Saturday 24th - Bending metal

 A very busy day on the trains, which was great to see. More passengers hopefully means a healthy bottom line.

In the works it was equally busy. After a bit of a practice last week, and a slightly more heavily engineered jig, John, James and Andy got going straight away on the new plan for bending new handrails for the Mica.

A substantially chunkier piece of plate to hold everything on, James temporarily welds it to the trestles so it's rock solid.

Rather than pegs this time we went with slivers of 2 inch tube to help give a smoother radius. James applies the heat, the top bend has already been done by Andy, now to the main arc with John doing the pushing.

And the final result! As the warning notice says, it's a bit hot! But a nice smooth handrail, well done chaps. All 4 were bent up to this stage. Next week there's a joggle in another plane to do to take the handrails over the end vents, then a tight loop and sharp right hand bend at each end for the terminations.

On the wagon itself Paul did a bit more chiselling to the old wooden corner posts so our new planks will fit snugly behind the steel corners. We just need to sort out holes for the end steps then we should be able to plank this lot.

SO 4790 is virtually ready for top coat now; Phil and Martin sanded down the last of the undercoat in 320 grit in readiness, along with a few bits of final undercoating that had been left behind.

Robert went round doing more minor woodwork repairs, a pleased look of satisfaction as the bottom of this door is now fixed to the rest of it again.

With the major sanding done Paul did a vacuum round inside. Any more sanding we're under strict instructions to keep the windows shut!

The FK is seeing some concerted activity on the door front which is good. Hopefully this will be about ready to finish painting by the time we've finished 4790 in a few weeks?... Anyway, Ben and Dave get to grips with the capping strip on the Cotswold side at the South end...

And at the North end.

Also at the South end Dave was doing some painting in readiness for Ken to finish off the corridor connection.

I popped into upholstery quite early today along with Andy and didn't get a chance to visit again, as they exclaimed when I walked in "We haven't got started yet!" Sorry! Looks like DFR seats were the order of the day for Laura and Helen. 

Last but not least (or saving the best 'til last?!) the RBr. I had to have a wry smile at the comment on the previous post about the RBr being a 'labour of love'. Well, labour of something anyway... Chris is removing the middle hinges on the pelmets, for some reason they weren't quite swinging right, and 3 hinges with 6 screws each is a bit overkill for a small plank of wood anyway.

Pam was back inside the servery with more varnish on the oak beading.

Dave went round fitting the now painted footboards.

And Dave captured Pam putting a final coat of black on after fitting.