Sincere apologies to all concerned but it is with some considerable delight I can announce that the greenhouse is now in situ and we are back to the more interesting bits of spare time activity.
I only have myself to blame,,, it was purchased in February last year and for a variety of reasons it didn't get put up as quickly as expected,,, holidays, caravan, nfi, Chelmsford exhibition!!!!!
When I sensed it was becoming "a real issue" I thought I had better get stuck in,,, to find that the wall we intended hanging it on was about 3 courses of bricks short,,,mmm,,, so before we could get close to frightening Percy Thrower we had to pretend we were Bob in jeans with a cleavage.
Anyway it is up,,, it is watertight,,, it is causing considerable amounts of endless entertainment for the management,, and cat and everyone is happy,,,,, to prove it I was in the shed last weekend for the first time in the best part of a month and to get my eye in I decided I'd finish off one of a long line of nearly finished loco's,,, and here it is,,,
H.A.Ivatt J52 Saddle tank.
A Bec kit built in 1972 whilst a serving member of Her Majesties Royal Air Farce and it did me proud on my then exhibition layout for several years,,,, I was lucky with this one and in it's day it was state of the art,,, bog standard Triang Jinty chassis,, single start worm,, MW 5 pole armature and it ran beautifully,,,, I then went abroad and father borrowed it for his layout as it was always one of his favourites.
I returned to wash the sand from between my toes some 15 odd years later to find it didn't run as well as it used to,,, and it was looking a bit tired,,,, so I ripped it apart to find out why.
We have all got very used to the amount of "slop" on current model driving wheels,,,, well I reckon it had about twice as much as is normal and there is a fair chance the gearwheel which protrudes through the bottom of a Jinty chassis was hitting pointwork,,,mmm,,, that much slop.
I know father liked it but there was that much wear I reckon he may have gone on holiday in it!!!!
Anyway it now has new top hat bearings,,, new driving wheels,,, a real earth magnet [as long as it isn't from Mars I don't really care] and although it is still very stiff it is getting back to it's previous levels of performance,,, happy days.
I was going to put an etched scale chassis in it but decided against it,,,, after 41 years as a member of the family I reckon it deserves to serve out it's days without too much major surgery,,, aaahhhh.
Oh and don't forget only 15 weeks to Barrow Hill,,, Doncaster 160 years,,, can't wait,,,,
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