Thursday in Brief

 As usual, I spent most of the day painting the interior of the Jewell Road shelter. It's coming along well.

John, Gerry, and Phil continued to work on the 306.   They pointed out that as built, the car had a orange color paint on the floor, which can be found by careful sanding.  So that's what they want to reproduce.

Here we see Gerry sanding down the floor of the smoker:

And John was painting seat frames.

Tim is installing the nice new ceiling panels in the 1268.

And as usual, other things were going on all across the property.  IRM never sleeps.

Curtain Time

The curtains have been installed in Barn 4 to keep the eastern two-thirds of the building relatively warm for work during cold weather.  This is basically the same as the system used in Barn 2.

One of the current major projects is the 306, of course.  Here John is working on painting up the rebuilt seat frames.

And in the barn, Gerry and Phil are getting the door motors to work.  Here's the main compartment, with lots of new interior paneling.

They demonstrated the door motor for me, but with the clamps to the drive shaft loosened so the door leaves don't actually move while adjustments are being made.  But it's bound to work.  I can't wait!!!

And Tim was installing two more of the newly varnished ceiling panels in the 1268, with some help from Steve Iversen, Gerry, and me.

This is going to look great.

Finally, I need to level with you.  It's always been obvious (if you're there in person) that the Jewell Road shelter was sort of tilted, and the temporary blocks it was sitting on were torquing the structure.  That's the sort of challenge I like, so I calculated the required lifts required at each corner, and made blocks at home to insert underneath.  Then with a small jack and sufficient leverage, I was able to raise it up to a more level position.  Using an ordinary carpenter's level, this is probably the best you can do.  For its permanent location at the corner of Jewell Road and Diamond Lane, we'll have the use of more accurate leveling tools to provide a secure and level foundation.

And then I had some time to do more interior painting.

That's all for today, folks!

Friday Focus

For Friday we have only a brief report.  As you might expect, Tim continues making progress on the ceiling of the 1268.  It's really looking nice.  He has varnished the panels for the center ceiling, but they were drying in the Lean-Zero, and I don't have a picture -- yet.

Looking as good as new:

Frank Kehoe (not shown) was out, and spent some time polishing up the ceiling light fixtures, as seen here.  These also look brand new!

I spent my time sanding down more parts of the interior of the Jewell Road shelter, and painting them.  It looks pretty nice if I may say so myself, especially when compared to its previous sorry condition.

The room is so small, it's hard to get a good perspective.

Start to Finish

On Tuesday I could finally start to finish the interior of the Jewell Road shelter with a first coat of the interior paint.  I think it looks quite good, and with modern technology, paint matching generally gives excellent results.  The lower part of the wall got a coat of white primer first, so it was still wet.

The next picture was taken before I started working on the east wall (on the right).  Of course, these phone-camera pictures are not as good as seeing it in person.  But if you don't like this match, you're pretty hard to please.

I got permission to remove a large section from a different shelter that had been in the way, so I was able to start working on the interior east wall.

And parts of the roof:

And finally, the east wall started to get white primer:

So that was rewarding.  Meanwhile, I wasn't able to get many pictures of what else was going on, but several of the usual weekday guys were at their usual weekday work.  Frank Kehoe brought out the patterns we talked about yesterday, but I think they've already been identified, so I won't bother with more pictures.

But here's the current status of the 1268 interior:

Tim is hard at work preparing the veneer for the center ceiling.  He had this made on special order.  Getting it stained and varnished properly is a challenge.

Here are some views of his laboratory.  Various combinations of stain, sealer, varnish, and so on are being tested by our trained expert technicians.  Or one of him, at least.

Eventually it will look great!

Thursday Brief

 Never a day goes by but that things are getting better and better here at IRM.  I was mostly working down south at Jewell Road, so only a couple of views of people in the car shop.

Gerry continues working on parts for rebuilding the 306 seat frames.   Phil was working on parts for the door motors, but I don't have a picture.

Several new pieces of interior siding for the Jewell Road shelter were cut to length and painted.

Tim was staining interior trim parts for the 1268.

And after some work, the rear wall of the shelter is looking more complete.

Several pieces of the roof have been replaced; I'm not sure whether that was done at Johnson's or here by the B&G guys.  In any case, it is evident that there was no ceiling as such, but the inside of the roof was painted the same color as the walls.

So that's going to take some work if we ever want to have the shelter open for visitors, which I think is the ultimate plan.

Quick Update from Monday

 On Monday I took a few quick snapshots of active projects.

Tim continues refinishing woodwork for the 1268.

Pete and Fritz have been working on this door.

And this is a new baggage door for the Michigan Electric 28.

Here we see Fred and John painting seat frames for the 306.

Finally, I spent all day making and installing new siding pieces for the interior of the Jewell Road shelter.  

Thursday Report

I now have a lakeside cabin with none of the comforts of home, but the lease rates are reasonable, so I hope you're all envious.  Watch your step, and let's check it out. 

Hmm, if these walls could talk, they'd be asking for 9-1-1.

After a few hours of work, new woodwork is going in place, and getting another coat of primer.  And after it was done, I decided that I really ought to replace at least the rest of the paneling in the upper-right corner of this picture.  The problem in situations like this is knowing when to stop.  However, in this case the other three interior walls of the structure are not too bad, so maybe the end is in sight.

I've also had a gallon of paint matched to the final original color, so once the weather warms up a bit I'll be able to start repainting the interior.

Meanwhile, the other weekday projects were going along nicely.  On the 306, Phil continues to work on arranging the woodwork for the door engines, so the piping can go back in next week.

Gerry and John continue work on the seat frames.

And Tim continues on the interior of the 1268.  The ceiling of the east vestibule is being stripped:

The west vestibule has already been stained, and looks ready for varnish.