Wood Shop

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This will be another quick look at what I saw going on yesterday inside the wood shop.

The the annual running of the Halloween time Terror event is over and it is time for the volunteers to start repairing the damage to equipment, seemingly inevitable every year.  Roger Kramer assigned himself the job of repairing several broken windows.  I bet he has a tough boss for this job.

I saw parts being painted, the saw parts that Henry Vincent has been working on.  Have you seen the saw parts?

We saw those parts last week.  Or did we?  Buzz Morisette was working on a template pattern for new carlines to replace some well rotted wood ones in the X 5000 dynamometer car.  Here he seems to be fitting up a piece of wood for the interior lining of the X 38 snowplow.

Speaking of the X 38, there was a lot of  woodworking progress yesterday.  It was not exactly planned this way, but here is TEAM A, John Faulhaber and Simon Harrison, custom fitting a mortise and tenon joint.  In the morning none of the pieces had been ready for this stage of this work.  But after lunch all 12 pieces had been mortised and the tenons cut.  Up to this point it is somewhat of a mass production set up, all parts receiving much the same operation.

Now that the windows are starting to take shape and be recognizable, each group of four parts is marked for one window, and each of the four joints is custom trimmed and fit.  These two culprits are Jim Leonard and Dave Rogan.  Three of the four volunteers had never really done this type of work for us, but they did just fine.  At the end of the day all three frames destined for the rear end and two side windows of the X 38 were ready for glue.

Much of the work in this shop has the goal of taking a really big piece of wood, and reducing it to much smaller pieces and a pile of sawdust.  In the AM this was one long plank, and it had many cuts laid out and marked to make best use of the plank.  Before lunch it had been crosscut into three shorter more manageable lengths, and all three had passed through the jointer.

Finally these pieces are then ripped to width on the table saw, here being operated by Simon and John.  I think we ended up thirteen pieces of wood cut to dimension, ready to start the process all over again.  Routing, rabbeting, chopping, mortising, tenoning, etc.  These will make two rear facing windows for the cupola cab on the plow.

Victor Humphreys was on hand and tried his skills with an acetylene torch, removing more deteriorated metal from our B&O wagon top boxcar, doing some painting on the X 38 snowplow as it got warmer in the afternoon sun, and finally painting six pieces of metal weatherstripping inside the shop.  Pete Galayda and John Nelligan continued their work on the resistance grids for Charles City Western 300, Tim Peters was mounting new roofboards to CTA 4412, and we saw several others passing through on their way for a tool or part.

In addition to the work previously reported and targeted to progress on our CGW X 38 plow, here are some examples of the wide diversity of projects in the shop yesterday.

Certainly not a glamorous job but Simon Harrison helped to stack and move the pile of new lumber to make a new door for the station.  It is useless to merely buy the lumber, it must be carefully stacked and stickered to preserve it as true as possible.

Speaking of new lumber basically only a week old at IRM, John Faulhaber and Randy Hicks were processing some of the heavy white oak timbers through our jointer.  That is used to surface rough cut lumber to a smooth and true face and edge.  From there they moved through the planer and then the tablesaw to rip it to correct width.  Finally through the radial arm saw to cut all to length.

Jon Fenlaciki was working on restoration of a large window for our first car, Indiana Railroad 65.  In addition to meticulous removal of old finishes, the detective in him revealed the true color of the first layer of old paint, buried well below more recent layers.

Pete Galyda was visited by Dick Cubbage as here they discuss how to solve all the problems.  I wonder if John Nelligan (at work on the sandblaster in the next room) knows it is break time?

And many other tasks and projects saw work.  We almost expect Tim Peters to be on hand at 120% of what any mere mortal can do and this was no exception as he sped on a time line to break all records for a new canvas roof on one of our 4000 series steel elevated cars. Victor Humphreys was outside with acetylene torch and managed to remove another badly rusted out panel on our B&O wagon top boxcar.  Henry Vincent continued work on the new table saw and was assisted in some metal machine shop work by Rod Turner.

Just as the seasons change and winter is coming on, so does much of the work change, in this case cycling back to the Barn 4 areas.

A lot of the work you will see in this report is for making more parts for our CGW X 38 Russell snowplow.  Dave Rogan started the day by priming several pieces of wood lining and trim, in the hope they would be dry enough to install later in the day.

Cheryl Lint beat most of into the shop and continued her fine work in hand chopping mortises for new window timber framing.

For every mortise there must be a matching tenon.  Dave Rogan is on the table saw and carefully cutting away at the stock to be removed on the uprights.

Here is what we are talking about.  Dave is holding the dry fitted timber assembly.  This is fit to the opening and mounting holes marked.  Then after a session on the drill press the pieces will be taken apart for priming and painting.

Dave Rogan is checking out new hardwood lumber for the X 38.  Behind him is a pile of new stock to construct a new door for our station.  Out of view are two more piles, one for CA&E 36, and one for LSE 810.  On Tuesday the IRM crew descended upon a hardwood lumber dealer, as many as four of us were prowling the aisles at one time.  The tab came to just under $1000, but that lumber should keep us busy in the shop for most of the winter months.  If you appreciate the efforts and want to see the work continue, we would really appreciate donations to any of the restricted funds for those cars.  Those are set up by a capital R followed by the car number.  In this case funding is needed for RX38, R36, R810, and to the Buildings & Grounds Department.  Which one is your favorite?

Rich Witt was cleaning metal strips that are applied over the new rubber weatherstripping on the X 38 doors.  But first they must be cleaned of old paint and rust, and straightened.

Not an adage or old saying, Henry Vincent has been restoring a very old Greenlee double arbor table saw we hope to get running in the wood shop.

Tim Peters is working on his current Chicago Elevated car project, to put a new roof on one of our 4000 series cars.  The fuse box sits on the roof and the old one - - well hardly enough left of it to use for a pattern.  But the car ran - - -

Out in the barn, the new canvas has been lifted and unfolded over the roof.  This after several weeks of work by Tim to repair the wood and apply new tack molding all around.  Where is Waldo - I mean Tim?  Can you see him on this pic?

Pete Galayda is by his workbench area which serves as a GRID SHOP, to repair and ultimately reassemble grid boxes for the Charles City Western 300 steeple cab locomotive.  If you think you have seen this before, Pete is on number three of seven.  He is helped every week on the project by John Nelligan who happens to be at the sandblaster right now.