A Month, A Day and an Hour of 1649
Four thirty on Friday the eighth of December and I was ready to go. 1649 was planned as an enjoyable break from layout work, and so it proved.
A basic running loco
The biggest hurdle was not only getting the smokebox, boiler, firebox and panniers to fit together, but making them dimensionally accurate with respect to the cab and footplate. And getting the panniers to sit down nicely on their support brackets.
Two blind lead bolts fasten the cab front to the panniers, and a bolt goes up through the footplate, through the smokebox saddle and the smokebox into the boiler tube. The holes were elongated to allow the necessary adjustment. Daylight under the boiler was achieved without cutting the boiler, thanks to the High Level gearbox.
As I expected the bunker proved to be the most difficult part to make.
Cab…
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