Wednesday 17th - More of the same

 It's in the title, steady progress.

13326, I added the final touches to the roof repair.

Bob and Steve made such rapid progress with the door Z sections, we all agreed it was panel time and so once again it was all over, that's all four now fitted. All we need to do now is a final measure up with the doorfit team and full welding can take place. I understand next week Bob and Steve will be doing the centre upper section.

This was just prior to fitting, making sure the radiused Z section was exactly where it should be.

We use 3 wood jigs to get the correct measurement from top to bottom. The Z sections have a tendency to be a bit curved, so by anchoring the whole thing before welding makes the job so much easier.

.....and so to other teams, Simon busy as always.

David and Geoff preparing (not sure what) for the power saw.

1675, is still giving us plenty of work, here Gerry is attending to more window work.

Chris is removing the guttering, we have found a small area of corrosion which needs to be dealt with above the window ...... better to do it now.

Back in the workshop, Ian and Stuart are swapping a refurbed brake cylinder for another which requires an overhaul.

Dave is doing more cleaning ready for paint on the GW/SR van ..... I do believe thats sunlight!

Rex has been engrossed with the generator mount for 1675, and here is fine tuning another bracket.

A collective photo of the upholstery team all far too busy to look at the camera.

These are the results, an ever increasing amount of finished seats and backs for the Dean Forest Railway.

Finally a view of the workshop from 13326.

Have a great w/end, we will be back next week.

Many thanks as always to Gerry for the photos.

Tuesday 16th - The big lift

Just nine of us in today, but a variety of things to keep us busy.

An early start today for the arrival of the transport for the two bogies destined for St Philips Marsh, Bristol for tyre turning. John came in specially early to oversee the lifting and everything went very smoothly. The work will be done almost immediately after arrival and we should get them back in a couple of days time. I'm not sure where they will be used; returned to CK 16221 "Abigail/Charlotte"?

The paint stripping on RBr 1675 continued with Stu, Richard and myself involved.

Some very good progress by Maurice and Tony with the main frame of the GW/SR van. Both the tops and sides of the girders were cleaned up and then given a coat of red oxide.

 

Keith gave the brackets hanging on the hooks a coat of oxide, which soon dried and enabled them to be painted in dark grey undercoat. I'm unsure where these are for (I have probably been told but have forgotten!)

 

Then it was back to the chair. By the end of the day it looked very good with all the old varnish and grime sanded away. A few minor glueing repairs are needed so over to Woodwork on Saturday.

 It was very chilly out but that didn't stop Derek continuing the repairs to the Monster van.

 The corner section is in a bad way, so some dismantling of the metalwork is now underway.

 

Good progress is also being made with the seat swapping between SO 4787 and SO 4798. There is still the seating with the worn moquette to be removed in 4787, ..............................

 ................... but the recently refurbished seating from SO 4798 is steadily replacing it. Dave is doing a really good job with this project.

Despite the very chill wind, the grey turned into blue and became a day of sunshine. The "GWR" lamp bracket on the corner of the Tim Mitchell building, that was made by Pam when she was in the Metalwork team, looks good against the blue sky. In case anyone is wondering where Pam is, as she has again disappeared, the poor girl now has some car problems to sort out - please come back soon Pam, we very much miss you!

Saturday 13th - Ticking the jobs off

Another good day where some good jobs were ticked off the winter list.

First up, a bit of a shunt to bring FO 3132 into the barn. It was only a short trip, so no point doing unnecessary uncoupling. 

It was in for a vac cylinder changed. So, crawl underneath, old one off.

Collect newly overhauled freshly painted one from the workshop...

And fit in place of old.

While access was slightly easier, Stuart changed the steam heat hose on it too, or at least overhauled it, I forget what now.

Over on the adjacent road, Andy and John were finalising the steam heat repairs on CK 16221.

Later on Ken assisted in fitting the final piece of the puzzle.

The bogies from the CK were shunted round and moved in position ready for collection.

And by the end of the day the CK was lowered down on spare bogies and SK 25488 had ended up on the through road - I think this is destined for a bogie swap too soon. Anyway, with so much chopping and changing in the barn I've given up trying to update the 'Currently in the works' page for the barn for the next month or two!

Back to the warmth of the paintshop then. Maurice started off the day grinding some of the stuck bolts off the floor of the SR/GWR van. He started cleaning the frame up with the powered wire wheel too, but this ended up creating rather anti-social levels of dust, so we abandoned that...

And made a start giving the external planking a sand down with the pad sander.

George gainfully joined in too doing most of the Cotswold side.

Clive went round the outside with a hand wire brush to sort out any paint on the underframe that looked a bit loose.

Another patch expertly welded into the RBr by Alan, we keep finding more bits!

Some nice straightforward progress on the RBr today though with the appearance of a serving/display counter/shelf unit for the serving area being made by Simon.

I think we've finally settled on the methodology for removing the rest of the paint off the coach sides too, with the BR levels of paint responding well to paint stripper. Dave managed to 'paint' most of the remaining paint today.

Nick popped in to do a bit more welding on the FK too, he must have been keen to finish the job after tacking it in on Wednesday!

It was another changeover day for the DFR seats for upholstery today, so lots of carrying and stacking, of newly covered seats...

And the next pile to get started on.

Also in the seats department, Dave made a good start on swapping the SO seats. Naturally they're not quite the same size, but they're close enough that they do go with a bit of a shove.

Elsewhere working on coaches outside Phil and Paul were to be found changing lighting tubes in the maroon RMB.

While Chris was replacing some rotten step boards - or rather attempting to - some of the bolts were quite happy rusted into position on the steel brackets thank you very much.

Dave also finished off his patch repair on 4614 from Thursday. Given the size of the patch and the size of the panel, it made sense to repaint the whole panel.

I'm sure Dennis was hard at it too, but unfortunately for him when the blog camera was out, he was in a supervisory position :-)

I think Robert was also involved in some door work on the running rakes earlier in the day, but by the time I caught up with him he'd retreated to the woodwork shop to do a bit more on door panels for the FK in the workshop.

Tony found some time at the end of the day to fit some more windows into their frames for the RBr - new rubber definitely worthwhile.

Kevin once again doing a superb job keeping on top of the rest of us untidy lot making sure everything is where it ought to be.

I did a few bits and pieces on the Malvern side of the tank wagon today, but only photographed the this updated bit of lettering, thanks to readers for kindly correcting me, much better now!