Sandringham New Build(s)

I think the answer is they would have been forged (made by hammering) rather than machining. There's a tendency these days to produce components by machining from solid because, with CNC, the process is comparatively cheap once you have a drawing. Whereas in the days of manual machining, that would have been an expensive way to do things, that you could instead forge. There's a photo here of the smokebox door on Beachy Head, and it looks to be a far simpler fabrication, without any significant machining - just a strap with a rolled end, subtly curved and fixed to the door by rivets.

I couldn't quite work out what was happening with the door straps from the video: they looked like they had both ends machine into a complex shape, whereas the photos of originals seem to just show you have a hinge at one end and a plain strap. There's a drawing here from the B17 website of the CAD design and while it has the same forked hinge at one end, I can't work out what has happened at the other end of the parts that have been produced.

From the video, it looked like the inner part of the smokebox door dart was going to be machined. It will no doubt look beautiful when done, whereas an original would have been a fairly crude lump of hammered steel ...

Tom

 

I couldn't quite work out what was happening with the door straps from the video: they looked like they had both ends machine into a complex shape, whereas the photos of originals seem to just show you have a hinge at one end and a plain strap. There's a drawing here from the B17 website of the CAD design and while it has the same forked hinge at one end, I can't work out what has happened at the other end of the parts that have been produced.


Tom[/QUOTE]

I asked the question and apparently we are looking at the end of the original steel bar used to machine the whole strap, before it is finally cut off and cleaned up at the end of the job.

 

Thanks for that - makes more sense.

Tom

 

All a bit OTT. The originals would probably have been plain straps riveted to the door. The hinge ends would then have been adjusted with heat.

 

Great to see Daniela bringing all those years spent with David Elliott to bear to the benefit of the new build movement. You can see Hengist in the background too.

 

Aye, a bit of heat and a hammer is the way to do it.

 

Correct but you make things with the equipment and processes available. In ye olden days a team of well-muscled men with a large forge and drop hammers would have made short work of this. I doubt that Daniela's workshop has this facility! Two hinges are being made, not a production run.

 

But if one of those hinges breaks and causes an incident the RAIB would look at the original drawing and ask the question " these hinges are shown as being forged. Why wern't they?"

 

Only if the theoretical incident was as a result of the method of manufacture. It’s a new locomotive with no grandfather rights so would be built to whatever drawings are used, old and new.