Progress over the last few days has been excellent so much so that I have backtracked a little and picked up on a couple of items that Paul has mentioned in the past.
The first was to replace the hatch knobs on the footplate with some wire loop examples. The knobs have gone in the spares box and will come in at some point.
DA Princess Modified Ring Handles
The next was this comment from Paul, which I completely agreed with as I had been unhappy with the fit for sometime. But, I wasn’t sure how to go about rectifying it then, so I slept on it…
“Hello Rob,
when are you going to sort out the gap between the chimney and the smokebox?
Coat on and the door closed very quietly behind me!
OzzyO.”
The (replacement for the kit provided) chimney was cast from a 3D print by Mike Hopkins and Mike had placed his print supports under the bottom rim. I can see why as they would be least likely to be seen on the finished model. However because the casting also had a tube which fits into the smoke box to aid location, it made cleaning up the bottom rim and getting it to fit flush very difficult.
This is what it looked like after my initial cleaning up of the remains of the supports
Princess Chimney casting after cleaning up
Having almost finished the body work, I took the bull by the horns and took the chimney back of back gently gripping it in the vice between two pieces of round bar while applying heat to the inside of the chimney until I was able to ease it off.
Gripping the chimney to release it from the smokebox
Although I took photos long the way, I am not going to share how I machined the chimney just yet as I want to use it as part of my an evening with presentation later in the month.
