Tuesday 14th - Mucky job

 On a Tuesday the first one in is usually Chris, followed at about 7.30 by Robert, Maurice, Scouse and myself. Another few minutes and Phil and Stu arrive.

It's now 8.00 and we're enjoying our early teas, coffees and a chat. 

Moving on, others have arrived and we're now busy with our respective jobs. Robert carefully removes the marked sections of the new door liner for BSK 35308.

Chris offers up the liner to assess the fit. He had earlier cleaned up the inset frame with a grinder.

Ian top coats the back of the holder to go on the Weed Spraying wagon. This will be for the operating instructions and other information.

Maurice undercoats the roof battens for the Mink D van. I expect by now the roof canvas will be being ordered.

More top coating along the top of one of the door frames.

Scouse gives the surrounding floor a good vacuuming.

It was great to see Keith again following his health issue. It will probably be a while before he can return to the team, but he hopes to help with the Works monitoring during the Diesel Gala in just over a week's time.

On to SO 4798, beginning with Stu working on the filler that I added around the budget lock receptacle on Saturday.

He also top coated the skirting in the north vestibule.

The side of the doorframe now looking complete with a coat of GW Cream covering the sanded filler and a smart looking skirting in the vestibule. There can't be many jobs left to do inside 4798 now.

With the external varnishing complete, I reattached the last two grab handles. Following Phil's preparation work last week the bolts went in very easily. Richard now adds Gloss Black to the bolt heads on all six handles.

And now the mucky job of the day. We only occasionally paint bogies as usually they are too filthy and thus take a lot of initial cleaning, and as you can only paint what you can access, it is in effect a purely cosmetic exercise.  In this instance we felt that as this had become a very special coach, we would make this the exception.

David worked on the Cotswold side north end bogie. Wire brushing and scraping to remove dirt and loose paint. Power brushing creates too much dust so that was most definitely not an option, especially with all that lovely new paintwork.

Ian got cracking on the south bogie on the same side. I later joined him and as such this bit was the first to be almost completed, the almost being that a final check would be made on Thursday and further cleaning done if necessary. 

Great reflections in the varnish.

Following on from all his other jobs Richard got cracking at the south end on the Malvern side.

It's beginning to look good. 

After all his work Stu took on the remaining bogie at the north end of the Malvern side and did a very good job. There will be more to do, but as with Richard's bogie it was a good start.

Having done as much as much as we could currently achieve on the south bogie, Ian and I joined David.

The south bogie Cotswold side at the end of the day, with the floor swept and washed.

If all is ok on Thursday we will begin painting with Black MIO, which is very hard wearing.

It's 5.40 and having had our end of day refreshment Robert is the first to leave. The rest of us weren't much later leaving.