Saturday 11th - Lots on the go

Another busy day in the works, with space at a premium in the mess room during tea breaks and lots of jobs on the go.

Starting off with the new project in the paintshop, FK 13326, the pad sanders were out, Dave: 

And George:

Doing the honours and making a good start. Meanwhile Dave continued his efforts with the heatgun to remove the remains of the paint on those panels where it had come off in great sheets:

He also revealed the position of the original lining, noticably higher than ours, and would appear to foul the window frame. We're fairly sure this coach isn't old enough to have had the flush frames, so that caused a bit of chin-scratching.

Chris was straight to investigating the North Cotswold side door:

By the end of the day it wasn't looking so much like a quick job:

Woodwork on the RBr continues apace, Simon and Steve preparing to cut the first wall panel I think here:

Alan was also chiselling away:

Outside on the operational RBr, Phil:

and Paul:

Were attending to various plumbing issues.

There were quite a number of people working on the rake outside, John was sat underneath one coach refitting some steam heat pipe work:

Ainsley was adjusting another sticking door with the angle grinder:

While Clive and Andy (I think) were positioned very awkwardly to photograph (!), I believe adjusting the position of some waste discharge chutes:

Back in the workshop, the Mogo continues well. Paul and Maurice have nearly finished the body frame cleanup, Maurice was on roof hoops today:

After faffing about with some signwriting in the morning and a meeting at Toddington at Lunchtime, I finally managed to do some "proper" work too and trial fitted the drop-down door on the South end:

There is the big metal plate to fit to this surface too, once the correct bolts have arrived:

Robert continued his sterling work with door production in the woodwork shop, as another side door frame comes together:

These will have a plywood panel as the facing surface as per the original diagram.

Speaking of Toddington, whilst I was up there I spotted a gang had made a start on the chaired sleeper wagon:

They seemed to be enjoying themselves :-) It's parked here as we're waiting for the owner to effect a wheel-swap, but in the meantime there's nothing stopping us getting on with the cosmetic work. Hopefully we'll have this in service for the steam gala as well as the Mogo.

Another wagon inching closer to completion, which I've neglected to feature on this blog for a while, is the GWR water tank we've been working on at Toddington.

The tie-down hoops have been dug out of storage, cleaned up and painted:

Mark bolted on the repaired hose reel mount:

Dan had the taps and dies out cleaning up the threads for the tie-bars and hoops:

Nice shiny threads:

Then the big moment when the tank was lowered on for a trial fit:

It's not sitting quite right yet, but certainly a great step forward! Last Wednesday evening we gave it a good scrub to remove all the dirt and lichen:

Underneath we found a nice shiny white topcoat, so that saves us a job. It's definitely looking a lot more like a GWR water tank now:

Back to Saturday but sticking with Toddington for a minute, a small team went up with the truck to fit some of those lovely first class seats to the BCK which was with the third rake up at Toddington:

Thanks to Dave for those photos.

Back at Winchcombe then, and John was connecting up the last 2 radiators on the CK up on the jacks:

Meanwhile Andy:

And our chairman Richard:

Are out with the oil cans. The coach was then lowred onto its bogies and taken for a trundle up and down the yard to settle everything down and perform a vacuum test:

I'm pleased to say it all worked, and Clive as the owner couldn't quite believe it!

The gang soon moved onto the next project though removing the vacuum cylinder from the BSO on the through road:

While Ben made some adjustments to a new door panel having spent some time overhauling the single action locks on this coach, they are very awkward: