Tuesday 8th - A good sign

 A busy involved day with a good number attending. 

Briefly returning to TK 24006, co-owner Dave H. was fitting some of the bolts for the luggage racks. Obviously the racks cannot be put back yet, but this exercise will enable him to determine how many bolts he will need to make up to complete the job when that day comes.

On now to the repainting and door repair for the Vanfit. Robert is adding a rebate on one of the new doors. A somewhat noisy job but a good result.

In the Barn Maurice was power brushing the corrugated north end of the van.

 Paul was again on roof cleaning, his results follow below.

[Photo : Paul E.]  The almost clean roof from the Malvern side. Just a small area with algae left to do.

[Photo : Paul E.] The completed roof from the north end. The next job will be painting on the Flexacryl waterproofing.

All change in the Barn with the two bogies now on the Malvern side, leaving the jack road clear.

Into the Workshop to see the progress with RBr 1675. A zoomed view of Derek in the process of lifting more of the floor in the saloon area. Another prepared crossbearer is in the foreground.

Pulling back to display the precut sections of crash pillar, that will replace the lower corroded parts of the existing ones, and more crossbearers now welded in place.

The view from the Cotswold side of the coach.

Our expected delivery of the preformed sill sections for 1675 arrived from South Devon Railway Engineering. These will save a lot of time and make a far neater job.

Alan continues the general sanding of the second of the quarter doors from 1675. Tony later completed the job, adding some of the missing screws. The screw pits will be filled to create a nice smooth surface and then the sheet metal painted with green primer. The sides will be left as bare wood to allow the Door team to complete the rebuild.

Ainsley works on what will be the third quarter door which has been partially rebuilt.

As I said at the beginning, a very good attendance. Tuesdays in general are much busier now. Sorry about the phone case flap in the photo - changing to wide angle for the shot has brought it into view.

With the new sign boards now ready, Pam got going with the first one. The template produced by Alex has had the French chalk rubbed over the back and, with the green masking tape holding it in place, Pam carefully goes over the letters with a pencil (looks like the one from the trestles note box).

She then very carefully cleans the inside of each letter to remove excess chalk.

When the letters were clean, she then carefully removed the chalk from around each one.

The result was a nice clean board. Next job, the painting.

The initial coat of cream gloss goes on. Lots of very steady concentration.

Phew - just taking a short break. Seems to be ok so far.

A second coat of cream gloss on Saturday should complete it very nicely. Well done Pam - an excellent job.

Keith once again had a variety of jobs awaiting him on the trestles. The new toilet compartment fittings made by the Woodwork team for CK 16221 are receiving their first coat of varnish.

Moving on to progress with 16221, Ian began the long job of cleaning the compartment windows, both the side and partition. New smaller temporary labels identifying each compartment are replacing the rough paper ones as each partition window is cleaned.

Dave D. was adding the beading to the toilet compartments. All the beading will be varnished, rather than painted, which should complement the varnished window frame and fittings.

16221 has been quite problematic with respect to windows, in particular the sliders which, if I've got my facts right, are non-standard. While inspecting this particular window I noticed a tiny screw in the trough that needed putting back into the upper part of the frame. Tony had a go but wasn't able to succeed. Several more need sorting out and a pair still need to be put back in.

Phil managed to get all the redundant electric corridor heaters closed up. This turned out to be another fiddle with either the captive nuts or self-tapping screws missing. In the end he succeeded and with the covers now closed up he was able to undercoat the bottom sections. These are now ready for brown gloss.

The next job was to catch up with the skirtingboard painting. Phil applies a coat of primer to the skirting in the south end vestibule.

Lining out on the Malvern side continued. Richard uses the tiny gauge to mark the border between the yellow and black segments on upper line for the central part of the coach side.

Stu had got going on the lower line almost from the moment he came in. With the yellow outer sections of the lower line completed, the tricky job of removing the wet tape without getting yellow paint all over the maroon. A small pair of scissors is ideal for this job to enable small sections to be snipped off.

Now for the main run. Again bit by bit using scissors is best. Attempts at trying to remove a whole length can be disastrous if the wet tape snaps and springs back onto the body side.

Richard cracks on witn the upper line.

Excellent, the entire side now yellow lined, leaving the black sections to be done next week to allow the yellow to harden nicely.

In the above photo you may have noticed that the Paintshop appears somewhat dark. It was only as the afternoon light began to go down that we noticed it, the bright afternoon sunshine somewhat disguising the fact that we had a problem.

It was most noticeable when returning from the Workshop. Earlier in the afternoon we had had a very brief powercut, merely a sharp flickering, and no doubt the cause of the problem, with quite a number of the lighting units either half or completely out. Switching off and back on made no difference. However just before leaving for the day I had the lights off for about 10 minutes - that did the trick thankfully and full lighting returned, leaving just the two half units that have been out for a long time.