Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Tricky Cut

We started out the day needing to make a very tricky cut on a piece of new letterboard for the D 13 dump motor.  This piece has almost nothing square about it, having various combinations of six angled or beveled surfaces.  We pondered the problem, conjured up a solution, and constructed a special jig.  As usual it took longer to make the jig to outsmart the saw, than to do the cuts.  John Faulhaber was happily grinning with the result, clever guy that he is, after he made the cut.

Assembly

The big project for the day was to do the final assembly and glue up of the new station door.  It turned out to be quite a job with a dozen interlocking pieces.  Rich Witt and John Faulhaber are placing the final stile.  That door is HEAVY!

In the Press

Finally it was moved to the glue press, squared up, and the clamp tightened.  There are still some finishing steps needed, but a real milestone in this project.

Buzz Morissette did some shop repairs and maintenance, and Rich Witt continued with a special jig for the Glen Springs windows.  Roger Kramer brought in some more wood for those windows, one new top rail was cut and the engineering laid out for four more stiles.

But it was FINALLY a fair weather day which begged not to be wasted.  Rod Turner and Henry Vincent moved five cabooses from the Barns over to Track 41 where they will receive their annual inspections, prior to being released for service this year.

Victor Humphreys helped with the station door and then moved on to paint trucks on the MILW 01984 which is very close to being completed with the repainting project.  Maybe another full day of work, will do it.  And John Faulhaber and I moved on to the work on the B&O boxcar, beginning the task of cleaning and priming the sides and ends.