Chaloner Stage 1

• 7th April 2009 - We collected the kit of parts. I could not do anything serious for the next couple of weeks as we had my grandson staying with us. He helped check the the parts off against the list to see if anything was missing. I could not find the front engine supports or the bunker front.
  
  
• 28th April - I started with stage 1. This consists of the chassis frames, axles and wheels complete with crank axle, conn rods, eccentrics and eccentric rods. The rear buffer beam is welded to the frame logitudinals. The front buffer beam is fixed to brackets with holes drilled to suit.
  
  My first step was a trial assembly.
  
  
  The next step was to prepare the surface for painting using grey and red primer.
   
  
  
• 29th April - I started to apply the top coats of paint. 
  
  I decided to use satin black as befits an industrial engine.
   
  
  
• 30th April - I do like a nice bright red for buffer beams as it looks more railway like than leaving them in black.  When I showed my wife she spotted a hair trapped in the paint. Rubbing down with fine wet and dry followed by another coat of paint solved this.
  
  The red is much brighter than this picture shows.
  
  
  Whilst the paint was drying I cleaned up the conn rods and eccentric rods. Some surfaces had a very hard blue layer which took quite a time to shift, not to mention elbow grease and blisters.
  
  Here are the wheels after polishing the conn rods and eccentric rods.
  
  
  
• 1st May - Once the paint had dried throughly it was time to try the wheels and coupling rods in place.
  
  The coupling rods had been sprayed bright Nissan red as for the buffer beams
  
  
  With the chassis frame upside down the wheels were tried in place followed by the coupling rods.
  
  
  
• 2nd May  - The axle boxes and wheels could now be painted
  
  The first coat of paint on the axle boxes looked rather dull
  
  
  It was now time to start thinking about stage 2.