Progress Report

Another two days of work saw minor projects completed on all five wooden interurban cars under our supervision.  Let's see, in no particular order:

 

308: Frank is making a new grid box, and the frame was primed on Tuesday and painted black on Wednesday.

319: The toilet ventilator was partly rusted out, so I patched it up at home and brought it out for installation.

The inside cover was installed with new screening, although that may not be obvious from this picture.

36: More cleaning and painting, although nothing worth taking a picture of, I guess.  Sorry.

309: A loose interior molding strip needed to be reattached.  Part of one section of molding seems to never have gotten its fair share of nails.  Nobody's perfect.  Anyway, this can be fixed with sufficient care.

We start with a table of measurements taken in 1986, when the ceiling was being installed after the fire.  Notice that the numbers are different for each sector; wooden car builders tried not to make things more consistent than absolutely necessary.

 

With the molding pulled down out of the way, small brads are driven through the panel (behind where the molding will be) to verify that the carlines are indeed where predicted.

And then pilot holes are drilled and the nails are driven and countersunk to hold the wood securely.  I need to get some new wood putty of the right sort and do a little finishing. 

150: I installed a new latch to hold the sign box in place more securely, and then painted the new wood with the finish color.

Today (Wednesday) was cold and damp, so some of the planned finish painting was put off, but there were plenty of minor things to keep busy with. 

Our grading contractors are certainly keeping busy with new construction in the Schroeder area, a combination of Main St. extension and parking.