It is all so very Super

[JimH]

The signwriter wasn't available until the middle of next month and we don't want to get it dirty before the varnish is on so whereas we would have normally taken it out to play it's been stuck in the shed having things finished. Which is a bit of a pain because you piss away a weekend and nothing appears to have changed.

The spare wheel carrier all finished. A handy piece of 32mm brass waste pipe was perfect for the thread guard to make everything look noce and tidy. The oil leaks are caused by the tappets which are submerged in oil and you can't get the glands too tight. They don't drip much but after a few months the stain starts growing.



Last weekend's job was to put the rear wings on. The brackets for these were made years ago and they had already been fitted so this should not have taken long. Because wings are wings it took all weekend. This is easily my favourite view of the Supers. Don't know why. The bolt heads haven't been touched in yet.



Made up a surprisingly complicated bracket to hold the 20mph sign. Now the wings are on the boxes are now on for good so the rear lights can now be fitted and wired up.



Maker's plates on.



And the oh so useful mirrors went on too for all the good they are. They are rare birds these mirrors because they are pretty fragile. We managed to get hold of an original and use it as a pattern. Look the part but they don't work.



And all together now. The other bot that took a while was to remove the headboard and seal up all of the brackets where they bolt through the roof. I hate using PU sealant. There is also a pair of oak rain gutters fixed to the roof that direct water off the front of the roof so it doesn't run into the cab. They needed final fitted and sealed once the headboard was on. They are only wee so you can't see them.



Nearside wing and everything else in place.



About the only things missing from this shot are the header panels that fill in the gap between the top of the windscreens and the cab roof. Some didn't have them but if you leave them off it is too draughty in there. They are bit of a bugger to make because of the curved flange to fit the curve in the roof. They are made now but not fitted and painted yet.



And from the front. The gap above the screens is pretty horrid without the closing panels.



Still working on the throttle valve heat shield. Bit fiddly to make it fit neatly and I won't fill it with insulation until we have steamed it a few times to make sure the valves are all tight but it is getting there.



And the seat cushions are in place. These are about a billion times nicer to sit on than the foam cushions we had made for the last one. Look the part, too.



And in this shot I tried to show just how little of the mirror you can see but the sun got in the way. However, I think it does a decent job of showing that we got the sides pretty flat and the paint finish is none too shabby straight off the brush.



Hopefully in the next update it will be a lot more colourful.

[brandersnatch]

Bloody marvellous!

[JimH]

Still waiting for the signwriter so it will be a few weeks more until it ventures out. However, having it sit round does mean that you are forced to finish things that might normally take longer to finish. Almost none of this work is photogenic. Here is what little looks different.

The windscreens have their header panels in now. This are a pain because they have to fit to the curved roof. They do stop the front looking like the windscreens were just the closest thing Sentinel could find to fill the hole in. You might also notice a tiny shiny bit at the top of the door. That is the door locks fitted for the last time.



If you wander round the back you see that the rain guard is fitted along with the hazard beacons and the rear view camera. We put the beacons up there so you can see them from a distance but they don't flash in your eyes and piss you off when you are close to it.



And if you have a rear view camera then you also need a screen. This was tricky with this one because there is no dashboard of any kind to mount one. I'm still not sure I've got this right but it will do until I can think of something better. I know the screen isn't sitting in the middle of the space - I wanted to leave some space for the various idiot lights that we might need.



A folded up box which bolts under the floor of the body and give you somewhere to put a pair of wheel chocks. There was almost no storage space on these things so they grew various trays and lockers to keep the bit you needed to run them.



Inside the body is slowly getting finished. Here you see the breather/overflow loop for the nearside tank. If you look carefully you'll also see the sight glass for the water level sitting inside a brass channel. The linings are slowly getting fixed in place along with bolted down tanks, securing batteries, fitting bunker locks and all the other things that you forget about but mysteriously take a weekend to do. There are no trims on the tank boxes which is why they look a bit shit.



So with nothing better to do this one was dug out from under it's covers and moved to the workshop. It may not look it but it is actually nearly finished...



...apart from a new one of these. We had got partway through the new boiler project but it got stalled by the Super project. We'll have to get on with it now. We'll knock the number of tubes (138 copper tubes 7/8" OD as standard give a claimed cold to 120 psi in 11 minutes!) down a little to reduce its steaming capacity to something manageable but everything else will be as original. However, this particular boiler is now 115 years old and is donald ducked.



It makes me smile that we are only the third owner of this one. That said, there are some of these that are still on their first. Nice things to play with though. They make a lovely noise when they are run at full chat.



And that is that. Fingers crossed that we hear from the signwriter next week.

[JimH]

Still no sign of the signwriter who is currently working for someone else at the other end of the country. We are hoping he will be here at the start of October.

In the absence of anything else to do on it and to avoid being board enough to start doing the trillion or so jobs needing done in and around the house this weekend we made an already handy bench very much less gay. The tin bashing bench was FoC if we were able to uplift it and for some fuel we got a mahogany topped sheet metal bench (or at least it looks and smells like mahogany) which would take an 8x4 sheet. However, we had a full sheet of 1/2" boiler plate that arrived to do a job which in the end never needed to be done. We had used it to bend the ash beams for the body but we were hardly going to be doing that again so it was dumped outside.

