Fender Progress

Frank writes...

Sunday was another day of rapid progress on the 18's fender, thanks to Frank Kehoe, who was out during the week and out again Sunday to keep things moving.

The photo above was taken by Frank on Thursday of last week, after he chipped, wire wheeled, and primed the basket for the new fender. This was a big job and helps move the whole assembly much closer to being ready for a coat of gloss black finish paint!

On Sunday, Frank started out by chipping the "fence" that mounts vertically to the back of the basket and protects the front dash of the car. He also bent and fitted more of the straps and loops that will attach the basket to the pipe frame of the fender and primed these straps, as shown above.

After he chipped most of the paint off the "fence," I wire-wheeled it down to bare metal. In the back left of the above photo you can see the basket standing up against a crate; we successfully test-fit some of the new metal strap loops. With help from Joel, I also got some bad-order air hoses from a storage bin and cut them to length. They'll thread over the bottom, or front, pipe on the fender frame, which looks ugly but was a consistent Shaker Heights practice during the 1940s and 1950s.

After dinner, I sprayed primer on one side of the "fence." This is the side that will face the dash of the car; next I'll need to flip this over and prime the other side. In other news, Zach figured out that the chain used to hold up the front corners of this fender - of which we only have a short, very rust-eaten, section - was basically a variety of what's called "sash chain." It's still available, or at least we should be able to get something close. That's good news.

In other news, here we see Richard and another volunteer reattaching the trolley poles to Milwaukee trolley bus 441 over in the Hoffman garage.

And later in the day, here's Richard again on the left, with Greg on the right, removing the trolley wire trough from what used to be the east end of Barn 4. The trough had a "dip" in it at this point to get the wire under the door lintel, which is lower than the rafters, but since this door (and, I guess, lintel?) is going away, it makes more sense to have the trolley wire trough proceed straight east at a consistent level. In other news, Thomas and Ashton were working on rebuilding governors while Joel and Nick were working on various department projects. Others including Zach, Steven J, and my father were in train service for HHR (see previous post).