Saturday 29th - Keeping the Plates Spinning

 Another day with lots going on and I failed to capture all the activity. Just keeping all the wagon plates spinning is proving enough at the moment!

First job was to shunt 43914 back into the barn so that Chris could do the timber on the ends. Note the sign!

Tool van No.4 is coming on well, with almost all paint removed now. The North end was the last main bit, which Maurice got stuck in to.

Robert and I went round to assess the various woodwork repairs required on this van. Nothing too major, a few replacement sections of planking and a couple of more awkward bits of framing. Almost all of the timber on this wagon is original we think, dating from 1908 when it was built. The first few patches have gone in.

I went round with the polyurethane glue gun to fill in any splits or cracks in the wood. This sets really hard and should help hold the wood together, as well as not shrinking and falling out like filler would.

By the end of the day the South end was ready for a first coat of a rather expensive epoxy resin primer. No.92 will be done using traditional boiled lineseed oil which is much cheaper - maybe in 5 years' time we will be able to assess whether the extra expense is worth it.

Onto Tool van No.92 then, where there is still a lot of paint removal to do. Pam got stuck in today with the sanding disc on the angle grinder. This cuts through the paint well but you have to be careful not to dig into the wood as well!

By the end of the day after I joined in for a bit too we were over half way on this side.

On Wednesday evening we abandoned any hope of working on the chaired sleeper wagon at Toddington as it was chucking it down, so we did some exploratory work on the roof of No.92. For some reason this acquired a metal clad roof at some stage in its life, which was now pinging off. We took the first couple of panels off to see what it was like underneath.

We didn't much like the look of the skylights, and took one out to see about making some new ones. Hmm, definitely a bit rotten! The new ones will be glazed with single large panes, with faux glazing bars to simulate the smaller panes. Less places to leak that way.

Last but not least on the tool vans - although the vacuum system has seized up which doesn't bother us, it would be useful to have the handbrakes working, So Andy took some of the rodding off to clean up before greasing and putting back together.

Onto the RBr now, but sticking in the paintshop briefly, Dave and Martin made good progress sanding down the aluminium lighting strips.

Early morning and there was a conglomeration of the great and the good of the door and woodwork teams to discuss the next steps.

That was soon agreed and Simon got stuck into drilling some holes I think for battens to fix the end panelling to.

Inside and things are shaping up.

Phil continued in the kitchen area with the wiring up.

While Ben drew the short straw and was playing with a door liner today - lots of planing to make it fit.

I missed taking a photo while he was doing it, but Kevin spent a good portion of the day servicing our trolleys - we really do use and abuse these so it's good to give them a bit of TLC every now and then.

I just about managed to catch Dave packing up having tidied up a bit more of the S&T workshop coach too.

It was good to see a little bit of progress with FK 13326 today with Rod adjusting the fit on the north end door.

Stuart and Andy busied themselves with a vacuum cylinder dismantling and service, always good to have one or two ready to go in case of failure.

Finally for today a quick visit to upholstery, very much the money making arm of C&W at the moment. Helen was taking apart the next seat for the DFR contract, while in the background Jenny and John can barely keep up with the demand for cushions using carriage moquette available to buy in our shops.