On 8th September 2022 Queen Elizabeth died and this was announced at about 18:30 that evening.
As a mark of respect all work on my loco is suspended until after the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II which is to take place on 19th September 2022
RIP QEII


1st October 2022
Not until today did I feel I wished to re-start the loco build.
the photo shows the use of my small vice to hold the eccentric strap to centre drill

Next was the tapping drill for 6BA. The position of the vice was not moved so that the drill was centred on the centre drill hole.
The drill went right through the piece with several withdrawal to clear swarf and avoid breakage of the 2.3mm drill.
Lastly and again with out moving the vice the clearance drill went in a measured distance of 100m ans shown by my DRO.
3rd October 2022
So we move to tapping the holes

An application of tapping fluid was made.
Then I used the taper tap to make a good start in the holes. The tap was ensured straight as the tap nicely fitted the clearance hole.
This was tapped as far as possible as shown in the photo.
To allow the tap to pass through the bottom an extension was used as shown ( previously made).

I started with a bottom tap but that broke with the tap poking through the bottom so with gentle use of pliers I was able to complete the hole and extract the broken part of the tap.
I thence move to the second tap and all went well for the other holes and the photo shws the tap fully in the hole.


4th October
The eccentric straps were marked out ready to cut in half
Cut in half
Clearance hole enlarged to 3.2mm
End squared up !!
Checking hole tapped 6BA
All part now ready for final machining of eccentric holes which at the moment are oval !!!
With the hole oval I decided to set up on the narrowest dimension and the long dimension fell into place.
So it was a case of lining up with the cut and then making certain the cutter was outdistance from each side.

The holes was carefully enlarged and then the piece tested in place to make sure it would fit.

With the hole bored the flashing on both sides was removed with my special deburring tool.
All bored to size and fit their eccentrics well.

The last step will be to letter the eccentric so that they stay matched with the eccentric strap.