Late last week I got the Princess back from painting for reassembly.

I started rebuilding with the simpler stuff like the bogie and trailing truck, then the tender chassis, followed by fitting the tender body. All the while being very careful not to damage the paint.
I was just about to fit the tender chassis when I thought it would make sense to fit the buffers first, thus giving me more room to fit the retaining nuts without damaging anything. This was when I found that the buffer heads no longer fitted due to paint build up in the bore of the buffer stocks. I searched all my drill bits and broaches but couldn’t find one of the right size to just remove the paint without enlarging the hole.

A few days ago I scrapped a friend’s old printer and it turned out that one of the recovered bits of rod, was the perfect size to make a little reaming tool from. I turned the outside to the size of the buffer shank and then using a collet block to index as I rotated it, I plunged an end mill into the end to create some small teeth. Then I popped it back in the lathe and took a small amount off the diameter as a relief. Working away from the chuck, towards the end and just leaving approx. 1mm of ‘teeth’. After a slight deburr I tried it and it worked perfectly.

It’s not hardened, in fact the steel is quite soft but it only needed to cut through a layer or two of paint.

I gripped it in a drill chuck as the only pin vice that I had which would take the rod is a bit worn and the rod slipped rather than scrape the paint off.