This week has seen more work on the J6 most of which isn’t really photogenic as it’s been to do with assembling and fitting the inside motion which isn’t quite there yet.

In order to assemble much of the motion I needed some pin so I decided to turn some taper pins from 0.9mm nickel rod.

Having touched up the tool of a stone and got myself into a bit of a rhythm, I soon had a dozen or so ready. I only remembered to take a picture after I had fitted most of them…

Whilst pondering on aspects of the fitting of the motion, my thoughts turned to the remaining jobs to be done and one of those is sand pipes.

A quick check on Laurie Griffin and Ragstone site’s didn’t reveal much in the way of sand pipes so I decided to make my own.

I started by checking sizes on the GA and settled on some 0.8mm rod for the pipe itself. I had a length of microbore tube that fitted over it and used that to make the body of the fitting where the steam pipe attaches.

I started by filing a notch in the pipe such that with a slight bend to the remainder I could feed the ‘pipe’ through the sort end giving me an angled branch.

Next I filed an angled flat on the end of the tube to create the other branch of the fitting.

Some home made nuts/unions and 0.45mm beading wire for the steam pipe, completes the job – x four of course