As per it's been far too long since my last update due to me having zero time at the bench in the last few months and unfortunately there's probably little chance of much more before September I would have thought. So the J72 moves forward. To pick up on the last posts I tried the method advised by Adrian but for one reason or another it didn't work out, so I reverted back to using 1mm angle, not good engineering I know but never the less it's achieved what I wanted. You can make it out here, although it's out of focus it looks right and does it's job of holding the boiler in position well.
I then decided to move onto the frames and get them done as there's not a great deal more to do on the body. First job was to thin down those coupling rods as the more I looked at them I didn't like them. Following Mr Dunhill's lead I put a decent amount of time into these thinning them down and rubbing them up with wet and dry of different grades.
So onto propulsion........ there's not a great deal of room inside that little fire box so I sought the advice of Steph Dale. A few Pm's were exchanged and within about a week a super duper Steph Dale gear box with motor fitted arrived, it was duly installed, with a split axle and ran spot on. Putting the coupling rods back on saw me have a real headache though, as there was a nasty tight spot that took some real shifting, totally down to me but in the end it's sorted and lessons learnt for the next build. Nearly binned the thing more than once!!
With the chassis now running smoothly I turned my attention to the crank axle. This is held with loctite 638. The first time round I didn't make the cuts in the axle where the cranks would sit, more through forgetting than anything (only my second crank axle and the first was put together by Col Dowling). So when I got to it with the fret saw it fell to bits
Anyway when the cuts were put in as Col did last time all went well;
Finally the motion has all been cleaned up and the cylinder front and rear put together, not quite as refined as I would like but the only way is up as they say and overall I'm happy. I have to put the cylinder bottom cover on yet but it's coming together at least;
The cylinder front covers are part of the LG motion kit but the valve cover is brass plate and scale hardware scratched together, just the inspection cover to fit here, and the lamp irons to straighten
A side on view shows where the firebox bottom and ash pan will cover Steph's lovely gearbox. I'm looking forward to getting the inside motion working as in my mind that will see the last major component part complete and then to final detailing, my favourite bit
ATB Mick
. Say hello to FiftyFourA of this parish for me, I think he's coming down with her as support crew?
