Work ground to a halt recently due to me being dragged out of
retirement for a month so time has been limited.

I've decided to go ahead and fit a proper Cartazzi trailing axle so
have spent the last week fabricating the horns from mild steel as
obviously no castings are available (The bearing faces of the horns
are angled at 17 degrees to the frames). The bolting faces and ribs
were machined from one piece of bar and the axle side machined at an
angle. The bearing faces were then made from steel strip and then
silver soldered to the main part. The bearing surfaces were then
skimmed up with an end mill. Holding the horns for finishing was a
problem as its difficult to find any parallel bits to grip in the
vice!

The axle boxes will be mild steel with a bronze bush for the axle. I'm
not going to bother with side control as it shouldn't be necessary and
anyway the whole things complicated enough as it is!

I've found Don Young's design for his 5" Doncaster to be very useful
as it is a very accurate model and I've pinched quite a few details
from his drawings to incorporate in my own loco.

I've put a few more photos in the album to show progrees so far. I'm
aiming to have her running at Rugby next year!

I went to Sutton Coldfield on the 7th and it was nice to see Steve
Eatons' Dick Turpin in action. The loco goes like the proverbial
whatsit off a shovel and hopefully mine will have a similar
performance. I took a few photos before the camera battery decided to
call it a day and I've uploaded them to a photo album.

The plans for Victoria are now complete ( I think!) and a copy has
been sent to Peter Shaw with a view to him making copies available via
the Association. Apparently the Association can sell plans etc to
further the aims of the Association but can only sell them to members.
I've also acquired an A1 inkjet printer so no more sticking bits of A4
together!

I'm now working an drawings for Helen Long ( what a beast!)as I fancy
building her next or something very similar. I'll be incorporating a
few ideas of my own such as needle roller bearings on the driving
axles and fabricated piston valve cylinders.