We've had to spend some time this quarter dealing with the aftermath of our very unwelcome visitors who called overnight in mid-July.  By far our greatest loss was the Brake Ejector, probably the most complicated piece of equipment on the entire loco, that required around 1000 hours of a skilled machinist's time to complete.  It was insured and we have ordered a new casting, but the completion of our project could well be delayed by the theft of this component.

Of course it hasn't all been doom and gloom, and our workers have bounced back defiantly, with considerable progress made on the boiler cladding following many hours work by both volunteers and our part-time contractor.  A temporary staging has been built on either side of the loco to give more room to work at the height of the boiler.  It has taken a team of six men to carefully lift each sheet on to the staging.     The technique developed was to temporarily fit the first sheet, then position a mattress under the boiler. The second sheet was lifted on to the staging, then slid on the mattress round the boiler to the other side.  Once the sheets were located with a few loose screws, a lot of time was spent adjusting all the sheets until there was a uniform fit on all four barrel sections.  This was especially tricky because of the taper on the barrel.  The final result is that there are no excessive gaps or overlapping between sheets.

As part of the job, the name-plate mountings were located on the boiler, not an easy task as they straddle across two of the cladding sheets with some fixings on one sheet and some on the other.  Now we know they're in the right place, the mountings will be taken down for drilling to accept the name plates, then final painting. 

The finishing touch will be to fit the boiler bands which help to clamp the sheets in place and cover the joins.  The rearmost band has been fitted and it pulled the sheets nicely into position.  The front five bands need to be lined out with black and orange stripes before fitting, as it's far easier to do this on the bench.  Research into the exact dimensions of the lining out revealed variations between restored Bulleid locos, and we were grateful to receive documentation that specified how the lining ought to be. No doubt the "livery purists" will let us know if they think we've got it wrong!

Elsewhere on the boiler, we're progressing with fitting some of the ancillary components, with the whistle valve, support bracket and the whistle itself being located and fixed in position.  Having made sure all was well, the whistle was removed for storage elsewhere. We've also completed the assembly of the blow down valve, which had been delayed by the need to obtain two critical components, a copper gasket and a hard graphite packing gland.  Owing to minimum order quantities we had to over-order, so we'll have some spare parts to sell at the next Bulleid owners' meeting.

In the machine shop, the tender brake arm has been machined from a flame cut blank.  Also, the castings for the lubricator drives are now fully machined and we have nearly completed the innards for these components.

Work has continued on the smaller bore copper pipe work, with all the pipes from the steam chest drain valves complete.  This finishes off all the pipework on the front half of the loco. Progress has also been made on the steam feed pipework for the turbo generator.

Following a major shunt of the sheds and yard, the tender is now positioned behind the loco, and once again we can appreciate the full size of a Merchant Navy locomotive. This is the first time we've had the two vehicles together to work on, and we'll make an effort to get the draw gear fitted so the arrangement can be made more permanent.  As part of a bulk order organised by the Bulleid Owners' Society, we have obtained a set of blanks for the tender safety links.  If the drawbar between engine and tender should ever fail, these links will ensure that the two vehicles remain connected together.  We sincerely hope they'll never be used in anger!

As a result of our theft we've rented secure storage accommodation away from Toddington, and all the portable "juicy" items are now kept there. It's made working on fittings rather inconvenient as they have to be collected then returned to site at the close of working, but at least it keeps them out of reach of the villains' grubby little fingers in case they call again!