I've been fettling ready for painting
The tripod was taken apart and the legs have been given an additional smear of araldite to help the legs hold on. Which of course pushes out when you tighten up the Allen screw that holds the legs on and has to be removed again
I also realised that I had not yet put the water pipes on the water jacket so a quick drill on the mill:
These then had to be silver soldered on and of course the two tubes are on opposite sides of the jacket so they need to be held in place during the silver soldering. Two bolt sets with washers were used to do this:
I feel I am on the final straight and yes I have decided to paint my Bee. I decided against Yellow and black (very tempting that
) and went for the traditional Stirling red with a black firebox:
A couple of the pieces you can see are still in primer
will need to be painted red. I had the joys of cutting a very thick piece of gasket card that my jewellers snips would not touch. There are some more holes to drill in the power cylinder and the hot end as I assemble the engine. Once together the final piece to make up is the displacer piston and rod:
I cannot finish this until the engine is together as I need to know how long the brass piece of the rod needs to be and possibly to adjust the length of the piston itself and that can only be found by measuring the model.
Definitely time to negotiate that next casting set
Jo