Michigan Electric 28

Ray Schmid was busy mounting a lot of the many hardware and trim items for the new baggage door, number two.

And Jeff Brady was also carefully measuring, drilling holes and getting everything mounted.

The crew for the ME 28 was out in force and here Jeff Brady begins the trim and fitting work on Door Number 2, for the left side of the car.  That includes lock set, track, weatherstripping, a whole lot more fittings and 'stuff' than you would imagine.

Back at door number one, for the right side of the car, Ray Schmid and Dan Fenlaciki have finished the lock set and are installing a grab iron for the interior side of the door.  Norm Krentel works at the right of this pic rearranging the bench space for his next task.

And as follows, here are some excellent photos from Robert Kudder who was visiting Saturday.  Thank you!

Ray Schmid and Jeff Brady puzzle over what is next to do.

The bulk of the woodwork part of building a new door is done but many hours remain to add the trim, accessories, wear strips etc.

The area for the door locking hardware must be routed and chiseled out to accept the hardware.

Jeff Brady continues the work on the two new doors for the Michigan car.  All the saved pieces of metal banding, weatherstipping retainers, and here, the lock set, are being fitted and installed prior to be being ready for painting.  Then on to the same tasks for door No. 2.

Here is a fairly long post of progress on the new baggage doors being made for the ME 28.  Lots of images, short on text, all from the camera of Ray Schmid, Gwyn Stupar was the photographer.

We continue to make good use of the massive Berlin Sander obtained from the Milwaukee Cold Springs Car Shops over 35 years ago.  Finally exhumed from our IRM storage and restored to use a few years ago, it serves us well.  The new doors are almost four feet wide and there was no problem running through the sander.  L to r, Bob Kutella, Jim and Tom Windmeier, Norm Krentel, and Ray Schmid run one of the doors into the feed end of the machine.

Bob Kutella moves to the outfeed end while Jeff Brady, Norm Krentel, and Ray Schmid gather, ready to receive the door.

Norm K, Jeff B, and Ray S are the 'catchers'.

The top surface seen has already had a few passes through the sander.  You must remember that the real work is done on what is the bottom surface.  We have the drums set to be very conservative, only removing 0.005 inch or less per pass.  More passes are needed, but this allows one to carefully monitor and inspect the surface, to decide when 'enough' has been done.  OR - we could be more aggressive and run enough passes that it would be thin enough to serve as a window sash.

Do we need one more pass?  Norm K, Ray S, and Jeff B inspecting the latest side surfaced.

Both doors are complete through the Berlin Sander and back on the bench. Ray S is checking the panel smoothness (these are thinner and were not touched by the Berlin).  The blue patches are thin layers of filler applied to correct some divots or defects which would essentially 'never' get sanded out.  This is not an issue since these doors will be painted both sides.

Ray S resting easy now that the big hurdle is over, having come through the sander with a fine job, no damage, and the machine worked well.

This particular filler is polyester glazing putty and the ME guys were not too familiar with its use.  I demonstrated what little I know and was happy to back away after smoothing out the corner.

Ray S and Jeff B satisfied with a good job well done!

I had two wonderful volunteers yesterday taking photos so I did not gather any myself.  But none of those have been submitted yet for posting so here are some from a week ago that the Michigan crew was intending to post.

Jeff Brady was creating some new tooling to be used on the lamp bases inside the car.

Jeff Brady and Norm Krentel resolve some of the issues and next steps to be taken on the project.

Not like on the TV show, taking what is behind door No. 2.  But this is the second of the two new baggage doors with full assembly done and in the press for the glue to dry.  By 3/21 both doors were finsih sanded, the stiles had been trimmed, small defects in the surface filled and sanded, and I think some primer applied.