David Andrews Princess Royal - 6206 Princess Marie Louise

Sorry Brian,

But I do get the feeling that like me you don't need too much encouragement. I get a great deal of pleasure from just owning nice tools particularly hand tools. That said I don't buy tools that I know that I won't use and I am happy to buy good quality (branded) second hand tools that need a bit of TLC.

I mentioned that I have two scribing blocks, one which is a fixed post version is by Eclipse and was a gift from a friend when he was clearing his workshop when moving house. The second a Moore and Wright example which has an adjustable post I only paid £10 plus postage for. What I mean by fixed versus adjustable post is that the main post is either set solid into the base block and the scriber moves up and down height wise via a clamp. On the adjustable version the post tilts fore and aft via a screw mechanism as well as the height adjustment via a clamp.

Apologies if this is granny and eggs but a tip for buying second hand tools via eBay is to pick a buy it now example that's in your ballpark price wise and put it on watch. Then leave it a few days. In almost all the items that I have ended up buying within a couple of days I received a reduced price offer from the seller sometimes not by much and at that point if you wish, you are able to put in a lower counter offer.

 

Progress over the last few days has been excellent so much so that I have backtracked a little and picked up on a couple of items that Paul has mentioned in the past.


The first was to replace the hatch knobs on the footplate with some wire loop examples. The knobs have gone in the spares box and will come in at some point.





The next was this comment from Paul, which I completely agreed with as I had been unhappy with the fit for sometime. But, I wasn't sure how to go about rectifying it then, so I slept on it...

"Hello Rob,


when are you going to sort out the gap between the chimney and the smokebox?


Coat on and the door closed very quietly behind me!


OzzyO."


The (replacement for the kit provided) chimney was cast from a 3D print by Mike Hopkins and Mike had placed his print supports under the bottom rim. I can see why as they would be least likely to be seen on the finished model. However because the casting also had a tube which fits into the smoke box to aid location, it made cleaning up the bottom rim and getting it to fit flush very difficult.


This is what it looked like after my initial cleaning up of the remains of the supports





Having almost finished the body work, I took the bull by the horns and took the chimney back of back gently gripping it in the vice between two pieces of round bar while applying heat to the inside of the chimney until I was able to ease it off.





Although I took photos long the way, I am not going to share how I machined the chimney just yet as I want to use it as part of my an evening with presentation later in the month.





This is it refitted to the smokebox.

 

Thanks Andy.

Although I had fitted the handrail knobs to the boiler and smokebox earlier last week, I hadn't added those on the resin firebox. This was for no other reason than the superglue was upstairs in the fridge and I thought it easier to crack on with something else and bring the superglue down later.

When I did subsequently fit the remaining knobs in place, those on one side were fine but for some reason both on the other side didn't seat properly and the glue set as I was trying to push them home. I tried pushing them in with pliers and gently tapping them but I was very concerned that the resin firebox might crack if I was too vigorous. They didn't stick out by much but I wasn't happy having put so much effort in with re-seating the chimney etc. It was during commode time (a term picked up from an american machinist who I watch on Youtube) that an idea came to me.

This morning in between making the end caps for the handrails I plucked up the courage to give it a go. I got a short offcut of the 0.8mm piano wire that I have made the handrails from and put a small bend on one end gripping the wire in a pin vice just in front of the bend.



I popped the bent end through the hole in the first offending handrail knob. I chose the one that was furthest in, to try the proposed solution on. Then I connected the negative terminal of my RSU to the piano wire which protruded from the handle end of the pin vice. A quick touch with the probe and a slight twist and the knob thankfully popped free without issue. Buoyed by this success, I repeated the same on the second offending knob and I had barely touched it before it popped out.

As a precaution because I was heating superglue/resin I had the extractor fan running at the side of my bench just in case any fumes were created. I was probably being over cautious as the glue just seemed to slightly soften rather than melt.

Then it was a simple job to re-drill the holes making sure that the knobs were a loose sliding fit before attempting to apply more glue. It was at this point that I found out why one of them wouldn't seat properly. There was a slight rim around the shank on one which prevented it from seating flush. It wasn't really visible but when I ran my nail across it I could feel the ridge. To save time I swapped it for another one from the stores and both were fitted properly.

 

The last items to make for the Princess, are the cylinder drain cocks/pipes. The castings were missing from the kit and I looked at those offered by Laurie Griffin and Ragstone but I wasn't convinced that they were suitable for use on the Princess and decided to make my own.

They are not yet complete but this is the first step. The making and alignment of the pipes themselves.
I made a jig from a strip of nickel sheet which I milled a series of grooves in. The grooves were milled to suit the etched holes in the bottom of the cylinders with spacing of 10mm and 9mm

I milled them using the point of a countersink bit and supported the material with a shop made machinist jack.



I did the same on each end of the strip of material to give me a top and a bottom for the jig.



The two half of the jig were loosely placed together and the legs of the pipes fed into them and the engineers clamp tightened to hold the horizontal parts together. A small G Clamp and a hair grip made sure that the pipes were vertical to each other and couldn't slip while I soldered them.



I wasn't really concentrating when I cut and bent up the pipes and I ended up with enough for two pairs. To compound that minor error I had placed them in the jig the wong way around and I had the 10mm and 9mm gaps the wrong way around. I could have unsoldered them but felt it was easier to cut some more and add these to the spares box.



I cut these a little different and left the outflow end of the pipes a bit long to cut down when fitted.
Oddly when I put these in the jig the other way around I didn't need the G Clamp, the engineers clamp was sufficient to hold them in place.

 

Nothing to do with LG parts but have you fitted the cab roof yet?

 

I asked Ken if he had fitted the cab roof yet because it too has been yet another challenge to overcome.

The reason for the challenge is that the profile of the roof rib visible in the shot of the roof below is a different profile to that of the rear frame of the cab which supports the cab roof at the back.



When I first fitted it the front of the roof didn't go anywhere near the front of the cab (it did fit when I first "rolled" it some time ago. To get around the issue I cut a front rib to fit just inside the cab front which brought the front of the roof into the right shape again



This left a gap in the middle of the roof at the rear which I filled with solder (just visible in the photo below as is the additional rib at the front of the cab). Not very elegant but it works.