It seemed a shame to let it go to waste so it was decided to make a much handier bench with it. Originally we had sat a sheet of 1" marine ply on top of it to stiffen it up a bit but it seemed more sensible to take that off and replace it with the boiler plate. And here we are. I've already covered it in shit.



Vices are handy sometimes but not other times so this now sits on a little turntable with a 5/8" bolt. If it gets in the way then it can be removed quickly. It is only for holding things while you weld them so a single bolt is more than up to the job.



Another handy thing about a steel top is you can just bolt your earth lead (or at lead a tail of an earth lead) to the top so you don't need to fart around with earth clamps any more.



I cut the original top back as far as I could to maximise the amount the steel plate overhung the legs. This is dead handy for clamping things to the bench. It also gives a handy edge to dress things over. Note non-poofiness of plate.



So there you have it. The steel top is also dead dead dead handy when you are taking with the gas welder because you aren't going to set fire to it.

For the last couple of weeks I've been making new bunkers for the fire engine. The larger bunker had rotted away in the 1960s so got a 1960s quality repair which was very shit indeed and the other was starting to get frilly round the edges so to hell with originality and make two new ones. These are done in 14swg sheet.

This is the first one I did. The D beading is off the original and is still held on with csk screws because like a twat I got the length of the rivets wrong and the new ones are not here yet.



It is always very satisfying riveting things together because that is how real men join plate. It is also nice to see the rivets in a very straight line like this. Optical centre punches are the bollocks.



This is the start of the second one. I was hoping to be able to reuse a couple of small sections from the old one just to assuage my guilt over willfully throwing away old stuff. This is the bottom of it somewhere near done.



This is the water tank that sits in one half of the offside bunker. You will probably note that it is tiny especially to serve a boiler that has a mentally high steaming rate. It is only a break tank and draws water from the outlet branch when you are pumping. A float valve keep the level right. Where it sits it takes a bit of a beating so I spent some time dressing out dents and polishing out scratches. I'll polish it properly once it is fitted to the new bunker.



Oh, and here is a P38 which has been dug out for winter duty. IIRC I paid £3250 for this 14 years ago when it had 75K on it. I sold it with about 110K to my old man a few years back when he wanted something a bit nicer that a Series 3 with an SD1 engine in it for when the snow fell. Nice thing.



The signwriter had better turn up soon otherwise we are going to have to start building something else.

[Hooli]

You're right, a line of rivets like that looks lovely.

The current background on my phone is one of the BBMF Spits in close up & the rivets look like I lined them up with my eyes shut

[Eddie Honda]

we made an already handy bench very much less gay.

However, we had a full sheet of 1/2" boiler plate that arrived to do a job which in the end never needed to be done.

It seemed a shame to let it go to waste so it was decided to make a much handier bench with it.

Another handy thing about a steel top is you can just bolt your earth lead (or at lead a tail of an earth lead) to the top so you don't need to fart around with earth clamps any more.



I cut the original top back as far as I could to maximise the amount the steel plate overhung the legs. This is dead handy for clamping things to the bench. It also gives a handy edge to dress things over. Note non-poofiness of plate.



So there you have it. The steel top is also dead dead dead handy when you are taking with the gas welder because you aren't going to set fire to it.

Excellent stuff. All the good reasons why I went bananas and splashed out on a 10mm steel top for my bench. I'm off to get another dinse plug and bolt an earth lead to mine now.

[JimH]

You're right, a line of rivets like that looks lovely.

The current background on my phone is one of the BBMF Spits in close up & the rivets look like I lined them up with my eyes shut

It was a genuine wrestle with my conscience. One the original bunker that's what the rivets looked like. If you struck a line through them there was about 3/8" variation. My head said make the new one wonky so it looked Victorian but there was no way my heart was settling for that.

[JimH]

I've been on hols for the past ten days or so and that was the point that the signwriter became available which meant I was out of the country to keep my old man on the straight and narrow. Now I'm back and this is what we have so far. This is about four days' work.

Start of the body. There is a double shadow to go on the lettering so there is a fair bit to go on this. The border and folds have been added to the cream panel on this side.



The front panel is just about done. Originally when he suggested blacking out the D beading we were both very against it. However, we were completely wrong and he was completely right. The spacing of the lettering around the headboard was played with to get "baking" smack in the middle.



The other side is to do yet. Fleet number, registered office and speed limit already done.



And from the offside. In the big space above the weights there will be a rather ornate wheatsheaf which will mirror those carved into the bakery itself. I reckon the blacked out D beadings looks the mutt's. Notice how United was dropped from the name on the headboard to avoid having too many "United"s in one view.



To say that I am quite pleased with this is a fair to moderate understatement. He is back on Monday for a few more days yet.

[Hooli]

That looks bloody excellent.

[panhard65]

That really is amazing from a few bits of what we would all of thought of as scrap to this is just incredible. What's the next project going to be? I do find with artisty types they do tend to be right about what will look good even when you are sure they are wrong and just finding ways to charge more.