and by footing it against the wall of the loco works was able to undercoat the R/H shoulder of the roof and cant rail grilles that Rob had drelled and primed the day before, Adam was now removing all the fitting that were associated with the roof hatches, these included the locks for the roof hatches that are bolted to the inside of the roof on the outer edge of the apertures and stay bars which are mounted at ever end and are there to prop the doors in the open position when working on the top of the engine, however there should be a pair of props for each door but two are missing, but they are of simple construction and new ones could be easily fabricated from flat bar and bolts, Jason joined Adam again on the roof and had to cut out the broken & rusted solid remains of the old roof hatch hinges so by using the angle grinder with a thin cutting disc and a pry bar he carefully cut through the hinge pins then prized out the seized hinge tubes, after this was done he cleared the area allowing Adam to get on with the task of drelling around the inside of the L/H roof hatch aperture and then he drelled the central channel that the hinge holes are attached to, after which he applied green primer to the remaining areas of the roof not yet painted.

By this time Chris Tatton had arrived and was set the job of painting the inside of the 3rd pair of engine room side doors with gloss paint, but soon it was lunch time and everyone stopped for some food, After dinner Jason took over Chris T's job of glossing of the inside of the 3rd pair of doors that allowed CT to start undercoating the inside & outside of the L/H generator doors as well as the L/H/R side frame panel, while all this had been going on Dave Garnett had been busy working in the Cab of the Co-bo continuing with the job of doing the peg-boarding, By now Team Chris took a trip to B&Q and returned with some much needed woodworking tools for Dave and some plumbing supplies so that they could insulate & winterise the water supply pipe to the support coach, this entailed shutting off the water supply, crawling under the support coach, removing the existing curly pipe, refitting a new shorter, straighter one, fitting the foam insulation sleeves and reconnecting to the water supply, and this task would take CT most of the afternoon to complete, CB on the other hand chanced doing some more glossing and painted the outside of the 3rd pair of engine room doors, this then meant that all the large doors on the L/H side of the long nose were painted in dark green gloss and finally D8233 is starting to look like a loco again.

Meanwhile after the primer in the central roof area had dried Adam slapped on the grey undercoat as there was time enough for it to dry before the end of the days activities, after this he went into the coach workshop and started to strip down the roof hatch locking mechanisms, cleaned & lubricated the units before reassembling them and drelling and primer painting the assembly frame that go with them

Jason meanwhile had decided to grind down the lumpy welds that had been left around the nose end handrail mountings after the hand rails were welded back on a couple of weeks ago, using a drill with a grinding bit be ground the welds as smooth as he could before applying some primer paint around the handrail mounting blocks, after this had been done it was time to think about pulling the sheet back over the loco but first something had to be done about the gaping holes in the roof left by the removal of the roof hatches, Jason suggested they make a wooden frame to span across the gaps and hold the tarp out to prevent it from sagging and filling with water, so after Adam had fetched some planks from the wood pile they made up two frame one for each hatch aperture, this then shall be known a Skelator Mk2 ;) the tarp was pulled back and the days work ended.

It had been another successful working weekend with a good turnout on both days and thanks to the clement weather great progress was made on the external painting of the loco both on the roof and body side doors, and most of all D8233 is looking nice and green once more.

The next working weekend is on 10/11 October. If you wish to lend a hand please contact Chris Tatton