From Top To Bottom

It was sunny again today, so I took the opportunity to put a first coat of primer on all the exposed roof boards on the 277. The solar panels on the roof of the barn work pretty well. Here we see it when done. I'll want to put on a second coat of primer and probably some sort of finish coat. It then gets covered with roofing paper before the canvas goes on.

Now that I have all of the new seat frame castings drilled, let's see if they will really work. Here is one of the broken castings on a seat in the 309, after removal of the cushion and back. The arrow points to the missing piece of the track. The bracket for the seat back derails whenever it reaches this spot.

I removed the entire seat frame at this location. Here it is standing on end, with the broken casting removed (at the top). A test fit verified that the new casting will work just fine. But this particular seat has more than one problem. There are two arms (yellow arrows) connected to the center rod (red arrow). These arms mesh into the brackets on the seat back and should keep it straight. But one of them is bent, and the other is loose on the rod - notice that they don't line up the way they should. I will disassemble this frame and take the center rod assembly to the shop to be fixed by our metal-working experts.

These seat frames are more complicated than one might expect. The center rod has six castings attached, which rotate when the back is moved: two to keep the back straight, two to move the seat cushion, and two to move the foot rest. And the whole assembly seems to weigh slightly less than a ton!

The seat across from this one also had a broken casting, so I removed it too. I took the frame into the 321 for disassembly and replacement of some broken parts, for which I had spares. I evidently need to order some new hardware, too: 3/8 x 1 1/4 machine bolts with square heads and nuts. But I'm encouraged. It appears that these seat frame repairs should go pretty fast.

Between a seat frame and the wall I found this little relic of Tag Day 1939. It's a piece of cardboard about 3" square. On the back it just says "Thank You". I think the missing word is probably "Charities" and that this was some sort of annual fund raiser. Does anybody remember Tag Day?