Hi all, well over the last few weeks, DIY, gardening and lockdown factors permitting, I have finally finished (well 99.99%) "Jinty", or as now preferred "the 3F"!
Recalling the debacle over the modern day Halfords Satin Black paint, well during the first trial runs back in late Feb/early March, yes the paint on the boiler/firebox did soften when hot and was obviously not good. So recently I took the boiler off again and stripped all the aforementioned acrylic paint off back to bare metal (brass) and started again. This time I used synthetic Satin Black enamel from a nearby Motor Factors....for which I had to buy a small spray gun etc. As stated before, I don't really like painting and I can't profess to have done a particularly good job, but it looks alright to me, although there's no doubt the paint will be getting knocked off here and there....the major problem with painting brass!
If I had the skills, I would love to "weather" the engine like the real 47447 in this photo, but I haven't:-
Anyway, as well as the repainting, I have now reassembled the engine finally, including all the detail parts, most of which have been covered previously in this thread. I think it all started by making the dummy vacuum ejector, which on those engines so fitted, was very prominent on the driver's side of the smokebox, as seen above.
I'll post a number of photos, showing where I'm up to....all that's outstanding is to finish attaching two of the cab window frames, for which some 16ba nuts arrived today, plus locate the front screw coupling which I know I've got but have put in a safe place somewhere!
Then as soon as poss, I want to run it again and see if it can be driven ok with the upper part of the cab in place....might be a bit tight, but not sure until I try.
![]()
Cheers Don
Could be time to get out the Marmite.
Mike
Mike