11. The boiler upside down with the lower (now upper!) sections cut away and the foundation ring removed.
12. New doorplate section formed and offered up to the original plate work and foundation ring.
doorplate and side sheets needing replacing due to excessive wastage and being too thin. In all four of these plates, the wastage was external rather than internal and so is likely to be the result of the long term storage outside since being scrapped rather than due to stress corrosion on the inside when in service.
As soon as the welder has been, we will be able to finish off this bottom end of the boiler by riveting up the foundation ring and fitting the last few hundred side stays. The boiler will then be turned back up the right way for us to fit the flues and tubes. We are hopeful to have the loco complete some time next year in 2022 where it will run at the East Somerset Railway for 3 years before then returning to the Dartmouth Steam Railway.
The Firebox
The general condition of the firebox was very good and can not have been too old when the loco was withdrawn as all of the stays were at the start size. Even the smokebox has enough thickness to do another 10 years of service quite happily and so is being left in place. All of the steel side stays and the crown stays were badly corroded and so needed replacing. Many of the side stays had already been burnt out of the copper side already but they all needed drilling from the steel outside. With the boiler sat up the right way, the crown stays and side stays were all removed, the holes reamed and tapped and new stays fitted. Once complete, the boiler was turned upside down onto a purpose made boiler trolley. This then allowed us to cut away the wasted steel platework and remove the foundation ring. New sections of boiler plate were then cut and bent around our formers in house before carefully grinding the weld preps to give an equal gap for a coded welder to weld up in the near future.
Great Western Star Summer 2021
Sister locomotive No 4141 in steam
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