Job's A Good 'Un!

Dinmore Manor was up for a bit of routine maintenance on Saturday.  To start with, Dave & Steve finished off fitting the split pins for the spring that was changed last week.

Dave (l) and Steve, refitting split pins

After that, attending to leaks from one of the injectors and the ejector were on the hit list:

Dave, removing the steam feed to the fireman's side injector

Steam feed to the ejector, partially dismantled

 Meanwhile, the safety valves have been blowing by, Steve re-cut the seats and then lapped them in:

Steve, re-cutting a safety valve seat.

 After repacking, the ejector and injector steam feeds were reassembled:

Ejector steam feed, back in one piece

Fireman's side injector steam feed, reassembled

For many of us, it was day of painting the extraneous parts of Dinmore Manor's old tender, with a view to getting it back on its wheels and thereby freeing up the lifting jacks for other projects.

Kenneth undercoating the vacuum reservoir tank

Dhavindra painting the underside of the water space

Keith painted under the tender too

Kenneth sneakily painted 3850's vacuum cylinder while he had the undercoat out

Jonathan, cleaning up some of the tender pipe work.

Tony priming various tender pipes

The tender wheels had only received a first top coat thus far, a second was applied on Saturday:

Jonathan & Eleanor busy painting the tender's wheels.

Next in the queue for the lifting jacks, is 35006.  Accessing the under keeps to check that the lubrication has been working as it should is a tricky task for the driving wheels, access can only be gained by dropping the axle boxes down in the horn guides until they are only registered in them by a couple of inches. To be more accurate, the plan is to leave the axle boxes exactly where they are, and raise the rest of the loco up a bit.  To do this, much of the brake rigging and sanding equipment needs to be removed beforehand:

Jeff, having just removed one of 35006's brake linkages

Sanding pipes removed

 Having several acres of concrete flooring around the place, it is much easier to keep the place clean than it used to be.  Just get out the pressure washer and give it a thorough going over:

Ian pressure washing one of the pits.

Meanwhile, back in the mess coach, the silence was disturbed by the sound of the last biscuit being munched.

Spot the guilty party!

The moral of this tale, is not "Don't take the last biscuit"... I've had more than a few "last biscuits" myself.  The moral of this tale is that if you are going to nick the last biscuit, then don't let the chap who writes the blog see you doing it!

 The 2807 group have a new starter called Rob, who has been inducted into the ways of making boot scrapers.   Perhaps his timing on joining the group was a little bit off, as 2807 is currently off at the Llangollen Railway until the new year, however the boot scrapers are a useful source of income to the group and will help make a difference when it comes to funding the next heavy general overhaul in a few years.

Rob, learning the ways of making boot scrapers

Welcome to the dept Rob.  There is always a need for help with the various loco owning groups, if you think that this could be for you, why not give it a try?

For much of the day, the weather hadn't been conducive to outdoor work, but later on things improved. 

Mark, cutting out super heater flue tubes from 3845's boiler

Four down, three to go

And finally, the moment that you all been waiting for, the shed floor is finally finished.  It has been a long running project, taking several years to come to fruition, involving many people and is most definitely appreciated by all who work in the shed.  

The concrete mixer arrives... (Photo courtesy of Tony Bowles)

...Mark uses a dumper truck to shift it where it is needed... (Photo courtesy of Tony Bowles)

...levelled by the assembled throng. (Photo courtesy of Tony Bowles)

 Eventually, the Wednesday gang, plus a few others had finished, the shed floor was done and a fair patch of the apron outside the shed on road 6.

The finished job (Photo courtesy of Chris Blake)

Team photo. (Photo courtesy of Tony Bowles)

After a month or so, when the concrete has fully cured, it will be etched and painted and declared fully finished.  There is still a little more concreting to be done on the apron on road 6.