Work on Samson has continued at its usual impressive pace, largely through Dave’s strenuous efforts to drive the project forwards!

Below: With the machine shop now ‘live’ jobs such as the drilling of the reverser stand, using a swivel headed milling machine, can now take place.  Once he holes are drilled, the stand can be mounted on a jig to enable machining of the various bearing and sliding surfaces. Often the lengthiest part of the job is setting it up and securely attaching it to the machine bed (made harder by oddly shaped raw castings not having a datum to locate them at first).  Here much of the planning at the design stage pays off, enabling a logical sequence to be developed that sees the job progress.

Below: The first two driving wheel centre castings have arrived, these being for the right hand side (the side shown in the photograph).  Both sides of the casting are shown here, with the crank and thrust faces being evident. The pattern also appears, before modification…

Below: … and here is the modified pattern, with lugs added to support the spur ring gear fitted to the left hand side driving wheels.  Once the piggy bank has recovered, we will have these cast, enabling a start to be made on creating the wheelsets and ultimately the rolling chassis.  Dave has the patterns for the bearings well in hand at the moment, so things here are progressing well.

Below: One job we couldn’t manage was the boring of the saddle on the cylinder block, this being contracted out and returned to us in a remarkably short space of time.  The block is seen here being offered to the boiler shell.  It can now be mounted for drilling of the various studs and steam passages, pushing this part of the job forwards – the main one is now that of machining and fitting the cylinder liner into the bore.  The two crankshaft pedestals have also been worked on to enable a close fit to the barrel with our radial arm drill now available, we will be able to mount the boiler shell and rotate/slide it as necessary to drill the holes – obviating the need to try and mount the mag drill on the boiler shell and hope it stays put!

Below: Whilst we were having our usual daily discussion over Samson, we decided that as the chimney would soon be fitted, it would be nice to finish the rest of the ‘face’ and so Chris is currently rolling a ring which will be welded to a disc to produce the smokebox angle ring, onto which the door will be fitted.  The door handle (or dog, or dart) has already been made and is based on the typical Lewin style – it is interesting to note just how few pictures there are showing the front of Lewin’s locomotives – most seem to be side or rear views.  The handle engages the door ring via a short stem and longer crank, so as the handle turns 90 degrees, the door is either tightened or released.  Hopefully this bit of work will be completed shortly.