Lord Darby (4"RL)

Well folks.... at last the first half of my road loco kits have arrived here in New Zealand. Great excitement     . Making room in the workshop for 500kg of palletised goodies  . Photos will be posted in due course.

Excellent. Happy building.

Thanks Lynn.
Showman Shane is a close neighbour of mine so I have been able to inherit certain bits of tooling and equipment which he has passed on to me that will make my build a little easier.  

Hi Phil,Yep I have lots of stuff that may assist you with your build but may cost you a cold ale or 3.Don't ask me to paint anything though as well and truly cured on this aspect of my build. Phil I am surprised you have time to do anything on your build with your wedding coming up and all. You must have a very understanding better half. Best wishes mate for the big day.

Sounds like he needs to get his finger out, what a great way to arrive at the  church.  Good luck with the build, and wedding.

The Wedding happened before the arrival of the kits, so I managed to get full “brownie points” first. These credit points might end up being exhausted by the time the engine is finished.

It is not going to be very easy popping over to help out.

Hi guys, photographs as promised.....


Goodies arriving.....  



Nice big bundle of box's and heavy metal to play with....  



Making a start at finding space and homes for the various bits and bob's....  

That lot will keep you busy for a while!

I must say the weather looks a tad better than here, much more agreeable

keep the pics comong please

Kev

Phil,Might pay to blow up the photo of your nice clean garage/workshop to remind you what it used to look like. If your build progresses anything like mine it won't take long for it to look like a bomb site .Missed you at the working bee yesterday 4 spans on the railway viaduct completed and boy did the cold beer at days end taste great.Cheers Shane

When's the next newsletter out. I keep an eye on your railway   

Hi Lynn,Should be later this month.Check our photos for progress on our club web site.Viaduct way over built.Point load of 1000kgs.Cheers Shane.

Shane, sorry to have missed the excitement at the club on Saturday, we are still entertaining the crowd from the UK who have come over for our wedding last week. Been down the park to see Bruce about doing an accumulation boiler test on my new loco next Sunday, so that I will be able play trains with the big boys. I have checked in the first five kits for building, so things on the RL will be starting in earnest as soon as our visitors return to the UK. 

Finally made a start on my engine. Checked in kits 1 – 5, and found a couple of missing items   which arrived within the week of emailing Isabel,   so everything for these kits are binned up in my little store ready for assembly. Started at the beginning with the wheels. Lots of worn out flap wheels and plenty of crap spread all over the workshop, wonderful.  

Hi Phil, Great action shots. Keep them coming. Love the white overalls and clean workshop. Cheers, Shane

Those overalls are definitely far too white!

Good to see you've started, takes me back!! But those overalls are definitely for the painting stages of the build  
Keep the pictures coming, can never get enough of seeing how other builders are getting on!!
Nice workshop area!!!

Regards,
Tony

White overalls. Keeps you kool when out in the sunshine working on the engine.

Looking good even though its just cleaning up the wheels. Hope you have ordered a waterbowser and at least 2 wagons to pull behind the engine when finished. Get them shipped out with the second lot of engine parts!

Good point about the sunshine Lynn, I hadn't thought about that, of course it's summer over there & they actually get sun!! Couldn't be more different than here right now, completely white landscape & snowing quite heavily!! Got my blue thermal overalls on!!  

Also would agree about wagons & water bowser... "In for a penny.. In for a pound", & all that!! Needless to say I don't have any pounds left now!!

No regrets!!!

Regards,
Tony

Hi. You will all be pleased to know that the white overalls are no longer white…… And yes the sun is shining and it’s about 25° so I am making good use of a large fan in the workshop to keep cool and blow all the dust outside. My workshop is half of a double garage, her indoors likes to keep her car under cover when it is wet. Although her car is evicted on a regular basis to give me more room.  
I have half of the loco kit yet to arrive plus one wagon and bowser, haven’t got room for two wagons, yet! Unlike Showman Shane, who is using two pack, I am looking at brush painting my loco, and I will be talking to a couple of local paint suppliers with regard to the best enamel paint system to use. Unfortunately it’s to bloody expensive to import Craftmaster paints because of the safety regulations etc. 

No excuse in not having room for two wagons. They do stack very nicely.

Well, I think it’s time for an update! Having spent a few hours with a wire brush mounted to my angle grinder, and the inevitable flap wheels, cleaning up both front and rear wheel rims  , I came across Richard on the forum using Cementone patio cleaner. Not having a similar product here in NZ, I checked out the safety data sheet for the product only to discover it is basically Hydrochloric acid, but didn’t state what concentration. Having access to a good supply of 10% concentrated Hydrochloric acid, out came all the safety gear and the spokes submerged in batches of 7 for the front wheel kits. After 20 mins in the acid then a good wash down with clean water all the scale just washed off in the rinse. Then a good scrub with a wire brush and dried of in the sun, yes the sun is shining over here, 80% of the work had been completed on all of the spokes in less than 2 hours. All that is now required is to clean up the edges and the jobs a good-un.  

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Left is straight from the acid, and on the right after a good wire brush.

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A close up

OK folks time for a quick update. I have been jogging along with the wheels and getting to a point of the construction I dislike the most, and that’s the cosmetic filleting of the rims, playing with body filler has never been my strong point.   Anyway, I have continued with other parts of the build until such time that I can get my head around the filleting job.
I have placed the boiler up on my metal bench to facilitate easier access, kneeling on hard ground and bending over all day is not on my bucket list. Then it was out with the endoscope to have a look inside the boiler. Considering it was constructed and pressure tested in late 2012, been laying around various workshops, and travelled 12000 miles to the other side of the planet, it is in very good condition inside and out with very little corrosion. A half hour with a magnetic probe removed most of the machining swarf that I managed to shake down to the left side foundation ring. Having suspended the boiler on my hoist and tapping gently all over to loosen and encourage as much as possible to collect in one place. I will be giving the boiler a chemical washout in the future, before fitting the cylinder block.


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All the swarf that I removed using a magnetic probe.

WOW all these people that bothered to have a look and fish out all the crap in the boiler!!! When I got mine it was bolted to the smoke box and tender within 24 hrs of arriving home and I never once thought to do any of that!!! Filled it up 18 months later and have steamed ever since !!    Next weekend will be the boiler test for Andy and myself and this year we have opted for the EXPENSIVE commercial test which involves an endoscope inside as well as thicknessing. Seeing as mine was one of the first to be steaming it will be interesting to see how it has faired over the last two years compared to Andys brand new boiler. We shall see.

The swarf left in the boiler won't do any harm to the integrity of the boiler.  Eventually it will rust away to nothing(the swarf).  The biggest problem one might get is that it can get into the clack valves & gauge glass and inhibit there operation.