Hello and welcome to another update from the team at Quorn Wagon & Wagon. Work has continued on the Palvan B781908, and we put the finishing touches to tank 3777.
It is not often that everyone in the team can volunteer at the same time; however this weekend with ten of us at Quorn, we took the opportunity to grab a team pic.
From the left, Jake, Ross, Charlie, Nick, Oliver, Dan, Mark, Tom, Barry and myself. Richard and Thomas were unfortunately unable to join us.
Over the last few weeks we have been planning, measuring and procuring new aluminium Esso logo plates for tank 3777. We have had these professionally cut, drilled and rolled to the correct curvature for the tank.
At Rothley on Saturday myself and Ross double checked them for fit on both sides of 3777. The Esso logo templates were also prepared. stitched together and checked for size on the plates.
The plates were de-greased then sprayed both sides with Etch-Primer, which was left to dry then over coated with White Enamel.
Meanwhile back at Quorn the rest of the team got stuck into changing the defective south end buffers on brake van B954268. The buffers were removed, the headstocks cleaned, painted and new packing blocks prepared and painted.
The replacement buffers from our stock were then fitted.
The two buffers on the south end of Palvan B781908 were also found to be defective with rotating heads; these were duly removed and replacements fitted from stock.
The painted plates for tank 3777 had dried nicely dry overnight at Rothley; so Sunday morning Ross and myself got to work chalking the back of the template, marking the plate centre line and attaching the template to the first plate.
The oval border and Esso logo were traced, then the template moved to the second plate and the process repeated.
First the Esso logos were applied, Ross doing one plate whilst I did the other.
The blue oval plate outline was then applied.
Back at Quorn the wind was starting to pick-up, so some extra securing straps were fitted to the tarpaulin covering the Palvan, and the site was tidied, making sure things were secured; the defective buffers making great tarpaulin cover weights.
Whilst the red and blue paint on the plates was drying Ross and myself took a rare trip on the train up to Loughborough; the rest of the tank train was seen at Swithland.
As the light was fading, but before the wind picked up too much, we were able to fit the finished Esso plates onto tank 3777. M10 bolts were fitted with sealing washers to each side of the plate before being secured to the wagon with locking nuts.
This completes the restoration work on 3777. We are very much looking forward to seeing it coupled into the tank train very soon.
Thanks for reading, join us again next week for the GCR’s Winter Steam Gala.
Leave a Reply