Wood Shop

A permanent scaffold would be nice

Randall Hicks is enjoying himself fitting and installing a piece of poplar for replacement tack molding.  The car is Chicago, North Shore & Milwaukee, Silverliner 757.

The small ceiling panel

John Nelligan is inside the Sand Springs 68 with a replacement ceiling panel for a small section of the inside hip ceiling near the No. 1 end.

White Oak!!  Mmmmm.

Volunteers Dick Koch and Olin Anderson are in the wood shop with a load of white oak planks destined for new running boards for our UTLX 17222 tank car. In the backgorund (ignoring the camera) are Pete Galayda and Jim Griffith hard at work on other projects.

No Ladder!

Here is a Kirk Warner photo of yours truly stainng some woodwork inside the Sand Springs 68.  Some pieces were 'cleaned' in place, while some were processed in the woodshop over the last few months.

Taking Shape

Here is a good woodshop shot of Tim Peters feeding our shaper and Jim Meindel 'catching' the milled stock.  The product is tongue and groove siding, complete with V groove on the face, for wood el car 1268.  We produced over 200 running feet of this special stock, in less than two hours, including set up time.

A job well done

A very satisfied Tim Peters holds two pirces of the finished siding up to the camera, to show the finished cross section and how well they will fit together on the car.  The stack of siding in the background gives you an idea of how much was produced.

Stubborn old paint

Jenny and Kevin Tudor are restoring and repairing windows in our woodshop.  Looks like fun!

July 8, 2008

Future TV stars?

Today the shop was up and running.  Here we see John Faulhaber and Tim Peters along with the camera crew from Channel 47 in Peoria, Il.  They were out for an episode for Illinois Adventures.  Many other segments were shot at IRM.

July 9, 2008

New doors are ALWAYS a good thing

Henry Vincent is back from vacation and working on new doors for the Illinois Terminal 101.  Over his shoulder, Jim Griffith continues on the wood shelf project for the Strahorn Library.

No tool too old

Here we see Henry Vincent using our vintage Delta drill press (circa 1934) to drill the small wooden moldings that hold the glass panels in the above doors.  On the table is a clever fixture Henry 'invented'.

Mechanical work too

Dick Cubbage helped out on the new to us, circa 1880 Fay molder.  He was squaring up the pedestals and supports and working on cutting the countershaft to length and then on pulley alignment.

Setting the new machine

Today was the day we started to bring all the parts together to assemble and mount the drive components for the FAY molder we hope to use later this year.  Here, the crew (l to r) is Kirk Warner, John Nelligan, and Victor Humphreys.  The A frame is helping lift and position the machine onto the new welded frame.

Details need attention

By the end of the day most everything has the bolts in the right holes, and we are looking forward to plumbing and squaring all the pieces.  Victor Humphreys is working on the keyway and motor shaft area.