< Painting Chassis >
Here I paint all of parts as of now. Before that all of necessary processing for the parts should be done. In case of C53, almost of upper body components will be mounted on the boiler. Only the front deck, the boiler firebox and the cab will be held by the chassis. So there is not so many points to be processed.
Add screw holes to the front end casting for some additional parts.
Also add screw holes to the back end casting for fitting the buffer beam.
I employed polyurethane aerosol paint as usual (left one). And I added a primer for painting on brass, gunmetal or aluminum (right one).
The front and back end castings are mounted in the frames again. Then the frames' assembly was painted. Before painting, rusty surface is cleaned with emery cloth and wiped with acetone.
Many small parts are painted on a wire mesh and a turn table. The turn table is originally for TV. Each job is painted from four directions turning the table step by step. Paint twice in each from bottom and top sides in this order.
The cylinder block is masked before paint. The white mask is adhesive paper. Draw circle with a compasses, cut out by scissors and stick.
The cylinder heads are sealed with a paper gasket. The paper is of brown envelope, printed and cut out.
This opportunity I exchanged the springs for the drain valves because the old springs that are the same as for the cylinder safety valves are too strong to operate. They were specifically changed from 0.4mm wire to 0.3mm wire and the amount of compression was reduced. As a result the spring force was reduced from 300g to 40g.
All of parts were assembled again. The valve adjustment was done by reproducing each distance measured before disassemble. Finally compressed air test was done again.
I joined a meat at Hakuba Mini Train Park in Nagano. I drove Hunslet and hauled C53 chassis in order to test passing curves and points, mounting bricks as deadweight and pulling from front and back of the chassis. Actual loco is pulled by reaction of passenger cars, so pulling from back seems to be more practical. The chassis passed all of curves and points safely, so I continued to pull her for 20 to 30 minutes. After that the chassis was broken in and became smooth.
This month I wrote unplanned report. So I will have a break next month.