Peter Jacobs recounts more of the trials and tribulations of rebuilding an Aveling-Barford steam roller with his wife Emma and friends, and how they made their trip to the Great Dorset Steam Fair with it for last year’s big event.

Dorset at Last! John Blagg’s 1913 McLaren road loco No 1421 gently eases the restored roller up to the 2004 rare engine display.

The restoration of Aveling-Barford steam roller, Works No AE998, which had been purchased by Peter and Emma Jacobs in January 2001, had progressed to the summer of 2002 - with the end objective of appearing with it in steam at the National Traction Engine Trust’s 50th anniversary display of 50 rarely seen engines.
Peter continues the story in regard to his friend Colin, who regularly visits local scrapyards as part of his job. During one such visit Colin picked up a set of water gauges from one of them and later, while chatting with him, he showed me his find. As a result of this, a deal was done to swap the water gauges for a Scammell lorry badge that had been acquired many years previous.
In September 2002, we finally got the boiler away to the shot-blasters and when it returned, it went into the back garden - much to Emma’s delight! This allowed the remains of the front tubeplate to be cut out, studs replaced where necessary and the whole lot to be painted in primer. The second shaft was re-fitted and the boiler then returned to Fred Dockray’s - which meant we could collect the rear rolls and drop them at the shot-blasters on the return trip.
The next part of the project was to build a new full-length canopy and this was undertaken over the winter in the garage at home using the original ironwork. An ashpan was also fabricated in the garage and as I had a contact at the local foundry, I managed to get a full set of firebars cast there. With the rear wheels ready and the canopy made, these were returned to Fred’s with the plan being to bring the front end of the roller back on the journey home but unfortunately for us, some birds had taken to building a nest in the front forks, so this move was postponed to another day. By now spring had arrived and work on the roller slowed.

Lifting the shot-blasted and primed rear rolls.

Gluttons for punishment, Emma and I purchased a 1926 showman’s living van as we had outgrown the original roller van and time was spent getting it ready for the 2003 season.
Eventually work started again on the roller and the crosshead slippers were built up with weld and despatched to Stuart Tomlinson for machining; the piston was missing so a pattern taken from drawings was ordered from David Ragsdale and a new set of boiler tubes was also purchased.
Before Christmas 2003, we engaged the services of boiler inspector Alan Bulmer from Yorkshire, who carried out the visual, ultrasonic and hammer tests on the boiler. He was happy with the condition of the firebox and only requested that two side stays were replaced. The boiler just required some building up with weld in the bottom of the barrel where there was some pitting.
Fred fabricated a new front tubeplate - with a 3¼4in thick rolled ring - and also machined the new clack valves, which had been cast from a pattern by his neighbour, Nigel Atkinson. A job on the throatplate was to cut out the front corner mudholes as they had previously been welded up for some reason. I cleaned out the holes with a high-speed rotary file and ordered two mudhole doors and bridges from David Ragsdale.

Trying in the new welded front tubeplate prior to riveting.

Due to other work commitments and an ever-decreasing timescale if we were to meet the Dorset date that we’d set ourselves, Fred didn’t have time to build up the barrel and weld in the new tubeplate to the headstock flange - so the boiler was taken to Terry Statham near Derby who undertook the welding for us. The boiler was collected a week or so later - so now we were ready for the big push to get the roller up and running.

End of the On-line article.
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