Kit 7 - Tender

ModelWorks 4 inch Scale Burrell Agricultural Traction Engine
Kit 7 collected from City link 30 April 
 

Kit account 8

After reading the note in the instruction regarding the variability in the alignment of the holes I decided to trial assemble the tender sides.  Hole alignment was good over the bottom bend, in fact everywhere except the top S bends.  

Using a scriber to force some degree of alignment I managed to get one screw in place.

None of the other holes on the S bend align and there is a gap between tender sides and back.  Looking on the bright side the instruction warned me this might happen and ModelWorks supplied a 3.5 mm drill to "move" any holes that do not align.  Since I have to move the top hole by between 1 and 2mm I shall have to plan ahead so that the beading goes on straight.

Saturday: Today I made a start cleaning up the side panels. Because of the size of the job I tried using a course flap wheel fitted to my angle grinder.  This was very quick but unfortunately left deep scratches. After I found it difficult to remove these scratches I confined the use of the course flap wheel to the inside of the tank.

The picture right clearly shows on which side I used the course flap wheel.  After I saw this picture I went back to the workshop and spend a hour polishing out the scratches.

Progress on the Burrell has been slow today because I am halfway though making a new home for the Burrell in my garage.  The dust from the flap wheel is probably harming my machine tools so I will be including a "dirty" bench to get these jobs out of the workshop (and the house).

Monday: Today I tackled assembly of the main parts of the tender.  After nearly ruining my scriber I decided to make some drifts.  At the  end of a short piece of 3/16 rod I turned the end down to about 120 thou tapering the last 1/2 inch.  I have made a couple and used them to help improve the alignment around the S curves.  As expected I had to drill out most of the holes around the S bead. 

I am partway through the tedious job of fitting the slotless roundhead 5BA screws.  As the picture above shows one snapped off so I hope ModelWorks have been generous (they were, about 10 spare or did I miss some holes?).  On removing the 3mm temporary screws I found many of them to be mangled; only fit for the bin.

I am fairly happy with the results but the top back has ended a little bit on the high side.  I won't know how critical this in until the coal bunker extension arrived in the next kit.

I removed the bulk of the material using an angle grinder and finished off with a file.

Before fitting the beading I will have to move the fixing holes.  I am sure with a bit of metal filler the finish will be fine.
Wednesday, Thursday: I have been cleaning up the straps that fix to the side of the tender. I had great difficulty breaking through the oxide coating to get down to bear metal.  As usual I used a flap wheel but I had to push quite hard to get it to bite through to bare metal.

Friday:  Today I tackled the beading.  It took me a couple of hours to profile the U shaped piece.   I removed the bulk of the metal with a file and finished off with the flap wheel.

When it came to "move" the holes in the back of the tender I could not find a suitable file so I decided to use an end mill in my electric drill.

This is the first time I have used an endmill freehand; I normally use a mill.  I was intrigued to discover that the direction of cut was at right angles to the direction of pressure!  In order to move the hole down I had to push the drill to the left.

All that remains is to fit the brass fitting and water proof the tank with liquid rubber.

Saturday: I have included a close up of a tender belonging to full size Burrell BW6030 below as it shows some useful details.    Examination of the tender inspection cover reveals that the nuts are on the outside (probably studs).  The side strap is rivet to the tender - trying to decide whether it is worth replacing the bolts supplied by ModelWorks with a Rivets or Slotless round heads?

When I went to fit the dummy cover I was unsure as to whether the bolts supplied by ModelWorks were the correct size.  The holes were large enough to take M5 but M4 were supplied.  My LSM Burrell drawings show 2BA. I took the picture below from a similar angle to the full size picture above.  The two nuts closest are 2BA and the nuts on the far side are the M4 supplied by ModelWorks  It's a close call but I think the M4 supplied by Modelworks are the closest to the prototype above, though they are less in number.  I will need to be shortened the M4 bolts before I fit them to get them to look their best and to stop them catching.

I finished of the tender by trimming the screws holding on the beading and fitted the brass fitting.  I decided to leave the liquid rubber till later since I have not yet decide if I am going  to get some rivet bolts for the tender straps.

Now that I have completed kit 7 I can get back to sorting out the garage to accommodate the Burrell.  I will be nice to have somewhere to store the completed kits; I have run out of cupboard space.

Kit account 8