With a few hours' work, we were able to complete most of the work required on the reverser for car 36. Rod Turner supplied some special putty for building up the broken part of the insulator board, and fixed and reassembled it. It looks good and should be strong enough to stand up to the forces imposed by the fingers as the frame rocks back and forth.
I sand-blasted all of the surface rust and crud off the rocker frame itself, as seen here. It was probably always bare metal, but we decided it couldn't hurt to paint it with Glyptal, an insulating varnish. I also scraped all of the old Glyptal off the transite boards and repainted them, as seen here.
And I polished up all of the brass fingers. With a couple of trips out to the car, I managed to free up a frozen rocker arm, so all the moving parts now move freely. Here the kit is laid out on the table.
Finally, the rocker assembly was put back together, and looks like this. Notice that the spray version of Glyptal has a different color than the brush version. But it's ready to go back on the car.
I hadn't been out to Barn 2 for quite a while. Repainting of the 451 is nearly complete, except for one end, and it looks great!
These pictures are the best I could do with the ambient lighting. Note that this is the original 1945 paint scheme, so the grey color is different from the other red cars, more like the grey on the blue cars. 
It will be an interesting contrast. And Jon Fenlaciki is still working relentlessly on the windows.
It will be an interesting contrast. And Jon Fenlaciki is still working relentlessly on the windows.
And here is Jim West, needle-chipping the CGW combine, als0 in Barn 2. What a huge job!So in conclusion, we wish everybody a safe, prosperous, and happy New Year! Stay well, and don't do anything I would do!
8 comments:
451 looks astonishingly factory fresh. What a terrific asset to the CAE collection and a tribute to your over all efforts, as well as the road itself. I can recall being crestfallen seeing the line ripped up for purely personal reasons, and seeing the roster you folks have repatriated and restored, is something I could have never anticipated then. Kudos to you and all of the folks who make the improbable... possible.
Thanks, Bruce. We appreciate the support we get from everybody. A lot of work goes on that isn't always reported. Publicizing all the various activities would almost be a full-time job in itself.
I would like to recognize the effort and thank Randy for his news site. I can only imagine the time it must take, as I try to do similar posts on the IRM BLOG site, and know what that takes for me, a slow, doddering old man. But folks need to see what is happening to appreciate the work of our greatest resource, the VOLUNTEERS. I wish all departments would participate as it also makes a good archival record of plans and progress.
Bob Kutella
Since you are backdating the paint to 1945, I hope that means sans-serif letting and numbering as well as red letters on a gray background for the letterbord instead of the later yellow serif letters used when the CAE repainted the car.
Edward J. Maurath
Yes, certainly. Frank had a post somewhere about tracing the sans serif lettering but I haven't had time to find it yet.
The original style lettering is a Futura-style lettering. (Think Union Pacific in the streamliner era).
Frank's post is here:
http://hickscarworks.blogspot.com/2010/02/back-to-futura.html
Had the lettering been a sans serif font, I think "I Shot the Serif, but I didn't shoot the Deputy" would have been an appropriate title.
Sepaking of Futura, I did see the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra perform Orf's O Futura on New Year's Eve, but that's a different story.....
Ah, that's what I was thinking of. Thanks, David.
Actually, I believe that would have been "O Fortuna" from Orff's Carmina Burana. Last time we did Carmina, we had to have the whole first movement memorized. O Fortuna, velut Luna statu variabilis.... or words to that effect.
Randy.
Showoff....
David
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