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Thursday, November 29. 2012Wood Shop Update - November 28, 2012 Celebrity We were all happy to see Al Reinschmidt visit the shop. Al is a long time member, volunteer, supporter, booster, and worker in many of our missions. Circumstances have curtailed his participation but he managed a visit yesterday to the delight of many, and got updated on many of the projects.  Ceiling Panels Simon Harrison resumed work on our Cleveland Transit System 4223 PCC car. Here is one of the salvaged ceiling panels made of hardboard composition material. The goal is to preserve and use as many of these as possible. In the near corner you may see the first work in trying to sand off the many old layers of cracked and failing paint.  Progress By the end of the day Simon has completed about 1/4 of the paint removal, and doing a very fine job. This is a new task so many techniques and tools were needed to see what was most effective. The panels are of a size that merely replacing them is not an option.  The Old Saw Henry Vincent and Pete Galayda have just succeeded in removing the arbor nuts and old saw blades on this double arbor table saw. One task at a time, Henry is doing well along the path to restoring this to operations and providing another tool in the restoration wood shop arsenal. Now, on to the 'making sawdust' tasks, where I spent most of my time. All the following is for work on our Chicago Great Western X 38 snowplow.  The Current Saw John Faulhaber and Dave Rogan are slicing new 3/8 inch hardwood quarter round from stock on our table saw. We have to make this ourselves, it cannot be purchased from any of our suppliers. The process involves a sort of production line, setting up the router table to make a roundover profile, and then taking that stock to the saw to cut the piece free.  Results John Faulhaber, Jim Leonard, and Dave Rogan all were involved. Here they show off almost eighty lineal feet of completed moldings. That should be enough for the eight new cupola windows on the plow.  Tenons The next steps involve cutting tenons on the two rails for each window. Dave Rogan and Jim Leonard draw an audience - everybody is fascinated by work. There are about five distinct steps for producing the tenon, each requiring a different set up on the tools. And each pair of these new windows is a different size or shape. Tenons are now done on four sets of the parts.  Assembly As fast as the rails could be tenoned, John Faulhaber started the custom fitting of the parts for each one window. Haunch the tenon, trim to length and thickness, clean out and adjust the mortise, miter the beading. Times FOUR for each frame.  Engineering All of this does not happen by magic. Each window must be designed, drafted, and drawings created for the sawdust guys to make the cuts. Rich Witt is very reliable in this task and spent much of the day on the drawings. Sometimes we were pushing him hard to complete a set for one design, and the tools were put to use at once. Wednesday, November 28. 2012CGW 4061 January 2012Here are pictures of the repainting project of the 4061. These scenes are the results of the hard work of the Wednesday retired crew. The combine was placed in the East end of Barn 2 where it could be primed and painted. The area has a heated shop only one of two on the property. What a nice job Joe and the crew did!  Bondo Bill Leider  More Primer Needed Jan 24 2012  vestibule before repairs are made  beautiful rivets  Joe-prepping for primer After a week of needlescaling and painting, the priming is almost done. It sure looks a lot better already. The body was certainly in need of "care."  Bill Leider Repairing Windows  Before All the Priming Is Done  Feb 14 2012 Its Kooooold Outside, Warm Inside Therefore: Joe Is Cleaning the Truck In Comfort In a few months will you see the results of Jamie and his crew as they turn the car into a thing of beauty. Please consider a donation to the Barn 14 Inside Storage Fund!! Roger Monday, November 26. 2012CGW 4061 update The beginning of the day. On Friday, November 23rd, Brian Swan and I made it out to the shop for part of the day. The main task was to further the vestibule end of the combine that the wednesday special projects group was unable to finish. This end is the last of the welding and fabricating to be done before the carbody can be painted. We focused on needle chipping and cleaning up the frame and accessories under the vestibule platform, and under the door threshold. The diaphragm had been cut off this end long before it came to IRM, and the parts that were left in were rusting and heaving up the deck. The parts in the center were removed and stored, and the plan was to clean everything up, prime and paint it all on the inside and then replace the deck and other sheet metal that is rusted through.  More rust to be removed.  Prepped for new steel.  The end of the day. Brian started to prep the corner by torching out the rusted sections and cleaning up the cuts for new steel. We started digging through all the sheets of steel we have in stock, trying to find the right sheet to use, which happened to be some leftovers that were originally used on CB&Q 504. Brian started cutting the stock to shape and prepped and primed what will be the insides. Meanwhile I continued priming everything in the frame and all the remaining springs and parts within the frame. The next step will be to weld the deck back on and start working on the side sheets on both sides of the vestibule steps. We are still looking for some additional welders, and anyone that would like to help in the shop for that matter. If you are interested, please contact me. thanks, Jamie. Sunday, November 25. 2012Steam Department Update 11-24-2012This Saturday saw continued progress in the Steam shop toward re-tubing 1630. The penultimate bale of 37 tubes was swaged and annealed while the final bale was brought into the swaging area ready for processing. The work done last Saturday on cleaning the rough edges from the dies of the swager seems to have worked well. No further problems were encountered with rough surfaces on the swaged tube ends. Good progress was made with cutting and loading so that, by end of day, we had 96 tubes loaded into the boiler. This time Collin and Jason had the "hidden" role of fitting ferrules into the fire box tube sheet. Here Collin is hard at work fitting ferrules and adjusting the position of the tube to the correct projection beyond the tube sheet.
Overall progress today was very good.
The boiler is now starting to look distinctly full of tubes.
