Tues 9th to Thurs 11th - Three busy days
With the Tuesday post being the important article concerning our major carriage rake changes, activity for that date has been combined with Wednesday's and Thursday's news.
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Tuesday
Much of the concentration was with RBr 1675. Richard finishes off the lower brown panel painting on the Cotswold side. This section had been previously blocked by the continually open door into the kicthen/pantry area.
Next, back to the Malvern side for more window frame undercoating.
Alan meanwhile was back on the preparation work on the sole bar.
With it being quiet inside 1675 today, Robert did some work to the base of the internal kitchen door frame.
The quiet day also meant we could progress the internal painting, beginning with the south corridor exit where Roger was able to get this section of ceiling undercoated.
With the ceiling finished, the walls were done in cream undercoat. The end result was a complete transformation and the whole area looked so much better. The door to the new power room still has to be done, and the room itself (formerly a toilet compartment) completely repainted.
A similar transformation was taking place in the counter area, where Stu completed the general sanding down begun by Roger last week and then applied cream undercoat.
Some extra filling was done on the south end wall of the seating compartment, so Stu gave this another coating. The overall effect looks great and I'm looking forward to the day we can get much more of the inside painted and in particular all the new oak panelling and window trim varnished.
Stu's first job of the day was undercoating the whole of the Malvern side lower panel on FK 13326, which he completed incredibly quickly. Just that little bit of filling to complete in the nearby corner.
Maurice was back on the ply van cleaning up the heavy outer door frames.
The Malvern side of the van is in better condition and much of the wall plyboard merely needs a light sand. It can then go straight into fresh top coat.
Keith cleaned up the door fittings from the van before giving them a fresh undercoat.
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Another fire bucket, that Alex had brought in, is being scraped clean by Alan.
Opening this four year old tin of undercoat cream presented us with a fine layer of oil on the top. While giving it all a good stir, it was tempting to try and reproduce the leaf and heart patterns so often seen when buying a cup of coffee.
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Beginning with Upholstery, it was just Jenny and Laura today. Jenny is preparing various side panels for SO (future GWR FO) 4798, while Laura is working on a headrest project.
Doing a great job in the south entrance is David undercoating the primed skirting in dark grey. He also undercoated the repair done by me at the base of the door frame.
David completed the skirting painting in 1675 and then moved on to undercoating the new inner panels for the doors of the ply van.
However I did photograph Roger and Alan returning from SO 4790 in Rake 3 with a section of vestibule ceiling that needed repair. The corroded half was cut off and a new half made, which is now on the paint trestles and primed ready for painting.
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On the Cotswold side Gerry continues the cleaning up of the roof side where the gutter has been removed.
This was followed up with a coating of green primer. Some rust holes were uncovered and will need to be patch welded, one of which is visible top left and indicated by masking tape.
It was again quiet inside 1675, so another chance to get some more painting preparation done. Initially Bob primed the two large end panels at the north end of the seating area.
This was followed by some general sanding down of the existing painted wall in the corridor.
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Thanks so much Dave for this HUGE blog - your time in doing it is always appreciated by all of us.
ReplyDeleteAs an engineer working on containerships, I can understand & appreciate the work your volunteers do in rejuvenating the carriages & wagons that pass through the workshops; and congratulations to each & every one of them for their dedication in wanting to keep historic stock alive for people travelling on the railway to enjoy & appreciate in the future. I do have one question, in all the photos where stock is being painted, it's almost always of someone holding a 3 or 4 inch brush (other sizes may be available) & applying the paint. However, has anyone ever thought of using a paint roller? On ships when painting large areas of flat steel, the crew tend to use radiator rollers, they can cover a large area fairly quickly. I realise that they can't be used for finishing detail around the edges of windows, etc, brushes still needed there, but when used on large areas that need covering, surely a lot quicker than using a paint brush?
ReplyDeleteThanks for a great blog. It provides us with so much information which is easily understood and more information which informs those of us who would otherwise be ignorant. I applaud your commitment to preserving and refurbishing the wagons which reminds us that railways survival depended on freight. I do have one question. Elsewhere it lists 156 wagons on the railway. That seems a large number. Will there be any attempt at consolidation in the future?
ReplyDeleteOn rollers, even if we did use them, we'd still have to lay off with a brush to get a decent finish, and by the time you've done all that and faffed around cleaning rollers out etc. I'm not altogether convinced that it's actually much quicker.
ReplyDelete156 wagons is certainly a lot. We do acknowledge that we'll never be able to do them all! However, most are privately owned so there's only so much we can do on that front - many are stored at Cheltenham out of the way anyway so aren't doing much harm. I think it's likely that consolidation will end up looking like appraising what we want to do and what we consider unlikely to do (which we have sort of done) and shuffle everything around such that it's grouped together (which we have not yet done).
Thanks for responding.
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