Walkover Wednesday

As I mentioned before, several of the walkover seats in the 309 need some attention.  This one had pulled out from the wall, and I had drilled and plugged the holes last time.  It took a while, but I got the frame reattached firmly.  And this is the only frame that was loose.  Fritz helped me with some of the hardware.

I took an inventory of the walkovers.  It appears that 13 of the 22 are now in good condition and work properly.  Some of the others can be fixed with better lubrication and/or some shims, but in a few cases serious repairs are needed. 

Some of the frames have bent or broken parts, or don't mesh properly.  Luckily, we have several good frames that we got from Mid-Continent a few years ago, and they may be the solution.

And I never pass up a chance to go into teacher mode.  Here we see a good frame.  Most of the movable parts of the frame are identified with red letters.  A is the center rod, which rotates when the back is moved back or forth.  The back is attached to the two brackets labeled C, and those brackets move in grooves in the stationary frames at each end.  Bracket C has a vertical slot in which a pin attached to the top of lever B rides up and down.  The two levers B are attached to rod A, and this is designed to keep the back parallel to the axis of rotation.  But for various reasons, the pins in lever B get worn out and come out of the slot, or lever B gets bent.  And then bracket C can come out of the grooves, and things go awry.  (Aside: just to make things more complicated, we also have parts that move brackets D back and forth to change the position of the seat cushion, and to move the footrests back and forth.  This will be on the next quiz!)

But enough of that.  Here's a picture of the new wall for the White Castle facade, to give you a better idea of how it's arranged relative to the existing buildings.  This will be a big improvement to the neighborhood!

Meanwhile, back in Barn 4, the guys were working on Michigan Electric 28.  The ceiling will be in two layers, and you can see that the first has been attached.  The second layer is being prepared, and will be glued onto the first. Here Pete is working on stripping paint from the bulkhead.

And in the other direction, facing aft, there's still a lot to do, but they're making great progress.

Here Fritz is working on refinishing trim parts for the 28's interior.

And Tim was hard at work preparing new seats for the 1268.

And, of course, several other things were going on.  It's never a dull day at IRM.