Saturday 13th - Ticking the jobs off

Another good day where some good jobs were ticked off the winter list.

First up, a bit of a shunt to bring FO 3132 into the barn. It was only a short trip, so no point doing unnecessary uncoupling. 

It was in for a vac cylinder changed. So, crawl underneath, old one off.

Collect newly overhauled freshly painted one from the workshop...

And fit in place of old.

While access was slightly easier, Stuart changed the steam heat hose on it too, or at least overhauled it, I forget what now.

Over on the adjacent road, Andy and John were finalising the steam heat repairs on CK 16221.

Later on Ken assisted in fitting the final piece of the puzzle.

The bogies from the CK were shunted round and moved in position ready for collection.

And by the end of the day the CK was lowered down on spare bogies and SK 25488 had ended up on the through road - I think this is destined for a bogie swap too soon. Anyway, with so much chopping and changing in the barn I've given up trying to update the 'Currently in the works' page for the barn for the next month or two!

Back to the warmth of the paintshop then. Maurice started off the day grinding some of the stuck bolts off the floor of the SR/GWR van. He started cleaning the frame up with the powered wire wheel too, but this ended up creating rather anti-social levels of dust, so we abandoned that...

And made a start giving the external planking a sand down with the pad sander.

George gainfully joined in too doing most of the Cotswold side.

Clive went round the outside with a hand wire brush to sort out any paint on the underframe that looked a bit loose.

Another patch expertly welded into the RBr by Alan, we keep finding more bits!

Some nice straightforward progress on the RBr today though with the appearance of a serving/display counter/shelf unit for the serving area being made by Simon.

I think we've finally settled on the methodology for removing the rest of the paint off the coach sides too, with the BR levels of paint responding well to paint stripper. Dave managed to 'paint' most of the remaining paint today.

Nick popped in to do a bit more welding on the FK too, he must have been keen to finish the job after tacking it in on Wednesday!

It was another changeover day for the DFR seats for upholstery today, so lots of carrying and stacking, of newly covered seats...

And the next pile to get started on.

Also in the seats department, Dave made a good start on swapping the SO seats. Naturally they're not quite the same size, but they're close enough that they do go with a bit of a shove.

Elsewhere working on coaches outside Phil and Paul were to be found changing lighting tubes in the maroon RMB.

While Chris was replacing some rotten step boards - or rather attempting to - some of the bolts were quite happy rusted into position on the steel brackets thank you very much.

Dave also finished off his patch repair on 4614 from Thursday. Given the size of the patch and the size of the panel, it made sense to repaint the whole panel.

I'm sure Dennis was hard at it too, but unfortunately for him when the blog camera was out, he was in a supervisory position :-)

I think Robert was also involved in some door work on the running rakes earlier in the day, but by the time I caught up with him he'd retreated to the woodwork shop to do a bit more on door panels for the FK in the workshop.

Tony found some time at the end of the day to fit some more windows into their frames for the RBr - new rubber definitely worthwhile.

Kevin once again doing a superb job keeping on top of the rest of us untidy lot making sure everything is where it ought to be.

I did a few bits and pieces on the Malvern side of the tank wagon today, but only photographed the this updated bit of lettering, thanks to readers for kindly correcting me, much better now!