Over the winter I have been repainting the 1.5" scale Allchin that lives here. The initial plan was to do a bit of a tidy and retouch the paint, this quickly escalated when the new tin of paint was a different colour to the old tin. In the end, the entire engine has been repainted and lined as per "Evedon Lad". The reassembly was going well until the valve rod was put back in as it was very stiff to move. This engine has a trunk guide fitted, they were fitted to locos but rarely. In this case the trunk guide carries the cross head for the piston rod, the weighshaft and the valve rod guide. It became very obvious that refitting this by feel was not going to work so a simple jig was made.
The brass bar in this picture is a very gentle push fit into the valve rod guide, the other end is a push fit into the hole on the front of the cylinder as seen below.
This aligns the valve rod guide perfectly with the valve chest, allowing the bolts on the back of the cylinder to be fitted.
A quick look down the bore shows the piston has been unaffected by the realignment.
And 5 hours later the valve rod and guide can be refitted.
