Tuesday, January 21, 2014

36 Progress

No school yesterday, so I was back in the woodshop, working on windows for car 36.  #12 was taken to the car and installed, 15 and 16 got a second coat of primer on the outside and first finish on the inside, and 17 and 18 were sanded down to get rid of all that ugly red paint, and then got first primer on both sides.


And then I finished installing the lower tack molding on this side of the 319.  It still needs to be planed to shape along the upper edge.  The big halogen lights seen here do a good job of illuminating the work.  If I were about 2" taller, my head would be hitting the fixture as I stand on the scaffold.

And one of the repro first aid boxes was installed in the 36.  It looks nice.  Of course, the whole interior needs to be repainted.

And I spent some time moving things around, throwing away more trash, and so on.  There are always lots of little tasks like that to keep one busy. 

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Randall,
That is the first interior photo of the #36 I have seen.

Please keep them coming!

If it is divided in to two compartments; two pictures please!

Ted Miles
IRM Member

Randall Hicks said...

Ted: I already have a few interior pictures posted in the CA&E photo album, but I can easily take more.

Anonymous said...

Randall,
I looked at the C, L & E album that you suggested yesterday. The Interurban sure liked to spread paint in the post war years! I guess that is a good thing as the primary purpose of paint is to protect the wood in the cars.

It is too bad though that they covered up so much fine cabinet wood work. I like hard wood to be stained not painted.

Maybe some day one of the earliers cars can be back-dated. Of course you will always have work to do on wooden cars.

Thanks for all that you do!

Ted Miles
IRM Member

Logan said...

Hello Randall when I saw that picture of the first aid box inside 36 I do have to say something my eyes immediately went to the beautiful stained wood that I believe will get painted over. I understand completely why, but like Ted wrote I think (Then again I am only talking in my nicely heated home not working in the cold)that some of the cars should be backdated. This is just my personal opinion but I think it would show how in the past they cared about how thinks look when they transported people.

Randall Hicks said...

I certainly sympathize with what you're saying -- the original varnished woodwork would be preferable by far from an esthetic standpoint. But there are various reasons why we're unable to backdate the cars that far.

Among other things, once the wood has been painted, it's nearly impossible to strip completely. It's not obvious from the picture of the 36, but the few small areas that were stripped at Cleveland as a test still have paint in the grain. From up close, it will just never look right. So for the 36, 308, and 319 we're stuck with the entirely painted interiors.

The 309 was one of the few cars that still had stained and varnished woodwork up until the end, and so it will remain. At some point it would be nice to complete the interior of the FW&WV 504, and that would be our best example of a wooden interurban as built. And then there are a couple of steam road cars, such as the Ely and the B&M diner, that have nice wood interiors. So we do have some examples.