Saturday 3rd - All over the shop

 A rather disjointed day for me today with occasional spurts of work interspersed with lots of talking about stuff. Useful talking though hopefully, the sort that might result in some interesting results some of which should hopefully feature here soon - others are a little way off yet!

Anyway, first picture of the day is Andy making sparks, one of the brake hangers for the RBr bogies was a little tight in its slot, an angle grinder soon saw to that:

Behind him John was making a few final adjustments for the fence he's made for one of the woodworking team's machines:

By the time I made it out in the barn, Andy was test fitting the adjusted hanger on the bogie:

It was jolly cold out here today, winter has definitely arrived with woolly hats the order of the day. Paul, Maurice and Richard remove the first set of new doors from the vanfit for a bit of final adjustment and painting in the warmer environs of the paintshop:

Into the woodwork shop to talk Robert through what needs doing 'Take about this much more off'...

Back into the paintshop to find Dave out with the green primer on more new skirting panels from South Devon for the RBr:

Into the CK where Simon was drilling and screwing the metal cut-outs for the comms cord:

A welcome visitor today was the chairman of the GWR Trust Philip, who came to have a general look round the department, with specific interest with the RBr which the Trust is funding:

That gave me just enough time to paint the number on the Malvern side of the CK before going back up to Todd with Philip to talk about some Trust stuff for an hour or so:

On my return the dirty gang were in full flow attacking the Elk, which had been shunted out over the pit to disconnect the brake rigging in preparation for a lift:

Not a straightforward operation as the bed is so low that our jacks don't actually go low enough to get underneath it, so a bit of cogitating and planning required:

Steve and Ainsley were engaged in discussion too when I stuck my head in the woodwork shop again, over RBr doors:

Meanwhile Dave and Kevin were carefully putting the newly upholstered chairs into storage until their time comes, might be a little way off that yet!

Chris was fitting door straps on the CK today, another sign the end is in sight as this is usually one of the last door jobs to be done:

More upholstery was marching in too, this time second class seats, under the direction of Laura and John, manual labour being undertaken by Simon and new starter for today Alan, welcome to the department Alan!

Another 'at last' job was John fitting the cover for the lower window lock for the stretcher window:

Keeping on top of the dust! Paul and Dave in a cloud as they empty the vacuum cleaner. C&W makes a lot of dust!

Speaking of making a mess, back on the wagons in the barn, Paul finished off the job I started last week of taking the canvas off the Mogo, and here he's cleaning up one of the metal roof hoops:

Maurice meanwhile had the underframe black out on the vanfit:

Pam was back on her signwriting project today, 2 more to go after this one but I need to sort out the templates for those first:

And finally I was determined to have more to show for today than one number painted in amongst all the discussions so before I left I splashed some varnish on the two new door panels in the North vestibule:

Oh just before I go a couple of pictures from Wednesday evening, just Mark and I in, we ticked a couple of niggling jobs on the Queen Mary off including finally fitting the works plates:

Not a five minute jobs as the seats needed taking up to get to the other side to bolt it all together, and the holes needed drilling out with the mag drill to make it all fit:

We finished off by disappearing underneath the water tank wagon to paint some of the brake rigging and underframe:

And also spotted that during the day some mystery helper had started glossing the top plates - thank you whoever you are :-)

Just a reminder to check out our wagons Facebook page too, the latest post features a few great pictures of the shunting activities last weekend I didn't capture along with some of the activity featured here.