Thursday Thrills

This year's Train of Terror certainly frightens me -- how about you?

 

But seriously, let's get back to work on the roof mats for the 714.  Some of the wood I found in storage could be put to use as (partial) patterns, so I took some time to calculate the exact sizes of hardwood I'll need for the saddles.

And because of the way the saddles sit on the roof, some of them need to be cut at an angle, which averages out to about 8 degrees.  The work will be 8/4 hardwood, which can only be cut on the big bandsaw.  Unfortunately, the big bandsaw doesn't have a tilting table, so I decided to make my own, using some of our supply of scrap wood.  This tilted wooden frame just clamps onto the actual table, and can easily be removed.

And then, to prove it works, I cut out a small piece of scrap wood as a model of the actual saddle.  Note that this piece has sharper curves than the prototype, so everything should be fine.

I admit that it would be better to have an adjustable table, but that would take a lot more work.  This will serve its purpose for the current project.  And for that matter, if this were about forty years ago, I could just ask my old friend Dennis Storzek to make the parts for me.  And somehow he would figure out how to do it with whatever tools were available, and in an hour or two the parts would be finished and fit perfectly.  Those were the days.  But for us ordinary schmoes, it will take longer.

And later, after the rain had passed, I painted the other sandblasted baggage rack for the 453.  The next challenge will be to get them back into the car for storage.  By the way, I noticed that Rustoleum has a finish color in rattle cans called "Island Coral" but it's way too pink.  Eventually we'll have to match CA&E Coral for the 451 and 453.  For this rack I used a color called Canvas White.  Whatever.

John Sheldon continued working on the moldings for the 306.  He's really making good progress.  He also gave me some advice on using the steam chamber for bending the slats for the North Shore roof mats.

All four arched corner windows have their glass cut, and molding strips in place.

I don't know how thrilling that all was, but at least you always get your money's worth.