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Friday, February 3. 2012Wood Shop Update - February 1, 2011 Weatherstripping I resisted titling this image with the ubiquitous WINDOW caption. But Roger Kramer is installing weatherstripping on some of the nearly finished shop made windows for the GLEN SPRINGS  Photos Henry Vincent is project manager for our proposed model railroad display and he cannot wait to get to work. He has hand made frames for many of the pictures from the layout in Milwaukee and they now provide 'shop art' in our new addition to the shop space.  Painting Some view painting as a necessary evil at best, but it is a critical step to restoring and preserving equipment. George Clark is painting the first coat of finished orange on new siding for Lake Shore Electric 810.  Repairs Henry Vincent is discussing a repair to a baggage wagon tongue with Victor Humphreys. It looks they are enjoying this too much for words.  A Chiseler Last weekend Jon Fenlaciki caught me in the act of fitting new mortise and tenon joints, paring wood carefully by hand with a chisel. Not really news, but here I am - guilty as charged. Friday, February 3. 2012TMS Project Update - February 1, 2012 Truck Work Gerry Dettloff works on fabricating new rods for the rebuilding of the truck on TM 972, and my camera tagged this image as number 972! Work continues on a regular basis for this truck. Most of the dismantling is done and now the hard part is to fabricate pieces to reassemble it.  Pins New ground for us is to fabricate and heat treat the hardened pins needed to replace time worn pins in the truck assembly. Gerry is set up to cut some new rod, and Rod Turner has a new small furnace for doing the required heat treating in stages. Very impressive for our restoration specialists! Monday, January 30. 2012CTS 4223 Update - January 28, 2012 Making Tracks Not exactly making them, but trying to make them new again. Lorne Tweed and Eric Lorenz are going over a pile of them, trying to set aside the hopeless ones. I think there are seven different varieties of these parts for ONE WINDOW, making the scope of this something north of 200 pieces.  Let There be Light On the carbody out in the barn, Eric Lorenz continues to install trim and more parts. The headlight is now complete visually, although a new reflector bowl inside and the bulb and wiring remain.  A Step Up The last of the two fold up steps to the roof have come back form the painter and are now installed just to the rear of the mid car exit doors. Eric checks the last screws to be sure they are secure.  Windows What would any of these posts be without the ubiquitous window work? Keith Letsche returned to the shop and is working on reducing the large pile of sash that remain to be cleaned, and coated with clear finish. Friday, January 27. 2012Wood Shop Update - January 25, 2011I think I would like to start this report with some eye candy. And I will lump together many projects in this one entry rather than constructing many of only an image or two.  Archeology Victor Humphreys is holding a stained glass window from a heavyweight Pullman car that Buzz Morisette has expertly restored. This and a few others, were found in a forgotten dusty corner of an IRM storage boxcar by Roger Kramer, painted over and looking poorly. Buzz stripped, cleaned, and refinished this to be glowing example of the carbuilder's design and craft. Victor did some research. Apparently these were stripped from a car we did not acquire, one in very poor shape and destined for the scrapper's torch. It is a good thing these were saved, even if we had no car that needed them. This is from Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe 1332, the SAN MIGUEL, built as a library buffet car in Pullman lot 4254. The car was converted by Santa Fe to a coach combine, used as the caboose on some branchline mixed trains and regrettably was not saved. But a STUNNING example for display someday at IRM.  Bushings In the most recent TMS Project entry I mentioned the work being done to renew and rebuild the trucks. John Faulhaber is holding a brake lever showing the three new hardened bushings installed. Thanks to some expert work and machinist skills from Rod Turner, all four of these levers are complete, and additional replacement of bushings continues. Installing each one of these new bushings is not a trivial home hobbyist workbench project!  On Track Lorne Tweed is cleaning and repairing window tracks for our PCC project, CTS 4223. A dusty pursuit, and one requiring quite a bit of time and patience for each set. 30 plus sets required!  14 Windows Buzz Morisette continues on 14 windows for ATSF 1400. The gluing, sanding, and assembly is about done, ready to begin painting and glazing.  Cooperation Ted Anderson stopped by, from our Pullman Library. Any project usually involves a lot of input and effort from several different departments at IRM. The Wood Shop is creating new windows for the Steam Department (N&W 2050), and Ted is using cadd files created by us to print full sized templates for the new sash.  Tricky Victor Humphreys is focused on cutting some tricky two tongued tenons for one of our current projects  Some Assembly Required Victor and John F have made the first assembly of a new door, to test fit and see how it is beginning to shape up. Tuesday, January 24. 2012ATSF 2524 Combine May 2009 Restoration UpdateThis car was last run about 2004, give or take. It was hoped to be used off property for the movie Flag of Our Fathers! Well, upon wheel inspection it was found to have a thin wheel thus the Bad Order tag. We have never fixed the problem by replacing the wheel set! That's the background. After that the conversation started going around to replace the newer seats with the correct walkover style and make it a real Santa Fe combine again. Work began by removing the more modern seats on one side then assessing the situation. One thing rolled into another and Mark Hoffman began needlechipping the wall from sill downward to floor. After much sanding, grinding, primering by Mark, I finally topcoated the area with Sherwin-Williams paint that Shelly Van der Schagen had matched from old color samples. The below pictures were taken in May 2009 and are the results of the teams efforts. In the meantime Mike Baksic and Ray Moorman found the correct style of seat frame. 12 frames, I believe, have now been stripped and repainted to the matched color. Shelly has done a fine job repainting all the frames. They are now stored in the baggage section for future installation. In 2010 work continued but this time removing the seats on the opposite side, Mike, Ray and Mike's dad, Wayne, joined in this task. Mark,again, went through the process of needlechipping etc. The following pictures I took during and after the last paint job. Both walls are now painted.  Primer Applied Side wall of ATSF 2544 after being primed. The same day it will be painted with 2 coats of paint. All in a days work, May 19,2009.  Just Painted The first green top coat is still wet. Notice additional plastic to cover area not being painted. It takes more work to mask than to paint. Again May 19 2009  Finished Job Interior paint job completed! All work accomplished in one day in May 2009. Job well done by Roger! Now on to the next project of repairing the floor. Now you say 'installation of seat frames can begin'. NO not yet!! Lastly, Shelly, Mike and coach dept member John McKelvey are going to purchase new linoleum to finish and repair the floor. When that's complete installation of frames will begin. Next...... new wheels. I hope! Roger Monday, January 23. 2012Steam Department Update 1-22-2012The snow made for a pretty quiet weekend at the steam shop. Only a couple of brave souls made it to Union and Saturday. I got there Sunday along with Tom, Jason and Brian. Jason and Brian made good progress on cleaning and needle chipping most remaining areas of the boiler and the various pipes running along the outside of the boiler ready for testing.
