Tuesday 18th - Job done

A satisfying day that saw a major job completed and to a far greater extent than originally planned.

With this chair repaired and varnished, it was good to reunite it with its seat, very garishly re-covered by our Upholstery team. The chair is destined for BSK 35308.

Another refurbished vacuum cylinder is coated in black MIO by Ian.

Keith primes battens for the MICA van.

Chris uses the multi tool to enable the overhang to be completed. The overhang is for the roof canvas so that the water shoots off and away from the van sides.

Chris and Robert cut the extra length of overhang  ........

....... and later fix it in place.

It was time for a tidy up and clear out of all the odd bits of unwanted wood and scrap planks kept as templates for the van. Paul and Maurice did a good job and the area around the van is now a lot clearer.

Ainsley works on more door droplights.

RBr 1675 will be next in the Paintshop, so time to identify some further areas on the body sides requiring some skims of filler.

Following their earlier activities Roger and Keith went round the coach tackling all the chalked areas.

Today was the final day available to complete the work on TSO 4986. With a good number of the Painting and Prep team attending we could really push the boat out and do far more to improve what had already been achieved.

Maurice had already black glossed the Malvern side sole bar and steps, and the south end headstock. It was now the turn of the Cotswold side sole bar.

More additional jobs included reblacking the rubber surrounds for the toilet compartment windows as these were looking somewhat tarnished. Richard tackles the Cotswold side window.

The door stops and handle, grab handle and window toplight are black glossed. Phil took on this job for all six doors and what a difference it makes.

Roger improved the corridor connections with some black gloss on the lower inner sections and silver hammerite on the chequerplates.

During the clean up of the cream paintwork the window central parts were already faded and difficult to improve. As such they weren't varnished when the panels and main window frames were done. It was hoped that there would be enough time to repaint them instead. Thankfully there was and Richard took on this job.  It took most of the day but when completed the result greatly improved the overall look of the coach.

Maurice nears the end of his work on the sole bar and steps, again a tremendous improvement.

With Richard, Phil and Roger busy on their various projects, Ian took on the painting of the north end headstock.

Roger took care of the lamp brackets. In the background the busy scene.

The final photos at the end of the day with the coach completed as far as possible in the time available. Job done! We now have a rake of four crimson and cream coaches, with more to follow later this year.

So a good day overall. It was even sunny, a treat after all that dull cold weather.