Wood Shop

It always seems to generate a lot of interest when a project is active and you can see work being done.  Case in point is the Cleveland PCC, CTS 4223, which has taken enormous steps forward with the painting of the exterior.

Interior Trim

The car is now back in Barn 4 and Eric Lorenz is fitting interior sheet metal moldings under each of the standee windows.  Part of the plan is to soon start installing glass in the many openings in the car body.

Will it Fit

Here is the tie in to the wood shop.  A plywood template was made and Eric checks each opening so we can assure that when new glass is cut, it will fit the openings.

Jack Block

Yes that is an odd caption.  For Michigan Electric 28, Jeff Brady is repairing a large block of wood to be installed in the roof framing where a smoke jack will go through.

Brass

We continue to clean and polish brass window lifts for the Sand Springs 68 as a sort of fill in task.  They sure do shine, but it takes a fair amount of time to get this far.  Once clean they receive a coat of clear lacquer, and then we will start to install them.

More Brass

John Fenlaciki continues the seemingly endless task of restoring windows for CA&E 451.  These are brass sash which must be cleaned and then clear coated, latches made to work, and new rubber weatherstripping installed at the bottom.  In spite of doing all 'his' work he showed me some of his magic, by cleaning up the worst crud off of three of the SS 68 latches.  Thank you, Jon.

Passenger Car

Shelly Van Der Schagen and Mike Baksic were in the wood shop, working on the latest seat frame for the Santa Fe heavyweight car.

For a change of pace I will shake up the order in which I usually report things this time.

Fast Work

Last Saturday I mentioned about an upcoming project to extend the north (west) end of our Electric Trolley Bus line.  Less than a week later the grass and topsoil has been removed, and new crushed limestone sub grade spread and leveled.  The Thomas Event entry area will certainly look different this year.

All about Wood

Rich Witt is constructing a new fixture to be used on the Glen Springs windows and behind him Victor Humphreys is sanding panels for the new station door.  These are a bit tricky to be fit absolutely the best way we can.

Passenger Department

John Mc Kelvey has been doing a lot of work all related to his particular expertise in upholstering.  This week he has repaired and reupholstered a chair back for the INGLEHOME. Seen here, he is cutting the new fabric.

Welding Mysteries

Gerry Dettloff is helping out on the Lake Shore Electric 810.  Much of the structural woodwork has been repaired on the north side.  Now he is pulling down the tie rods within the side framing, one at a time, and welding threaded extensions on them.  The existing ends were so corroded and rust thinned as to be useless.  Hmm, he seems skeptical of my new camera.

This entry will be short since almost three hours of the day were spent with members of the OWWM group.  That is short for Old Wood Working Machines.  We are again hosting their annual meet - for the seventh consecutive year!  We had few members of the planning committee on hand - from Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois and time was spent surveying the improvements and changes at IRM and planning some of the activities to be held in September.

This is a loose knit informal organization, with website, that has visited us often, conducting clinics, demos, and any manner of other activities for 2.5 days each year.  They have been very generous in helping to support our wood shop.  If any of you guys are really interested in old such machinery, contact me for more information; but beware, any machine made after 1970 is considered TOO NEW!

While we were walking around, we noticed some white lines painted on the grass near the Thomas Event entrance gate.  This is the proposed new paving and construction for the west end Electric Trolley Bus loop.  It will be exciting to see that take shape.  But back to the Wood Shop - - -

Raising a Panel

Victor Humphreys is shown "raising a panel" for the new station door.  That is where the inserted panel in the door openings have a raised center field.  The operation is called "raising the panel" although in practice it is the surrounding areas that are lowered.  John Faulhaber and Victor worked on those tasks in the morning.

Panels in Place

Victor is checking the fit for two of the panels in the new door frame.  These must be made to float or fit somewhat loosely in their grooves to account for seasonal expansion of the wood.  We saw them for a fairly snug fit and then hand sand to fine tune for each opening.  When all are in place, they will be inserted as the frame is glued and assembled.

Panels

Victor Humphreys measures carefully for the panels that will be made for the new station door.  They have been glued up and fabricated in recent weeks, and now is the time to make sure they will fit.  By end of day, all four were cut and planed, ready for the next step.

Roof Boards

When is a rainy day a good thing?  Answer: on a Wednesday, preventing Tim Peters from maintaining outdoor plantings and lawn at his home - and chasing him into our wood shop.  Today, Tim was custom making tongue and groove stock to repair rotted roof boards on CRT 1797.

Design

You have seen photos here of Rich Witt serving in the capacity of engineer in our design department.  He continues ably in that purpose, here on new windows for the Glen Springs.  And he caught some details previously missed, including the fact that the left side and right side window lifts are not symmetrical to the centerline of the sash.  Who would have thunk?