However, we have now decided that it would be safer to fit ferrules to some or all of the front tube sheet holes in order to reduce the risk of leakage. This will require some measurement and testing and may require us to reload some of the tubes. So that will be the main activity next week. Meanwhile Mike, Bob and Tom worked on the final shaping of the firebox patch. Ed and Matt continued with fitting the new pipe work along the boiler. In other areas, Ralph worked on the axle boxes for 428 and prepared the surface of another box for babbit facing using the Bullard lathe. Nigel Sunday, November 25. 2012Wood Shop Update - November 24, 2012I will group all this under the wood shop banner this time, although of course activity encompassed many different projects. We will start with work related to our Chicago Great Western X 38 snowplow.  Headlight This is the headlight donated by one of our members and it is now completely restored and painted. Looks good, doesn't it? Now if we had a few weeks of warm weather, it could be installed on the plow.  Mortising Victor Humphreys is standing at the mortising machine as we plunge 3/8 inch wide slots into the stile of the new windows we are making. Not done with all of them yet, more work for the Wednesday crew. These parts are also for the X 38.  Planing Victor and Buzz Morisette are working at our planer to size new lumber for the work Buzz is doing to repair the roof structure in our Private Car ELY. This is an 1889 Pullman product with a long history on the railroads AND at IRM.  Next Steps With the wood properly sized, Buzz moved on to shape new roof ribs (carlines) and here is making a brace to hold them in place during installation.  The Scheme of Things Eric Lorenz was studying newly arrived electrical schematics to work out details of the Shaker Heights 63 PCC car. That car was built as a single car by St Louis Car Co for Minneapolis but when it went to Ohio, they converted it to be able to run in multiple unit with their other PCC's. They made it work, now we have to figure out how, and probably take it back as a single car without the MU feature. We have no other MU cars to run with it, and it becomes more complex and harder to maintain. Many other volunteers were busy, including a crew decorating CTA 6000 cars for the upcoming Holiday Train, and a switch move to bring Chicago Rapid Transit 1024 to the west end of Barn 4, Track 42, for restoration work. That car was built by Pullman in 1898 as car 24 for the Northwestern Elevated and came to IRM in 1958. Saturday, November 24. 2012Thursday, November 22. 2012CGW X 38 Update - November 21, 2012HAPPY THANKSGIVING The first order of business is to wish you and yours a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend. And to give all of you THANKS for your support and participation in ALL of the various IRM projects in 2012. THANK YOU. Yesterday at the IRM wood shop there was but a skeleton crew on hand. I can assume many were making preparations for today's time with family and friends, or traveling to do the same. That is entirely fitting and appropriate. In the shop we used the time to work on more windows. There was a time not too long ago when constructing and fabricating ONE new window from rough stock was a BIG EVENT. Yet here we are well along the process for making ELEVEN new windows, in the space of a few short weeks.  Routed Victor Humphreys and Dick Cubabge worked on eight new windows for the cupola cab of the CGW snowplow. All these share the same profile and shape, but of course there are four different sizes, and each pair has both a right hand and left hand version. Last week you saw the pile of prepared blanks, we referred to as 'window kits'. Victor and Dick worked to rout a unique profile for the beading on that stock as you can see above.  Full Profile The next steps were done on the table saw to slice two thin grooves and drop out the remainder resulting in the rabbet, which will be used to place the glass in the finished window. Here that is all done, three steps on each of 32 pieces of stock. We made fabrication drawings on the computer for each type and are using those to set dimensions and sizes. Four of the drawings lay before you in the above image, resting on three completed glue ups of windows. Behind them are the stacks of window kits, now with each piece shaped and rabbeted as needed. Maybe only barely visible but the pair of stiles facing the camera has had the layout lines added for plunging 3/8 inch slots on the mortising machine - the next steps. |
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Comments
Thu, 05-16-2013 21:52
Looking good Bob! I hope to come out soon once I'm done with school.
Wed, 05-15-2013 21:28
I was not around at the time. General discussion suggests that it was "pretty marginal" in a number of areas. Nigel
Mon, 05-13-2013 11:08
"THUMBS UP!"
Fri, 05-10-2013 02:15
No, it will not be necessary to hold any of the work waiting for the plow to be turned, end for end. Weather will be the major factor, but there will [...]
Thu, 05-09-2013 19:54
The CGW X-38 plow is really coming to life. Bob Kutella and Vic and crew need to be very proud of your collective efforts. I am very appreciative of [...]
Thu, 05-09-2013 15:20
The snowplow looks great! Are you going to apply the door and upper windows befor it is turned to continue work?
Thu, 05-09-2013 09:09
Max, Is there any progress to report yet, in regards to the installation of the poles and overhead wires? Have a good day, sir.
Wed, 05-08-2013 18:40
Thanks for the update! I still don't understand why Commonwealth #5 was removed from service. Do you know why?
Tue, 05-07-2013 09:28
Mr. Kolanowski.....I was just wondering if the Spaulding webcam will be up and running soon for us stay-at-homes. Thanks!2FP
Mon, 05-06-2013 23:04
Max, Has work begun yet on the construction phase of erecting the poles and putting up the wire? Wish I could be there to watch it happen.
Mon, 05-06-2013 23:02
Keep up the good work, Bob. Wish I could be there to help!!!!!!!
Sun, 05-05-2013 18:53
Ah yes, I have made such Jibs myself. If it were me, I would add in each corner an angled piece from the base to the Jib to act as sway bracing. [...]