Scrub, Scrub

Frank writes...

Following the successful 70 for 70 Trolley Pageant last weekend, it's time to start working on the voluminous list we've been creating for things to do after the pageant! Shaker Heights 18 has plenty of work left to do, of course.

I started out by doing some Bondo and sanding work on the outside, though there isn't much of this left to do. Then it was time for a switch move. The 18 badly needs its roof repainted, and the first step is to wash off the years of dust and dirt that have accumulated. Above, you can see the 1374 and 4391 after they were moved to allow the 18 to emerge from its current home on track 73.

Thanks to Good Nick for this photo of yours truly washing off the roof with a sprayer and broom used as a scrub brush. Quite a bit of visible dirt was cascading down the side of the car during this operation! The car was moved to a spot on the streetcar line alongside Yard 2, at which point Nick turned off the 600V trolley power and locked and grounded it out so that I could work safely on the roof. Thanks to Nick and Joel for all their help with this!

The roof doesn't look all that different yet, just a bit less dusty, but I promise that once it's painted the results will be noticeable.

In other news, Zach, Nick, Greg, and a new volunteer named Zeke were working on air parts for the 749 while another new volunteer named Drew worked on repainting steps. I snapped a photo of the 1808 with its newly tacked roof canvas - Tim is making his usual rapid progress on this car. Bob and Mikey were also working on contactors for the 1565 while Gregg was laboring up on the roof of the 1702 and Joel was working on various necessary things.

Finally, an appeal for help: anyone have experience with rebuilding Eclipse fenders and similar designs? We'd like to hang one on the 18; technically it's correct with or without a fender during the "Bankers Grey" era, but it will look a lot more interesting with one. We have a fender in generally good condition but it needs new transverse pipes across the top and bottom of the "cushion" (yellow in the diagram below) and we also need to replace one front corner bracket (red in the diagram below - the other one is shown above). This is the only car at IRM that's supposed to have a fender of this type so we don't have any experience working with these things. Any advice is appreciated.