He Has Brass

Before Simon Harrison could continue restoring brass window latches for the Sand Springs 68, Henry Vincent helped repair some problems with the 1934 DELTA drill press we were using.  Once back in service, Simon continued the task of removing old lacquer and decades of oxidation and tarnish.

Our century plus old 16 inch jointer required some maintenance and it is running much better now, thanks to Rod Turner and Tim Peters.

Dave Diamond and the B&G crew continued on the Depot Street repaving and are digging and installing power conduits and manhole vaults.  It just keeps getting better and better.  Inspections continued on the electric cars with our father and son team from the Hicks family doing their thing on one of their favorite CA&E wood cars, the 319.  And the crew working on the NP 230 baggage car continues to make progress with a lot of gray primer applied to the north side when it quit raining and dried off later in the afternoon.

Roof Eave

We will start this entry with Tim Peters making what I would call the upper roof eave or edge for CRT 1797.  This started out a week ago or so as some of the century old timber we salvaged from the Huntley Feed mill.

Planing

Yes, all you readers here will have seen pictures of our planer making wood chips.  But here is one for a new project.  Lorne Tweed ran 16 pieces through multiple passes to exactly 'nail' the thickness for new window frames for the GLEN SPRINGS.

More Brass

Victor Humphreys continued to help out on polishing brass parts for the Sand Springs 68.  In his hands are one 'before' and one 'after'.

A Closer Look

Drat, a fuzzy image!  But maybe you can still appreciate the mirror-like finish after some tedious work with compound and a buffing wheel.  He completed five window lifts, and we coated them with clear lacquer.  For the benefit of the 68, you should all hope for continued cold and rainy weather - it makes a good shop project.

The next step for the station door involved machining and gluing up stock for the last two panels for this new door.  We managed that, and some shop maintenance work as well.

I am going to continue to mix topics of interest in here, as generally they may not have enough of a series of pics or back story to stand on their own in a separate BLOG entry.

Panels

But true to the header, we will start with continuing progress on woodwork related projects.  Victor Humphreys and Lorne Tweed have glued and assembled the second panel for the new station door.

Finish Work

Victor Humphreys is working on touch up and repair of some divots on the frame, and you will see gray primer has been applied to all the rabbets where the raised panels will be installed.  Those panels 'float' in the grooves and are NOT GLUED in place.  This allows them to expand and contract with seasonal changes.  But therefore, all edges on the panels and in the door must be sealed and painted before the final gluing of all frame pieces takes place.

Brass Shop

Pete Galayda examines a shiny polished brass window latch while Simon Harrison uses a felt wheel and buffing compound to work on another.  If you look close you can see this mirror like polish glinting into the camera. These are latches and hardware destined for installation in Sand Springs 68.

Layout

Here are some pieces of a large scale 1:24 model railroad layout that has been donated to IRM by a long time friend and supporter who has had to relocate his residence.  Henry Vincent was instrumental in doing the grunt work of driving across three states to pick this up.

That Did Not Take Long

We reported in an earlier BLOG ENTRY that it seemed that repairs would soon be underway on Depot Street.  A few days later and several feet of paving have been broken up and are being removed.  The connection to the wood shop subject is that several volunteers access the shop over this street.  A word to the wise should be sufficient!

Routing

John Faulhaber is using a hand held router and jigs to do stopped chamfers in 32 places on the new station door.  He started early in the morning and finished them all before the end of the day.

Doweling

Lorne Tweed was back in town following what sounded like a fun vacation.  Here he is doweling some wood to be assembled into stock for the four raised panels in the new door.  These are wide solid wood panels and we decided to make them from three ripped planks with the grain pattern alternating, to help stabilize them in use, and make them less prone to warping or cupping.

Assembly

Lorne and Victor Humphreys have the first panel made up and in the glue press.  Note the use of four bowed cauls to help keep the stock aligned vertically while the press clamps work horizontally.  Three more to go, then planing, and 'raising' the panels.

American Saw

The large American table saw is now completely mounted on the new frame and re-assembled.  Lorne and Victor used our A frame to lift the heavy tilting table into place.

Drill It

And for a change of pace here is Dave Diamond and Tom Opolony breaking up paving in front of the west end of Barn 4.  Springtime in Chicago - time to break up the roads!  Actually, in this case a crossing sign had to be relocated as part of the Barn 4 shop expansion.  But Wait - There is More!  Pavement markings indicate that Depot Street will soon be broken up and re-paved from the Thomas loading area crossing north to the Barn 4 leads.  You will not want to miss this project.

We also saw Max Tyms and Roger Smessaert working to set new poles for the trolley bus extension in the mostly dry weather (rain and drizzle later in the afternoon).  There are a number of poles slated to be replaced all around the property due to their failing condition and the two wire extensions underway.