Easy Does It

It isn't often that a project turns out to be much easier than expected, but it does occur on rare occasions.   Now that the 714 roof mat project is done, our next customer will be CA&E 460 to get a new roof.  That move is currently planned for this Saturday.  But one thing I could do beforehand, over in Barn 6, was to drop the center ceiling panel in the #1 vestibule, so that the roof cables can be pulled down and then pushed back up after the new canvas is in place.  

On both the 451 and 453 this took days of effort.  The steel panels were held in place with Phillips machine screws, and almost all of them were rusted in place.  Many of them had to be drilled out or ground down, and it was hard to do working straight up.  And these panels have about five times as many screws as I would have thought necessary.

Imagine my surprise to find that the panels in the 460 were held in place with slotted machine screws, all of which came loose without undue effort - mainly using my brace and bit.  Why this car is different is anybody's guess, but I was glad to take what comes.

Actually dropping the panel is not feasible for one person to do, so I left it in place, still held by a few screws here and there, as seen below.  And since the car still needs to run itself over to Barn 4, it's probably better to wait until it's in the roof booth before exposing the attic with its power cables.  Come to think of it, this would be an excellent project for the second shift!

So a project that was expected to take days was done in 1 1/2 hours.  Nice!

But wait, you can't go home yet.  There are always more things to do here at IRM.  I got out the wire wheel and cleaned up the other half of the 36's compressor cradle, then painted it with primer.  It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it.  I guess.

By afternoon it was pretty warm on the upper level in the barn, so I was able to touch up the lobster trap at the west end with spray paint.  There were some places on the saddles that were still in primer, if you look closely, and I did what I could.

Afterwards it looked better.  Even if you can't see this from the ground, the car will be operating in the rain at times, and I want to protect the wood as much as possible.

And here it is with its ropes attached and cleated properly.   Ready for service!

OK, let's see what the others are doing.  John Sheldon was making new saddles for the 306.

And Paul Hough was needle-chipping and cleaning the roof ventilators.

Tim continues to work on the 1808 -- these are parts of the clerestory ends.  

And Gerry was doing more body and fender work on the end of the car.

When he's done, it should be good as new.

And by the way, a note on technology.  I've been dragged against my will into the 21st century by the phone provider, so I now have an actual smart phone with a built-in camera.  And I used it today to take these pictures.  It seems to work well enough, but I still have my old SLR that I could probably put into service if I had to....