Tuesday 3rd - In the pink

In the pink? What's all that about? More on that later.

It's Tuesday, hence mainly painting and prep. The latter of course being the seemingly endless buzz of pad sanders once again working on SK 25488.

At the south end Richard was working on the door, while Stu was sanding down the areas needing extra filler.

 It wasn't long before Richard was pad sanding.

 Roger opted for hand sanding, especially as he included the window frames.

 Stu now patch painting his newly sanded areas.

 Pam arrived and immediately returned to where she finished off on Saturday.

The old varnish takes a lot of getting through, but in the end gives in to reveal the crimson top coat.

Back to the Cotswold side, where Stu has completed his base coat patch painting and returns to more sanding on the upper sections.

The four opening doors and their frames are in a pretty bad state with cracking paint and grime. I have spent a while sorting out this particular one, but it's almost done. We will be replacing the veneer back panels on all four doors with some new ones.

The lintel was particularly bad with a split, rust and splintered wood. Here it is part way through the repair, but later in the afternoon was looking a lot better. Think we need to replace the draught excluder too.

Tool Van 92, in the middle of the Paintshop/Workshop divide, is progressing well. Maurice restarted on the Cotswold side with the primer.

Bob had been working outside but has now joined Maurice and decided to undercoat the ends. First the pink undercoat must be created - several dollops of white and then a dollop or two of red, followed by a good stir.

 The north end is done first.

 It's all looking good.

Bob moved to the south end and soon completed that. 

Then the evil grin. "What next Dave, the 03?"

Please don't panic - both photos were taken on 29th April 2010 when the 03 really was painted pink by the owner as a surprise for Silvey, one of our former drivers.

Taken at the end of the day (hence the Workshop in darkness). Maurice had begun undercoating the Malvern side of 92 in dark grey undercoat.

On my way down the yard, nice to capture these two in a perfect position.

Roger spent his day working in the rebuilt toilet compartment in SK 24949, initially coating the heater grill in silver hammerite, before continuing the undercoating on the walls.

 Then over to the Army RBr where Dave is preparing the connection door for a quick repaint. 

Dave has decided to do the Cotswold side of the coach. Although never seen by our travelling public, at least the paint will help with protection.

Back in the Workshop, Ainsley is preparing one of the emergency doors for a seal.

On the opposite side Gerry and Bryan are installing another window. Gerry offers up the frame, now minus glass. Removing the glass enables the frame to be more flexible and thus ensures a better fit.

 With the window held in place, the places are marked in the panelling for drilling.

The window is then clamped in place.

Before the main drilling a temporary rivet is put in to hold the window tightly. The window will later be removed and the seal put on, and then finally put back in place and rivetted all round.

One more acrow prop is made ready by Keith, followed by the four heavy supports. I still haven't asked what these are for. The brackets in the foreground are from the Monster Van.

Robert back in the Woodshop after another School Evacuation Experience morning as Farmer James. He is measuring up the wood which will be used for backing two more North Pole perspex signs, that are hung over the Winchcombe Station nameboards during our Santa Special season.

It's now 1740 and the shadows are lengthening. Time to lock up the Barn and join the others in the Mess room for our end of day cuppa and a slice of Pam's delicious cake.

Overall we had had a very good day with 14 attending.