Weds 30th/Thurs 1st - Even hotter

As always, many thanks to Gerry for Wednesday"s photos.

Wednesday

Beginning with Upholstery with Laura, Chris, Ceri and Jane. They are making an excellent job of re-covering the two bench seats from BCK 21092. This is the first seat back awaiting the fitting of the two arms, which have also been re-covered.

Meanwhile in the aforementioned compartment in 21092 Rex is assisting with the removal of the second seat back.  The sheer size of these makes for some tricky removal.

Later in the day Chris and Ceri have cushions and bags destined for our station shops at Toddington and Broadway.

One of the blue painted helicle springs on 1675's south bogie, the blue indicating that this is the heavy end of the coach.

Ian in control of the jacks.

A lot of work us being done with the bogies, one of the aspects being attaining the correct ride height.

1675 is run up the yard - this enables a shake down to ensure the correct settlement of the springs.

This it also enabled 1675, when brought back, to be placed over the pit.

John is now able to get underneath and remove the supports for the suspension before 1675 goes back on the jacks.

Phil lends a hand.

John walking back to the Barn. The weed killing van has also been brought back from where it had been shunted last Saturday.

Bob and Steve, part of the weed killer van crew, are making supports for it.

They appear to be having a general assessment of what has been achieved so far.

Simon appears to be making adjustments to the setting of the Wadkin saw for his current task.

Phil helps Simon with the fitting of a rubber draught excluder on one of the new doorway thresholds for SO 4798.

It's back to toilet compartment windows in 4798 for Bryan, fitting more of the internal wood frame.

And also for Rex in the opposite compartment.

Just a few feet away, Ken continues his efforts to rebuild the south end corridor connection. In answer to the comment at the end of Saturday's post, Ken is trial fitting the wood supports - these will later be removed to enable the bare metal to be primed. Here he is cleaning up more of the metal surface.

Existing bolt holes are being cleaned out ready for the new fixings.

Dave contempletes the next steps with the rebuilding of the LNWR Van doors.

Phil assists Trevor with dies for door fittings.

Thursday

Catching up with more of Wednesday's efforts, they really had a good day in Upholstery. The heavy seat back has had its arms fitted and both main components of the first compartment seat refurbishment are now finished.

And these are the two side panels, both awaiting the fitting of the armrests. These are shown below in the process of re-covering, with the piping also displayed.

The heavy seat back shown in yesterday's post is now in Upholstery, along with the two arms and side panels.

The seat cushion stripped and now with padding and canvas stretched over.

After their test fitting, Ken has now removed the top backing plates for the corridor connection at the south end of 4798.

All the bare metal has now been primed, which makes the inset bolts show up.

More doorway thresholds awaiting fitting.

In 1675 Richard II is labelling up the various components in the main control box.

Roger is making the surround for the control boxes in the kitchen.

Bob applied two coats of varnish to the veneer back strip on the servery counter.

More work on 1675's north bogie springs which had been extracted. The seating for the springs and the spring plates were needle gunned by Stu.

The view out of the north end of 1675.

Dennis is checking the main water tank on SK 24804.

Paul is cleaning the seats. This group of coaches will next be in use in the Steam Gala at the end of this month.

More water gushing forth.

Despite the heat we were back on the Discovery Coach with David, Bob and myself removing more cracked and peeling paint. 3850 arrives with the passengers looking at the VE Day display outside the Model Railway TPO.

It was hot in the sun but in general we coped well. Today's temperatures were going to be the highest in this current heatwave.

The backs of the doors have a lot of peeling paint which Bob clears as much as possible.

The school parties involved in the WW2 Evacuation Experience Days use the Discovery Coach to view a film about real wartime experience. So when they arrive we have to stop working. So time for me to grab some more of todays activities, or non-activities in this case as we enjoy watching the green Class 37 pass by.

Also time get some other Paintshop jobs done. In this case David coats the new battery box covers in Black MIO.

The schools have all gone, so progress can begin again. Bob relaxes as the Class 37 returns with the southbound train.

We got quite a bit done with the roof and gutter work, and quite a bit more of the coach side sanded ready for repainting.

However there is still a lot to do yet and with much of this dependent upon the weather and availability of the coach, this could be a long job. Meanwhile the varnishing of the Model Raiway TPO will be resumed next week when the VE Day commemorations are over.