Canvas Report

Right now we have four, count 'em, four canvas roof projects in progress, and three of them were being worked on today, a Thursday.  We might as well begin with the 319, since this project was started most recently and is at the earliest stage.

Last Saturday Bob Kutella made up some molding strips for me, using the poplar we had bought a couple of years ago for this project.  These form the backing for the upper tack molding.  Here we see the first 16' or so installed and painted with white primer.  The interesting thing here is that the original wood this replaces was one continuous piece the length of the car, somewhere between 45 and 50 feet long!  We can't get wood that length these days, and if we could, I don't how we'd transport it, and then I don't know how we would go about milling a 50' long piece of wood.  Bob threatened to report me to the Restoration Standards Committee, then realized he was an accomplice, so thought better of it.  I just hope they don't find out.  I also worked on removing tacks from the flashing for the lower canvas for a while.  That is slow-going, and it is warm up near the roof of the barn.

Then I made a test installation of a section of the lower tack molding.  It looks good and should line up easily.  The outer surface is painted with primer, but will be painted black, and the upper edge will need to be planed to shape.  I'll bring out my jointer plane next time and start on this.

And then, having moved the scaffold off the sidewalk and between the cars, it was time to work some more on removing the tack molding around the end.  It is important not to destroy the old molding in doing this, since we'll need it as a pattern.  Most of the screws are impossible to remove, since they go through a metal plate and have rusted, so they need to be drilled out.  Once that is done, though, the molding can be removed without much damage.

 The roof of the 150 makes a convenient shelf for storing large parts from the end of the 319's roof.

While working today, I could hear shouting and sirens and explosions and other strange noises, and outside there was a pall of smoke over the Museum.  I sure hope it's nothing serious.

But while we're up here, across the aisle is the 1754, another Jewett built eight years earlier in 1906.  It is in reasonably good shape.  The upper roof has a covering of tar paper that hides the running boards and saddles.  This probably dates back to the days of Ray Neuhaus and George Hans. 

For the other projects, let's walk over to Barn 4.

As usual, Tim Peters is hard at work on the 24 (1024), and a lot of progress has been made on the wooden roof structure.  Right now he's working on fitting the unusual marker light castings for the corners.

The canvas has been stretched on Michigan Electric 28, and Norm Krentel is in the process of tacking it down.  You'll notice there's only one row of tacks: we usually have two rows with the tacks staggered, but this is the way Michigan Electric did it. 

And finally, the canvas on our CERA box trailer, LSE 810, has been completely tacked down and is ready for paint.  This is the only restored box trailer of its type.  

 

The end.