I had a short session of about 90 minutes in the workshop yesterday morning, carrying on with my 'secret' project.........before going sea fishing with my brother Steve and his son Adrian (see if your interested).

I have also managed a session this morning albeit brief, where progress did not go so well.... All this means that the cams and the continued work on the Fowler have again slipped. Its a good job I am not doing this for a living!

Hopefully tomorrow will see the 'secret' project come close to finishing (I wouldn't lay bets on it though!) so I can restart work on the rest of the work. And on that point to impose so discipline for the remainder of the year I decided (over a cup of tea) that the following items form the priorities until the first of January 2009.

1. Cams for the team build.
2. Dummy plate for the boiler on the Fowler
3. Tapping tool fixture/stand
4. Fixing the hornplates to the Fowler so she sits on her own four wheels
5. Die holder (sliding) for the tailstock of both lathes. I am really fed up with the tapping and thread cutting methods I use at the moment.

That should be more than enough to keep me busy till the end of the year.

Well the Fowler will now be the center of my attention over the remaining weeks of the year since the Mills diesel engine is now finished. having reviewed the whole project recently, there are four 'short' little sub projects to be sorted first.

They are a new lever (not happy with my quality of the previous one, I think I can do better now); the dummy front plate for the front of the firebox part of the boiler; the steering offside front casting for the steering drum and wheel link bar and the fire door (under construction now). See photo below.

Following these four outstanding items then the Hornplates will be attached to boiler. This will allow her to stand on her own four wheels (one of the targets set for this year) and leave the cylinder being attached to the boiler, as my final target.

However I don't believe the cylinder attachment is viable because there is considerably work outstanding before the holes will be drilled in the boiler (a very very nervous time!!!!). So watch this space!