To Quote the great Don Young, "The stand will test both our resolve and patience" That may be so but then you add nutter's like me, and many of you

In the last article, we had the reverser ready for brazing but we're not ready for that stage yet. We first need to transfer the mounting holes to the reverser

Yes, I'm back on the loco, It's hard to believe that the last time I worked on the loco itself was June 2022. The workshop still has some way to

The ashpan is one of those parts that need to be made to fit both the area between the frames and the shape of the foundation ring, Don says as

This entry sees the completion of the radius rods, the lifting arms and the sliding blocks connecting the two. I have to say that i have been making up these

With the front face finished it was then time to machine the backs, I mentioned before that I would make a decision on whether to flute the backs later, I

It was now time to create a lot of swarf, I guess there can be a number of ways to tackle this, this is how I did it with the

Although these are a pretty simple part to machine from solid there will be a good few different set-ups involved, plus added complications of changing the design to be more

Once these are made and fitted I'll for the first time have the 2:1 conjugated valve gear working, exciting times ahead. The union links are pretty straightforward machining but

Today I begin some of the more interesting parts to the motion, I say 'interesting' in as far as they take a little more thought in the setup. There aren't

A good working steam locomotive needs to be set up balanced on it’s axles for best tractive effort, something that I have been working on for my model of

I decided that now was a good time to revisit the valves to finish off the spindles and fit their crossheads. 2 each for the left and right cylinders but

I have a fair bit to cover in this entry, so here goes... First up is making the gaskets for the cylinder covers, Don states to fit these dry, I

I have revisited the coupling/connecting rod oiling pots, they are the same design but the material has been changed from steel to brass. I had tried to find bronze

With the outside connecting rods and pistons now fitted and working in their cylinders, it was time to do the same for the middle cylinder. The connecting rod itself was

This is another of those small milestones, that is, to fit the pistons and still have the wheels go around, any errors in the build will show up here. As

This is another big step in my book, that is getting the wheels connected to the crossheads via the connecting rods, the next big step to follow being the fitting

Next up was to machine the oil reservoirs to size, this is the last operation with the jig this way up. The carbide cutter once again made little work of

On to the outside connecting rods, these are the longest of all the motion parts, they are fairly slim too so I needed my trusty jig (block of solid steel)

As pointed out during the crosshead construction, the drop link design varied during 4472's career. My goal here is to try and make something that looks like the drop link

As I have laid out before, 4472 (and for that matter, all Gresley A1/3's) have had a variety of different crossheads fitted during their career. The crossheads themselves are

This entry see's the completion of the main crosshead body and their mounting plates, 4 weeks solid work?  The middle crosshead is a little more simplified as it has no

Today we see the crossheads finally take their shape at the front end, I won't say just how many hours this took to achieve, it was a lot.  Last time

I now begin the most challenging part and profile the front of the crosshead where the tapered round section meets the square section. There will be a fair bit of

Before starting I need to add something that I forgot to state and that's that, the crossheads are handed and this was taken into consideration when drilling the holes which