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28th May 2010
Tender Rear Dragbox substantially complete
A substantial amount of fabrication and machining work has seen the majority of the rear dragbox for the tender completed, with only drilling and riveting to complete.
The rear dragbox consists of three 'U' section plates. These have end pieces welded in, and two 'windows' cut in them, and are then machined to finished size along all edges. This ensures that everything is square and dimensionally correct when it comes to assembly and riveting...
The vertical mill is used to machine the short edges to the same dimension as the space between the inner frames of the tender. The long edges having previously been machined on the Horizontal mill to a width of 12"
One of the 'U' pieces after machining and painting
Embedded in the rear dragbox is a vertical plate through which the draw hook is bolted through. Here it is having the 2" hole for the draw hook bored into it.
Starting to assemble the rear 'box ready for drilling of the rivet holes
Almost done - a few more bits to do... Picture inverted to give an idea of the orientation once installed in the tender frames. The back of the tender on the left, the loco on the right.... Compare this nice new 'box, with the original;
Elsewhere, the inner frames have now been fully drilled, and we are moving on to the main frames. Also the first of the blocks which hold the tender mini buffers in place is finish machined, with the second one about 50% completed. More news on all of this soon hopefully...