The area remaining to be cleaned off is the one that everyone dreads - the underside of the barrel. This is the real fun area requiring that you crawl under the boiler and brush / needle chip directly above where you are lying - gravity then ensures that most of what you remove lands on you!!. I just about completed the set up for swaging ready to bring tubes in from the box car. However that will now be of lesser priority than getting the inside of the boiler sand blasted. Potential contractors for sand blasting are not willing to do the boiler interior at a reasonable price so we need to do it ourselves. Given that this will require several days use of a respirator helmet and subsequent use for welding inside 1630's tender, we have acquired a suitable pump. It is now the first priority to set the boiler up so that dust is generally contained within it and can be exhausted outside the shop. The we can get on with the job. I also got the help of Bob Kutella on modifying the timbers of the McCabe flanger so that it can be moved more easily. Unfortunately this requires timber that we could not get on a Sunday so hopefully that will be done next week. No report from me next weekend as I am in Florida for a week. Let's hope that we have a lot to report in 2 weeks. Nigel Monday, January 23. 2012TMS Project Update - January 22, 2012Work continues on this exciting project, with the hope of having TM 972 back on its trucks and operating at IRM this season.  Truck Work Norm Krentel and Jeff Brady are working on one of the trucks from beneath this car while the wheel and axle sets are out at a shop. This is a golden opportunity to do what amounts to a substantial rebuild of the truck, while the wheels and motors are out for work. The frame is inside our shop, so winter weather is not an issue. Unlike a model railroad truck consisting of three molded pieces, there are literally over one hundred parts and pieces. Over time, some of those become worn. They may still work for a while yet, but the clock is ticking with every additional service mile logged. So the prudent decision is to the repair or replacement of items showing substantial wear and which are badly out of spec. Current efforts involve still more dismantling of the many pieces, but right now we are focusing on "pins and bushings". The brake rigging in particular involves several levers, rods, and assemblies which must pivot and move when the brakes are applied. Each of those joints usually is held together by a hardened steel pin which rides inside a hardened steel bushing. The bushing is a press fit into the respective casting it resides in. All of that work is well along the way. Remember this an active project, and as with any project, unforeseen work may become apparent along the way. In this case we have made the decision to replace many of the pins and bushings, assuring decades of relatively trouble free operation. But that also means purchasing many of those parts, those we do not have as spares in inventory. And this is the first truck, the other awaits the same treatment. So we are not at the final cost and donations are still appreciated. The restricted fund is RTMS and your generous donation and support guarantees you are PARTICIPATING in this progress. |
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Comments
Mon, 01-30-2012 13:01
Lorne really looks excited to be working on those windows fixtures too.
Mon, 01-30-2012 02:10
Any chance the 9908 will have its 4 port side windows replaced that BN removed when the E9 was rebuilt for commuter service? Also its missing mars [...]
Sun, 01-29-2012 15:56
The layout that was donated and moved to IRM will occupy 2500 sq ft and is HO scale. We are a long way from getting the building designed, financed, [...]
Sun, 01-29-2012 07:02
What scale would the layout be? Or will there be more than one scale? Example O scale HO scale and so on. I have some cars that are O scale that [...]
Mon, 01-23-2012 19:57
The last time I saw the 33C it didnt even have body panels. I'd say its better to tackle the smaller jobs and get the locomotives out there rather [...]
Sun, 01-22-2012 15:02
Hello everyone, I'm an IRM member who lives up in Minnesota. I have an HO Guage Digitrax DCC powered layout at home. My interests are primarily the [...]
Tue, 01-17-2012 02:00
I, from a distant perspective, think that a model railroad exhibit at IRM has significant potential. The general public actually has more interest in [...]
Mon, 01-16-2012 19:53
Thanks Jeron. If the weather is as forecast next Saturday I will try to get a good supply into the shop
Mon, 01-16-2012 01:47
Nigel, in case you didn't hear already, Jamie and I switched the cars this afternoon. They're just blocked by a little snow, now.
Mon, 01-09-2012 00:51
Matt, if you've been following the articles on 9908 from the beginning, you would've read "Sometime in the future, it will be restored back to CB&Q [...]
Fri, 01-06-2012 08:09
It's too bad it isn't being restored in CB&Q colors. I guess I'll settle for the one in St. Louis being the only accurate CB&Q E-9A.
Sun, 01-01-2012 04:57
The layout occupied something over 2000 sq ft as originally built. The current plan is to try to fund and construct a new steel framed building at [...]