I’m pleased to report, fellow Westerners, that the build might be back on track and heading in the right direction.
I started the day a little indifferent which isn’t a bad thing to be honest. When you’ve nothing to lose, caution ebbs and you can afford to get a little bolder.
I concluded my last post with thoughts turning to building a new footplate from scrap brass, as the original had started to curl up badly and part company with the upper tank former. The former itself resembled an old oven that hadn’t been cleaned in donkeys rather than frame of one of the finest kits money can buy.
So, before reaching for scriber, brass sheet and sundry tools - and quickly putting them back as I’d lost all appetite for this - I thought I’d just see what the electric iron could do. In a dry spell between heavy showers, I set up the iron and simply placed it at the point where the footplate was trying to escape. Miraculously, it re-bedded itself.
Not a bad start. But The blobby mess of solder trails made the snug fitting of the wrapper on the footplate nigh on impossible, so I just kept sweeping the iron along each edge and when a dollop started to build up on the bit, I just flicked it off onto the brass Brillo pad. Eventually, everything started to neaten and bit by bit, the solder build up began to diminish.
Still, this wasn’t going to suffice - a point I realised in bed last night as all this was turning over in my mind. Wick was definitely the order of the day, but when I re-checked my order, I saw to my horror that it’s arrival from the Far East was still a month away. Trawling, I couldn’t find anywhere that sells this stuff from an actual shop, locally, so I’d have to order it. Here I had a spot of luck, and if I ordered within a short window, the stuff would be with me pronto. All being well, it will be with me in the morning!
With this in mind, I carried on with the iron doing what I could until the Cavalry arrived in the form of Wick. All seemed to be going well, although in a couple of spots on the side where the wrapper hadn’t seated properly, the footplate was bent vertically. This was definitely the case at the front end, but the bent up etched steps were obstructing progress with a file. No probs. I could remove some of the excess solder at that point and then hopefully bend back into shape with flat-nosed pliers.
Happy with this small step forward, I bathed the parts in Cif using an old toothbrush, riser them and left them to try. At which point I notices that all the heat from the iron had reseated the top overlay too which had also been a casualty (I just need to run a small bead round the edge to fix the edges). Bonus.
Having dried, I re examined the parts. Those bends were annoying me, so I returned to the bench and put the iron to work again, hoping that it if I pressed hard enough, the brass would flatten. It didn’t, and I didn’t want to damage the element. This is the point where indifference comes to the rescue.
Grabbing a couple of old medium sized files, I pressed down hard and ran it along the edge of the footplate. Not only did the pressure exerted begin to have the desired effect, it also scraped out a lot of the remaining excess solder.
I continued round the other two edges, and not only was I left with a flat footplate, but the vacating solder was leaving a nice surface on which to bed the wrapper. The only offending part now was towards the front, where the plate was bent even before the tragedy. That was it. Those darned bent up steps just had to be sacrificed, so under the files they went. Consequently, the whole footplate is now flat.
I’ll take the fibre brush to the wrapper a little later, and then try and reattach the nut that came loose from inside before calling it quits for today.
Not out of the woods just yet, but just maybe there’s an end in sight.
A couple of photos to show you the results (I’ve placed both the practice and actual wrapper on in a couple to show what I think are improvements. I hope you agree).
Jonte