Metalworking for a Change

As usual, there were lots of things going on today, most of which I probably missed.  I'm still working on the #1 vestibule of the 36, and progress is still slow.  Let's start by recording the black lettering on red for posterity.  The control switch doesn't seem to have any blue paint or yellow lettering; evidently during the blue period it was painted black without lettering. ???

By the end of the day I was able to put primer on several areas, although it may not look like much.   I also put all of the seat cushions back in place in the main compartment.  So that gives the appearance of progress.  Even in the dim ambient light, the interior looks so much better than it did a year ago.

Let's go over to the car shop and spy on other people.  Aha, Paul Cronin has agreed to sand-blast the motor truck for the 24 if we'll move it over to the Coach Dept. area, so here Tim and he are guiding Gerry, who's driving the big forklift.  

The forklift clears the trolley wire by a matter of inches.

If Paul is having second thoughts about this project, he doesn't let on.

And in a couple of hours or so, the job is done.  I hope they got it back into the barn before the rain started! 

Pete shows us a new interlock mechanism for the Charles City Western locomotive.  This interlock was missing, and Pete has fabricated the new frame and other insulating parts (the parts painted black).   It looks great -- a very impressive job.

But most of my time was occupied with making new support brackets for the window signs, as mentioned last time.  Tim helped a lot with this project, since I had helped with moving the truck.  He's qualified on the big metal bandsaw and I'm not, so he did the hard part of cutting the blanks out of a scrap piece of steel we dug up. 

Then I have to trim the edges, cut the slots with the hand-held grinding wheel, and drill the holes.

Then the steel can be bent cold, if you have a big enough hammer and lots of latent hostility.

And when we get the brackets home, the signs fit in perfectly.  So that's quite rewarding.