Wood Shop

Interior Panels

Lorne Tweed was working inside our Cleveland Transit System 4223 PCC car.  He is working to place interior panels above the side windows and below the standee windows.  This is all part of the puzzle of what goes where.

Ceiling Panel

Simon Harrison worked on the 4223 project all day.  Here he is cleaning the back of one of the ceiling panels made last week.  Next, some light gray primer, which was quick drying but fairly stinky inside the shop.

Primed

This is a different ceiling panel, but almost done in the new primer.  Simon finished several of them today, along with more priming on the ad card steel panels (one more of which Jonathan Soucek wire wheeled into cleanliness) and the back side of the first ceiling lighting panel.

Lining Wood

Dave Rogan and Jim Leonard dug out some more lumber to be used in our Chicago Great Western X 38 snowplow.  It is still a bit inclement for outdoor work, but we are prepping as much as we can for a blitz workday as weather allows.  Here they just finished measuring them and cutting to length on the radial arm saw.

Primer

After some sanding and cleanup, Jim primed both sides of the planks.  We now should have enough ready to install to complete the interior lining inside the back wall of the plow.

Upholstery

As the old song lyric goes, "JOHNNY'S - - - BACK IN TOWN!"   In this case John McKelvey is back to IRM for the summer season (wondering where it is?) and already hard at work in the shop.  His first job on the list is repairing and reupholstering seats for the extraordinary LAKE CITY.

Saw Frame

Here is the freshly welded saw frame for the next table saw to be ready for use in the shop.  Rod Turner did the welding with setup and help from Jim Foraker.

Clean Up

Jim Leonard was working to clean up the saw frame to be ready for priming.

Round Top Windows

Rich Witt is touching up any rough spots on the two new round top windows for passenger car Boston & Maine 1094.  Moldings are fit and I think we are done with the shop work for this project.

Berlin Sander

We used the Berlin Sander in the last few weeks and here Jim Foraker is doing some fine tuning adjustments on the north end of the upper deck feed rollers.  Without such expert mechanical skills as he has, this would not be nearly so productive next time.  Thanks Jim.

A Roof

John Faulhaber is making a small boxcar at the request of Ray Bellock - for children's use this coming summer.  This is the roof being cut to size on the table saw.

The Car

John is well along on assembling what the shop is calling a toy boxcar.  How big is it?  Well, once done something under four feet long.

There was of course other work I did not capture with the camera.  Norm Krentel and Jeff Brady continued the roof project on Michigan Electric 28; we saw Steve Iverson doing some more work, finishing touches really, on the Chicago & West Towns 141; and do not forget Pete Galayda and John Nelligan working in the shop on Charles City Western 300.

New Window In

I was not too optimistic about outdoor work at IRM, after leaving home in the morning with about a half inch of ice and snow needing to be scraped and thawed off the automobile.  By mid morning most of that had melted away, and in the afternoon Victor Humphreys took the challenge and he and I dared to open up the Chicago Great Western X 38 snowplow.  As he said, we have been working in the shop all winter and both were beginning to suffer cabin fever.  Success.  The first of the new windows we made in the shop is complete and installed on the rear wall.  And the north side opening was opened up and the new window for that fitted into place, ready to install on the next fair weather day.

Roof Work

As Nigel mentioned in his report there were many members on hand but most shuttled back and forth to meetings (an annual ritual at IRM this time of year).  Here we see Ray Schmidt, Jeff Brady (hidden by Ray) and Bill Peterson working on the new roof for Michigan Electric 28.  If you look carefully you will see the new tongue and groove slats made in our shop going on the carline stringers.

A Big Door

This is the new door we are making for our station.  The extensions of the vertical stiles were trimmed off and then some more finish sanding by Victor.  At the left of this picture you will see John Faulhaber working on a new children's activity item at the request of Ray Bellock.

In Its Prime

In between other tasks Victor found time to add the first coat of primer to the door.  Not many steps left now - almost ready to deliver to our Buildings and Grounds Department.

Ceiling

Jim Leonard is making all the sawcuts for the last large ceiling panel for Cleveland Transit System 4223.

Wiring

Meanwhile out in the carbody for the 4223, Eric Lorenz continues the task of routing and running all new wiring.  Look at it all!  I wonder how he knows where it all goes?

The watchword for the day was - EYES ON THE SKY!  There were several waves of thunderstorms which resulted in four or five power outages in the shops.  Luckily none of the outages occurred when we were in the middle of a major operation on the machines - such as the Berlin Sander.  Lots of rain - SEVEN inches reported by some some towns in the last 24 hours and maybe 2-3 more today (Thursday).  Lots of puddles on the grounds and if one of them went up another 2 inches there would have been water coming in the shop.  At least one of our regular volunteers woke up at 3 AM to find 18 inches of water INSIDE his basement.  Lots of closures, flooding, and more rain in the area.

Berlin Sander

Dave Rogan, Paul Cronin, and Victor Humphreys are wrestling the heavy station door we recently made through the infeed end of the Berlin Sander.  This is a heavy complex machine but one which does a good job of finishing projects, achieving smooth and flat frames on doors and windows, results not easily possible by hand sanding.  The operation of this machine in recent months was almost always accompanied by some drama.

Outfeed

John Faulhaber joined the above crew at the outfeed end of the sander as we made pass after pass, checking after each one.  With the door done, we moved on to run the two new windows for Boston & Maine 1094 through the machine.

Ceiling Panel

We continue to have a pretty good sized weekday crew working on the Cleveland Transit System 4223 PCC car.  Paul Cronin and Dave Rogan are set up to try a fearsome looking circle cutter in a half inch drill motor to cut a hole in one of the new panels.

The Hole Thing

We were somewhat surprised the first hole went without incident and two more holes were completed in this panel.  Then some hand sanding and cleanup - finally primer applied to this by the end of the day.  There are many of these narrow panels needed, with holes to accept the bulls eye light fixtures.

Large Ceiling Panel

The project team had determined that most of the original panels, saved for many years, could not be restored.  So the first order of business is shown here as Lorne Tweed, Dave Rogan, and Simon Harrison remove blanking panels installed by Toronto.  Then on to trace exactly the length and width, and the openings in a new piece of stock.  Cut that out and then on to the next one.  Three completed this day.

STEAM

Yes, you are seeing Nigel Bennett of the Steam Department in our shop prime painting the many panels and parts for the 4223 almost as fast as we could make them.  Thanks Nigel, you are always welcome to volunteer to help out here.

At the Table Saw

Jeff Brady was caught in the act at the table saw as he made new wood repair parts for the roof work on Michigan Electric 28.  Norm Krentel was also on site and we saw a steady stream of panel goods leaving the storage shelves and making their way onto the roof.

Windows

Rich Witt was checking our first piece of steam bent window beading after the new round top windows for Boston & Maine 1094 came from the Berlin Sander.

Leaded Glass

Ted Anderson stopped by the shop to check on the windows.  Here, he and Rich are checking dimension for planned leaded glass to be made for these.  You will see copies of original Pullman drawings for these windows, those found in our Pullman Library and printed by Ted.  The wood shop work is about done on these as we completed trimming off the stile extensions and cutting the bevel on the bottom rail.

Grids

With all the start-stops caused by the spotty power, Paul Cronin managed to dis-assemble the failed grid box for Chicago Aurora and Elgin 36.  He sorted through the parts and cleaned up several grids on the wire wheel, those not too far gone or broken.