GCR Black 5 No 45491

It's quite some feat to have completed the boiler and tested it , before fitting it in the frames for final assembly since the photo taken on the 1st March..............

Suspect the placement of the boiler in the frames etc is more a tidying up exercise with the added bonus cladding and pipework can be finished...

Happy to be proven wrong mind....

 

Not cladding until the hydraulic and steam tests are completed. although I notice in the photo that the firebox cladding has been added.

 

If you have done a lot of boiler work and / or mechanical work that might have caused things to move round a bit, it wouldn't seem unusual to me to reunite boiler and frames to check alignment and allow initial checking of cladding and pipework, before removing the boiler again for final assembly and testing.

(Even something as small as if you have re-rivetted the lower firebox sides, will it still fit between the frames - not a given with a large boiler if the stay heads protrude a bit more than previously. The time to find that out isn't when the boiler ticket is ticking).

It helps to have your own cranes, of course!

Tom

 

45491 is ex-Barry and never steamed . This is new cladding being made and trial fitted.

 

Yes, I know; it's how I'd do it too. The point being made was that the hydraulic test cannot be done with the cladding sheets in place. Having the tubes in helps too!

 

I may be wrong, but I thought that the cladding had been largely completed a few years ago prior to the nearly-finished boiler having to have the newly-fitted tubes removed for unexpected tubeplate replacement (due to a paperwork issue with the previous tubeplate, if memory serves me correctly... must be immensely frustrating for all involved). That being so, once the tubeplate was in it could have all gone together relatively quickly, but like others above I suspect that it's untubed and will come off again. A first steam test in preservation is normally something to be shouted about, so I strongly suspect is still a while off.