Riveting News!

All you woodworkers out there may be scratching your heads: "What's a rivet?" Today was a lesson in metal working -- much of it what not to do, I guess. That's a big part of education!

First, I disassembled the 309 seat frame pictured last time and took the rod to the car shop for repair. Wayne Baksic ran the torch to heat up the bent casting and straighten it out. I removed the loose casting on the other end, and after a while managed to drive out the fragments of the broken rivet holding it to the rod, replace it, and peen it cold. That was the easy part.

Then I wanted to attach one of the new trolley harp assemblies to the pole so it can be installed on the 309. This turned out to be harder than we expected. The new castings are slightly smaller than the old, so they don't fit onto the pole quite right. The poles are tapered at the ends and needed to be ground down ever so slightly so the harps would fit. We tried three or four different methods to do this, but it was completed successfully by the time I needed to go home. Peening over the red-hot rivet as Rich ran the torch was an exciting climax. I was helped at various times by Bob Heinlein, Bob Kutella, Rich Schauer, Rod Turner, Buzz Morrisette, Tim Peters, and others too. Having learned a lot, I'm sure the next one will go much faster. Thanks, everybody!