On Wednesday morning the regular volunteers were joined by Stuart Hart for a working session on Blyth. Stuart firstly cut away a little of one of the frame stretchers to give access to one of the back head wash out bushes, then set about cleaning the threads with a large tap. 
Having completed his work on all the bushes on the fire box end of the boiler, Stuart did a test fit of the new plugs which you will note have been stamped to identify their location.
Back Head Top Left in case you were wondering.
While this was going on Nigel and I were cleaning up the mating faces of the left hand clack valve, the top of the dome and the safety valve seat – the first step of the reassembly process. This initially meant scraping off the old gasket material with an old screwdriver followed by a cleanup with a wire brush.
Away from the locomotive itself, we received approval this week from our boiler inspector to proceed with the welding up of the two wash out bushes that lie half way up the sides of the boiler. These are inaccessible with the side tanks fitted so their sealing will be a great benefit for future inspections. The welder is due to visit us next week to look over the work required.