Mr Punch

Himself has got work on our new Backwoods Garratt kit underway.  There's, erm, quite a lot of it....

One of the first tasks is to complete the pressing out of the rivets which are marked by half etched holes.

I guess many readers may already know that you can buy rivet punching tools but economy is always the watch word on Bron Hebog and why buy when you can adapt?

These days when he's not modelling, or building various bits of the real FR, Himself still moonlights as a Piano Tuner to top up his meagre pension.

So to press out the rivets he has been using one of the tools of the trade for punching out pins that hold together parts of the internal contraption that makes the hammers hit the strings when you press the keys. (a piano action as it's properly  known)

He says it works pretty well - better than doing them by hand - although the hole in the brass plate on the base would be better being a little smaller, but the results are very satisfactory to my untrained eye.

This is a snap of the front unit running plate made up.

And a shot here of the frames with the bearings, spring overlays and brake pull rods attached. I've been told to point out to you that you can see that the frames have not deformed around the rivets through using his punch.

You'll notice that I still haven't told you which Garratt this is going to be - I shall keep you in suspense a little longer.