Wood Shop

CE 4

This weekend, with help from longtime member and hardworking volunteer Dick Lukin, we applied lettering to one side of the cab of our electric workhorse locomotive.  Of course the piece is parked inside Barn 8 which suffered storm damage (see related posts) and that made the work tough.  No way to even run an extension cord for a drop light from three buildings away so we labored on in the dimness.  I had to post this poor pic to prove the work done.  Imagine taking a pic of a black subject in a dark building and maybe you will understand the blur.

Depot Door

With help from Tim Peters, there was some progress on the parts being made for a new depot door.  It looks like the next steps will be to plunge the needed mortises.

Another Door

Speaking of Tim, the heavy rains Sunday morning drove him away from other life pursuits and here he was, working on an end door from the next project.  You guessed it, a wood el car, Chicago Rapid Transit 1797.

Tending Their Knitting

You might guess knitting classes were underway, but Frank Sirinek and Dan Fenlaciki were tieing new bundles of virgin wool yarn to be used for waste packing in our cars and motor bearings.

Steelwork

George Clark has stripped the bad siding from the second side of LSE 810 and he is now laying out and drilling the needed holes in a custom made Z section of structural steel.  You will note the badly deteriorated sill on the car behind him.

CAE 409

The second new signbox box wood sash has been installed on the CA&E 409 and Frank Hicks is engaged in applying the final coat of red paint.

CAE 451

Jon Fenlaciki continues on the task of removing side windows from the CA&E 451 and restoring them to their brass finish.

Door Painting

Norm Krentel and Jeff Brady pause for a photo op in the new shop addition.  The now completed baggage doors have been moved in and they are getting set to spray paint the primer coat on these.

409 Signbox

John Faulhaber and Rich Witt make some fine adjustment cuts on the new 409 signbox sash, otherwise completed in the preceeding few weeks.

Caboose parts

Buzz Morissette is tinkering with some small trim and window sill parts for the MILW 01984 caboose project.

Battens

Summer employee Mark Osiecki is in the new shop addition space to stay out of the rain.  He is painting the new station battens produced in our woodshop.  Carl Ilwitzer was also engaged in a similar task at the other end of the room.

Unexpected Help

We got some unexpected volunteer help Wednesday morning.  Steve Binning of St. Louis, Eric Starr, and Marilyn Starr are stripping paint in the late afternoon on an interior panel removed from the Shaker Heights 63 PCC car.

There were a lot of projects being worked on yesterday, I think I will just lump them here in a Wood Shop post.

Lamp Innards

The last ceiling lamp fixture for the Sand Springs 68 seemed to have some damage.  A little tricky to do, but we got it dis-assembled enough to make repairs.  The coiled wire in the image needs to be re-soldered to the outside of the copper lamp cup.  It did not happen yesterday since the correct tools were not available.

Bird Nests

George Clark is almost done stripping off the old siding from the Lake Shore Electric 810.  The nests behind this section seem to indicate there were some hitchikers along the way.

Depot Door

Thanks to Jeff Calendine from the steam shop, who stopped by the woodshop and volunteered to help mill slots in the new rails and stiles for the depot door project.

Two Divided by Three

What to do when you have two new doors to be worked on, and three volunteers?  For the ME 28, they all crowd in on one of them!  Left to right, Norm Krentel, Jeff Brady, and Dan Fenlaciki

451 Hardware

Jon Fenlaciki has almost singlehandedly taken on the task of cleaning and fixing all of the brass sashed windows for CA&E 451.  The heavy rains in the afternoon put a damper on that, so he switched to cleaning and remounting window hardware for the four new drop sash.  They are all brass covered with layers of paint and years of oxidation.  But Jon knows the secret ingredients to bring back the luster - Brasso and Elbow Grease!