Tuesday 13th - Coming along in leaps and bounds

Tuesday was quite a day with some really great progress.

Beginning with RBr 1675, Robert and Chris have been doing further work on some of the saloon pelmets and other oak pieces.

Chris restores this intervening section.

All of the oak sections have been cut from donated wood and some needed to be put through the thinner to further remove areas that were still a bit too rough. Robert now gives them a another coat of varnish.

And while making these improvements, why not add the first coat of varnish to the oak panelling in the counter area.

Even with just one coat, what a difference!

Tony is tidying up with filler the emergency door frame on the Cotswold side of the coach.

After completing the job with a coat of wood primer, a quick vac round to remove all the sanding dust. The oak panels on both emergency doors still need an initial coat of varnish.

Lots to do on the trestles. Keith completes another piece of internal window frame ready for the Indoor Gang on Thursday. Along with the previous ones, this is also destined for TSO 4772.

Next, the dyed internal window frame sections for SO 4798 receive their first coat of varnish. The wood dye used is Colron Georgian Medium Oak, which when varnished is very near to the existing sections.

Finally for Keith another coat of GW Brown on the two repaired benches.

Another hot day for anyone working outside, and certainly for Maurice and Paul who were removing odd scraps of wood from the Open C wagon.

[Photo : Tony] Not sure what Maurice and Paul were working on here, but no doubt a bit from the wagon.

2807 heads past on its way north. There were good numbers on the trains, especially with the school holidays well underway.

The empty Works siding, looking strangely empty after so long with various vehicles in it.

BCK 21272 is really coming together now, especially with various items being reinstated, in particular the refurbished ladder and the heavy rack from the guards compartment.

The two seats from the guards compartment are now very much Pam's project.  Both were taken home, with the tip-up seat planned to be completely rebuilt. Pam still has items from her former business, including the multi-coloured foam, a piece of which she has stuck to the new seat base. With the seat tightly clamped, she now uses her angle grinder to shape the foam. Several tests back in the guards compartment ensured that enough foam had been removed to allow the tip-up action to work successfully.

As for the base of the large seat, she uses a mix of wood glue and sawdust as a paste to coat the many small holes. When hard this will be sanded smooth.

With the very warm afternoon any painting soon dried and as such the underside of the tip-up seat was primed, undercoated and top coated, all within a few hours.

Pam now transferred to the guards compartment to begin painting the heating covers and other relevant items in smooth Silver Hammerite.

Foremarke Hall comes past with the other service train.

Having watched the train go by and waved at the passengers, a very happy smile for the camera from Pam, who loves her time at the Railway.

Back to the Paintshop for the continuing progress with SO 4790, which really is coming along in leaps and bounds. At the south end Stu continues the general sanding of the old paintwork.

As always, getting the sides of the doors and doorframes cleaned up is very important. Alex pad sands the Cotswold side double doors.

Ian does the same at the north end.

James tackles the corrosion at the north end on the Malvern side, initially cutting out the bad metal.

Also on the Malvern side Stu cleans the slider wings on the first window.

Back to the Cotswold side where Alex is adding the upper line tape.

The line tapes are now in place on the Malvern side and the first of the Madder undercoat goes on.

Alex adds the coach end demarcation tape to give the bias to the Malvern side. When all top coating is complete on that side, new tape will be put on to change the bias to enable painting on the coach end to be completed.

With new sheet metal in place, James begins welding.

[Photo : James]  Two new sections nicely spot welded. Another session should see the job completed.

Meanwhile a lengthy section of the Malvern side has received Cream undercoating.

And now on for the lower section .......

........ and even later. The same amount has also been done on the Cotswold side. With the quick repaint now well on the way, keep watching this space.