The first workday for 2012 was well attended and as luck would have it many hands do make light work, particularly when you are installing super heater elements. With 20 of 50 still to go the team was divided up into three groups to facilitate delivery from storage, lifting from ground to footplate level and finally installation in the smoke box.

With everyone ready to go it was soon realized that the smoke box door would not open past 20 deg as it was fouling a very large nut that adjusts the boiler cradle pivots. After some minor adjustment the door was clear to open and the elements were soon being pushed into what is called the flue tubes. Once in position a very large tee clamp bolts is fitted and secured with a 1" BSW nut. The first element took about one hour to fit and by mid afternoon this was down to about ten minutes from start to finish. The down side being that it was getting very hot by mid afternoon so it was decided to stop with just 6 elements to go. This decision was also influenced by the fact that we are 4 tee bolts short. Needless to say that the sourcing of tee bolts is the highest priority on the shopping list.

The last of the rebuilt sand boxes was fitted into place and the sand delivery pipes have been dusted off from storage. They are bent in all directions to clear the wheels and brake gear  but once marred up to the adjacent box the fit is quite obvious. The sand traps x 8 are progressively being cleaned out and air tested before final fit and once fitted the crew looks forward to filling them with sand for the fist time in many years.

Our next workday is Sunday the 15th of January, all welcome.