Barely a trace

Frank writes...

I was delayed on Sunday and didn't arrive at the museum until a bit after 4pm, but still managed to get some stuff done. My priority was tracing lettering off of the 453. This will allow us to continue with needle-chipping the exterior of the car, which is the next step on the long road that will eventually see the entire thing repainted.

The 453 is the last preserved CA&E car wearing its original Wheaton-applied paint job so we want to make sure to record all of the lettering as best we can. Both the 1946 Futura and 1950s-era Roman lettering styles are evident, and as distinctive as they each are it's not a problem to put both of them on the same tracing.

I got "CHICAGO" done and didn't have enough Mylar left on the roll to do "AURORA" so instead I did "ELGIN."

I had barely enough Mylar remaining to trace the number at the #1R corner of the car on the end. I'll want to trace at least one number off of the side of the car too, as the numbers on the end - especially here, next to the retriever - may be slightly compressed. This is the only place on the car where the original Futura number is in evidence at all, as they seem to have sanded it off in the other locations. It's time to order more Mylar!

Zach was working on inspecting CA&E 431, which he finished, and then late in the afternoon the 409 was brought over to begin its inspection work. Public operation begins in only three weeks so we need to have some cars inspected and ready to go.

Zach also unveiled our new roll signs, freshly delivered from Replica Blinds by PWC in France. The main roll sign here goes over one of the side doors on Shaker 18, while at bottom right is a sample using a different material. We liked that material better, as it's more uniform when light comes through it, so future signs will likely use that material.

Of course we had to temporarily stuff the 18's roll sign into the sign box just to see what it looks like. Neat! Photo courtesy of Zach Ehlers.

At the end of the day I cleaned up and primed the second "tin can" tail light housing for the 18, shown here, and scrounged the hardware that will be needed to assemble it. Once some paint is applied - black on the outside and silver on the inside of this thing, plus Bankers Grey on the castings - then both tail lights will be ready to reinstall on the car and this little project will be substantially done.