Villa Team News - 24 December 1997

Birch Grove's boiler repairs

All of the 80 crown stays are now fitted, and all have now been knobbled over in the same way as the copper side stays. [Click on the image for full-size picture.] [View of a knobbled-over crown stays]
[View of rear tubeplate] The rear tubeplate showing all the copper stays now knobbled over.
New mounting for the whistle (on top), and connection points for the pressure gauge (left) and cylinder lubricator (right). [View of new mounting points on boiler]
[View of foundation ring corners] The corners of the foundation ring have had the remaining rivets and patch screws fitted, the outer wrapper plates have been seal-welded to the foundation ring, and the ashpan studs have been welded in.
The eccentric straps have had the white-metal renewed. This had suffered from damage during the engine's long gap in its overhaul, during which time it had been moved about numerous times owing to congestion in the shed area. [View of newly metalled eccentric strap]
[View of safety valves being machined] The safety valve seats being machined on the horizontal boring machine. The valves themselves, seen on the machine table, have suffered wear on their flutes, which makes them cock-over and fail to seat properly; the flutes have been built up and will be machined to fit the column tubes with 10thou clearance.
The regulator stuffing box was extensively cracked. This has been repaired by welding, and here awaits machining. [View of weld repairs on regulator stuffing box]
[View of wheel lowered on wheel-drop] The axleboxes are being checked for any damage by water which may have occurred during the long overhaul intermission. Here the right trailing wheel has been lowered using the wheel drop so that the axlebox oil-pad can be removed. The picture shows the spring having been disconnected at one end.

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