By David Eaton

The boiler does, of course, need an ashpan and this I welded up from 16g steel. It is attached to the boiler by a hinge arrangement and the damper handle, which I have not yet fitted. I bought the three steam valves for the blower, injector and water lifter and started on the pipe-work.

The water lifter was a complete unknown, but some thought and digital irritation of the cranial epidermis produced some ideas and a “prototype” was made. I call it a “prototype” as I have no idea if it will work, but it looks very similar to the original. It also needed a hose with a filter on the end and I was lucky to find a complete roll of hose of the right size at a car boot sale.

As a change from pipe work I started work on the engine. This is to be double high pressure cylinders rather than compound as was the original as I will not have a high enough boiler pressure. (100psi as against the 225psi of the original). The crankcase is a welded fabrication of 1/8” steel with the brackets for the slide bars included.

The crankshaft is a pinned and press fit assembly from ¾” diameter and 5/8” x 1¼” steel. The webs were bored out in the lathe for a press fit for the shaft and then cross drilled 3mm for a press fitted 1/8” pin. I had no idea if balance weights were fitted, but a picture of another Hindley engine suggested that they were bolted to the webs.

The weights started as lengths of 5/8” by 2” flat, with slots to fit the webs. Then when they fitted the webs they were drilled and counter-bored for 1 ¼” 4BA high tensile hex bolts. The only other thing then to do was to turn them down to a radius to match the webs, which took more time than I had thought.

The connecting rods started as lengths of 1” x 1 1/2” MS, weighing 3lb 6ozs. After six set-ups in the mill and two in the lathe the result was a pair of rods weighing 6ozs.

The cylinder block was machined up from a billet of cast iron and the covers are partly made.

For a change I started on the woodwork for the body, which is to be all made of hardwood of various sizes, all sawn for me by Nick Nicholls (thanks Nick). The bed of the wagon is made of beech 2” x ½” screwed and glued to the stringers. The sides on the original wagon seem to have been bolted to the stringers with coach bolts. Unfortunately, there seems to be no supplier of cup/square headed bolts in 4 or 5 BA sizes or even square headed coach screws, so they all had to be made. I made the coach bolts from long 5 BA bolts, acquired long ago from K. R. Whiston. Each one was chucked in the lathe and a form tool used to make the mushroom head.

The tailgate hinges are another fabrication with 3/32” strip steel silver soldered to bosses. Of course they needed square headed coach screws, so that these needed to be made as well. The heads were made of 3/16” square, parted off slices, with a clearance hole for no 4 wood screws. Each one was threaded onto a wood screw and silver soldered. After cleaning up, they were used to fix the hinges.

And that is as far as I have reached with the construction. I cannot use the workshop during the cold weather as although I can heat it satisfactorily, there is a condensation problem when it cools and everything becomes covered in rust.

To be continued