Saturday 16th - All Good Progress

 A rather blustery day outside, and too wet to be doing any more painting on the Macaw in the yard. Starting early today were our flooring contractors Bob and Pete, here disturbing the peace of the paintshop mixing up the levelling compound for the floor of the CK:

All done before lunch time, it's already looking better as captured by Dave:

Progress on the Malvern side continues to be good, Maurice started off by finishing the undercoating:

He later moved onto top-coating window frames, accompanied by George, who I thought I got a picture of but apparently didn't:

Having had to take off the long down pipe for the vac system to repair the dodgy section of pipe last week, John decided it would be much better to replace it with 1 piece rather than the previous 2, so Andy and he spent the morning fitting that, captured by Dave at the crucial moment:

Later in the day the vac pump was hooked up, yes that's much better now:

Although it does help if you have a seal on the other end first!

Mid morning and the usual pause after tea break to watch the trains. They looked well filled on what turned into a bright Autumn day, with P&O sharing duties with Foremarke Hall:

The doors on the RBr continue to progress well, the last door that Dave had stripped and cleaned of all old paint had found its way onto the door team workbench where Ben was doing... actually I'm not entirely sure what, other than it involved a hammer and a punch!

Dave meanwhile had been given another door to clean up and he got stuck straight in, this ew paint stripper we've found is remarkably effective and is actually cheaper than the old Nitromors:

On the adjacent bench Dave was working on what I assume is one of the tables for the RBr:

Towards the end of the day we cleared some of the scaffolding to take some overall pictures to show where we are in terms of progress, an overall shot from up on the Mezzanine:

And another to show the South end, one side with new sheet metal, the other still awaiting repairs to the structural steel members behind:

One of my jobs today was to paint this beautiful copper lamp top. I know, it seems a crying shame to paint such bright shiny copper, but where it's going it would never get polished and would only go green and mouldy otherwise, so out with the etched primer. 

Phil was also working on bits on a bench, here with some toilet cisterns:

Ian spent the day flying the computer with various HoD duties, having had a department management meeting in the morning:

'Today was a good day, only 10 emails to respond to!'

Lastly, Simon did a great job producing some new signs for the workshops labelling the various rooms. They're roughly based on GWR hanging station signs with a moulding round the edge, and as luck would have it we found some spare moulding that looked close enough:

The first four were handed over at the end of the day so I quickly slapped some primer on them before I left, with some instructions as to the next steps for the guys midweek. They'll be going chocolate and cream, with the lettering painted on.

Oh and I nearly forgot, a few photos from Wednesday evening. With the nights drawing in, we just about had time to do the annual axlebox exam on the Queen Mary before it got completely dark:

After a bite to eat we retreated back into the shed. Dan fitted some vac hoses to the Winchcombe coal wagon:

And I finished the last of the signwriting, so this is now finally finished!