Illinois Railway Museum Blog

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.