Thursday, January 30, 2014

Hear the Wind Blow

More dreadful weather today, with cold and blowing snow howling across the frozen plains....  OK, that's enough whining, perhaps, but it is getting rather tiresome.  And Saturday is supposed to be worse.

Window work on the 36: 17 and 18 were installed in the car, as seen here; 19 and 20 got new paint on both sides, and 21 and 22 were removed from the car, sanded down, and painted with first primer on one side.  Then, because the blowing snow appeared to be getting worse, I decided to quit early and go home.  The first few miles were the worst, with near white-out conditions in several places.  But in the end all was well.


I noticed that Joel has painted three spare retrievers blue, which is more than I had expected.  Aren't they pretty?





And finally, when Rod is otherwise occupied, the Assistant Car Dept. Curator is always there to supervise the volunteers and make sure we don't get lonely.  I'm sure he's as eager for summer as the rest of us!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Randall,
First things first, what is the cat's name? He is a beauty!

When you sand down window frames; do you use that Berlin sanding machine that I have read about in R&W?

Or does it only work on unpainted wood?

Thank you for braving the winter blast to work on the cars!

Ted Miles
IRM Member

Randall Hicks said...

Ted: That is Mr. Socks, and he has been a Car Dept. volunteer for a long time. I don't remember exactly when he started. His main responsibility is to reduce the population of pests. So one of his hobbies is collecting "bird kits", as Bruneau would say.

For sanding off paint, we always use a hand-held sander, so the sandpaper can be changed out easily. It doesn't last long with this awful latex paint they used on the window frames. The Berlin sander is only for nice new wood, since its sandpaper drums are anything but easy to change out. Anybody who tried to sand paint off with the Berlin would be sentenced to a slow and painful death. Maybe by being run through the sander.

Anonymous said...

Randall,
Thamk you for introducing Mr. Socks. He looks quite bit like my tabby cat.

I thought it might be the case; I have seen people changing the sanding material in a modern drum sander and even with modern sanding materials it is no picnic.

Ted Miles