Wednesday 18th Feb 2026 a dry day but with a bitterly cold biting wind so inside work was preferable..

                                                    

Back on the sharpening stone, Greg has been busy slowly welding up the broken parts and dressing the welds all this is done slowly to save too much heat and cooling cracking the castings. But we now have 2 complete solid stands.

                                                            

The bolts and studs have suffered from corrosion over many decades and 2 broke where they had rotted away when we disassembled the frame, so time to get the seized nuts off using the induction heater to get them hot they screamed all the way off with a high pitch on the dry threads.

                                                

Once the nuts were off the bars were ground down to put a chamfer on the broken ends so we could butt weld them back together. Then all were cleaned up on the wire wheel and bent ones straightened.

                                                 

The sump plate is beyond repair so the solid ends were cut off to act as spacers for the assembled machine as the copper will crush. and a sheet of copper marked out for cutting a new plate.

                                           

After a lot of fiddling dropping and realigning the 5 parts all got clamped together in satisfactory positions the sump has not been sealed in but at least it will not fill with water and crack open should it freeze again as it will be displayed outside.

                                                

With the saddles on and rollers in the stone was refitted and clamped down. It spins freely by hand but will need the tension screws fully in to lock it when on display to save visitors getting hurt.

                                                          

Paint has had a going over with a wire wheel in the drill  to remove loose stuff and and dirt or green growth then a coat of grey undercoat applied.

                                                        

A good coat of oil based black paint will protect the metal from mother natures degradation when outside on display. The stone was treated to numerous rotations whilst some 180 grit paper was held against it this cleaned it up nicely and is better than the green algae effect it had.

A trip to Winchcombe got a rod out of the skip from the newly dismantled workshed that was beyond economic repair. the rod had the eye ground and cut to suit the treadle drive ball on the wheel and the other end flattened so it can be drilled and secured to the foot operating lever.

After this all that it need is a wooden handle made for the turning handle and the stone immobilising then it is ready for display, a relatively easy and quick repair of and old broken grinding wheel.

The interior of line wagon 2 got the final undercoats used up on it so that is progressing well and will soon be ready for top coating the interior..