Inch By Inch

In order to replace the 319's roof canvas correctly, the copper flashing along the clerestory needs a lot of detail work.

Here's the "before" view.  The black material is what's left of the last Wheaton canvas job; the canvas is covered with tar (Liquinoleum).  At the bottom edge of the clerestory, and extending out an inch and a half, it's covered with a copper flashing, and over that is more tar and paint.  The tar can be pretty thick, at least 1/4" in places. So the nail heads are hard to find. 

In this cold weather, however, it may actually be easier, since the tar becomes brittle and peals off the flashing more easily, I think. 

After a lot of work, the canvas is gone, all the nails are removed, and most of the tar over the flashing is gone.  The new canvas can be shoved under the flashing and nailed down.

 

 I did about four windows worth of flashing, about a fourth of the length of the car on this side, so it should not take too long to finish the rest.

 

The next thing I'll need to do is install the lower tack molding.  We have all the wood on hand, I just need to finish painting it prior to installation.  Here it is in our nice warm wood shop.

 

And as long as we have the primer out, I might as well paint the third rail shoe assembly that was wire-wheeled by the Buck brothers last week. It may be hard to see in this picture, but the shoe is heavily worn.  Luckily that won't really matter.

It's so cold out, it seems like a good time to think about sleet scraping.  This sleet scraper from Trolleyville was attached to a beam that was almost gone.  I managed to drag it in from the snow, and after a little chopping all the rotten wood was easily removed.  Now it just needs to be wire-wheeled also.

Here you get a better view of what it looks like from the inside.  

And while we're on the subject of third rails, here's our vintage gauge for checking whether interchange freight cars will clear the third rail.  What a nifty device.

In more somber news we were saddened to hear that Bob Kutella is in hospital.  He was badly injured at home while shoveling snow.  Let us all hope he can recover quickly.

Finally, here's a picturesque sunset, looking out over the frozen fields.  Stay warm!