Preparing for the Big Day

Preparations are well advanced for our Frame Assembly, scheduled to start on 22nd May. Our Dragbox is now paid for and on site, our bank showed funds unaffected by the payment. Our treasurer took a closer look and found that a very generous donor had given enough to cover the dragbox with a little change. Thank you so much for that, you know who you are! We have raised orders for all the minutiae needed, nuts and bolts, thread inserts, even marker pens. A precision level for levelling the frame is shown below, next to a standard trade level. The latter shows level, perhaps with a slight indication that the left might be a tad higher, but the precision level shows the left end is very definitely higher.

Thanks to our generous donor, we can now order all the parts needed for frame assembly, various steel angles and some very large ones, some minor platework and such like.  We have already placed an order for two reverser shaft bearing brackets, to be machined from solid as that’s more economical than making a pattern, casting two parts and machining them.  Things have changed, but remember we are building one locomotive only.

It’s getting exciting!