Grinding Away

To begin with, the big news is that the first pair of new bearings for the 309 should be ready today.   Frank Kehoe, who lives near the foundry, will pick them up and bring them out to the Museum.  Then we can start on the machining process.  I can hardly wait!

But since waiting is necessary, most of yesterday was spent working on the 306.  There's still a lot of parts to be sorted out, and among other things we found a number of window shades and parts from other cars, such as the 972 and 354.  These were set out so that they can actually be used one of these days.

And we were greatly helped by a new member, Chuck Meter.  He's been out for a couple of Saturdays, and since he's recently retired he has weekdays free, so Wednesday is a good time to come out and help.   Here he is placing new tongue and groove floorboards found in the car in temporary storage.

I used the lift to store several parts from the 306 on one of the top shelves.

Meanwhile, Chuck did some more vacuuming inside the car. 

And the end got washed, a little.  It actually used to be worse.  Note that the car has the all-important can crusher mounted again.

And here's a view of the roof from the scaffold.  Most of it looks pretty good, at least from a distance.

Except that the #2 end needs to be patched.

The #1 end is still complete.

Speaking of roofs, next door Jon Fenlaciki is working on the 65.

He writes:  Attached photo shows work being done to the roof boards. After nearly 85 years, many nails and screws have rusted to  a point where they can easily be pulled out with your fingers. As a result, many boards are popping up. So new screws are replacing the rusted screws to secure the boards. 

At Gerry's request, Chuck and I then started removing rivets so rusted-out metal can be removed and new pieces installed, with welding being done as needed by Gerry.   We started on one of the arched windows at the end of the car.   This took a while, but we're making good progress.

Here Chuck is running the grinder.

And in a photo by Jon, I'm taking a turn at it:

And after punching out what's left of the rivets, it looks like this.

Meanwhile, as usual other projects are being worked on in the shop.   Jack has a large pile of window frames from the GB&W car, and Rich Witt is helping him repair them.

Buzz demonstrates the use of a cordless drill.  If you want your picture on this blog, all you have to do is ask.

And so on.  The main take-away from today's lesson is that we can always use more help, and welcome new volunteers who are willing to work.  Any questions?