36 Report

Another day was spent painting the interior of the 36. 

After the morning was spent in stripping and sanding, the right side of the bulkhead got a first coat of primer.  I'm thinking I'll basically work east to west rather than top to bottom, as I did on the smoker.  On this side of the bulkhead, there was a lot of alligator skin, so a second coat of primer will definitely be needed, and in some places a third.

But now it's time for a break, so let's go look at the new barns.  They may never be this clean and neat again!

(L) Carl was hard at work smoothing out and distributing the gravel and rock.

 While I was walking around the west end of the barns, I noticed a car parked on the road, with the driver taking pictures.  I went over to talk to him; they were a couple of visitors, one from South Dakota, who wanted to visit, but of course the Museum is closed.  They looked like honest sorts, so I explained where to go to press the button and talk to Jan, who let them in.  I later showed them where to find the office, so they could drop off a donation.  So that worked out well.

 

After a couple more hours, the entire bulkhead has a first coat of primer, except for the bottom half of the pocket door.

 

And that got done by the end of the day.  So I'm hoping to keep on schedule. 

As an historical note, the thermostat is a different color from the rest of the interior, but has some remnants of the tan paint on top of the blue-green color.  This may be the best sample we have  of the previous interior color (1939-1946), which is stuck in the grain in many places as seen at right.  We probably will never go back to the earlier paint scheme, for several reasons, so when I get to the thermostat I will probably just put a coat of finish color over it without stripping or primer, and hope for the best.  Unless somebody has a better idea.