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Monday, March 25. 2013Wood Shop Update - March 23, 2013As the saying goes - "In spring a young man's fancy turns to - - - AIR BRAKES". While it hovered barely above freezing, the sun was out. Kirk Warner and Victor Humphreys moved to the frozen tundra for more work on our wagon top boxcar, B&O 374065. Perhaps in proactive mode, the existing service portion and emergency portion of the air brake control valve were removed and brought into the shop. Here they are with the heavy brake parts in a box - I was too slow on the trigger to catch an image of them outdoors under the car. Both portions were replaced under the car with spares we had on hand. They also began checking the other air piping and replaced a missing union on the line to the retainer valve. Not a good pic but the work is EXCITING. Eric Lorenz is inside Cleveland Transit System 4223 and most of the new window post caps are located and in place. Eric is holding up one of the next features to be installed, a horizontal piece that goes above the standee windows and ties to each of the post caps. Maybe you had to be there but each advance they make presents a big impact and visible progress. This door for Chicago Great Western X 38 is nearly finished as demonstrated by Kirk Warner applying the maroon paint. The second door for the X 38 is following closely on the heels of the first. Victor and Kirk are doing touch up filling and sanding and later primed it for the second coat. Paul Cronin and Bill Peterson are drilling dowel holes using a special jig setup on one of the small drill presses. About 88 holes later (no, really!) one of the panels was assembled, glued and clamped. See, they really are ready to glue. Paul, Bill, and Buzz Morisette are checking to make sure everything is in order and lines up before the glue is slathered on. Father and son team, Tom and Jim Windmeier were making many small parts to repair and recondition the custom railroad step box replicas they made last season. They were well used last year throughout the summer, and now are being tuned up for operations this year. Rich WItt continues to work on the two new round top windows for Boston & Maine 1094. Here he is fitting the fussy mortise and tenon joints on each end of the bottom rails. One done, one to go.
Friday, March 22. 2013Wood Shop Update - March 20, 2013We will start out this time with a series of images showing the work today for a new door for our 1851 C&GU (C&NW) depot. I think it was still C&GU in 1851. John Faulhaber fits an internal stile to the door bottom. Careful work, fussy work, completed work. Meanwhile Paul Cronin works to fit a similar member to the top rail of the door. Then the overall frame was dry assembled and Paul and John proceeded to cut large chamfer 'scallops' for the members abutting the inside panels. This was a common design element on doors of the period and can be found on some of the very old doors in the depot today. Paul and John proudly show off the results of their work near the end of the day. This eight foot tall door is getting very HEAVY! The four openings will receive raised panel inserts since it is to be solid exterior door. No sooner than the door frame was assembled for final fitting did Paul and Jim Foraker lay out and start jointing and ripping the stock for the panels. It can be quite a puzzle solving exercise. The raw lumber is purchased in random lengths and widths as is common for hardwood lumber. We always try to have sufficient stock for the job, but the challenge is to get all the best pieces for those boards and make the most efficient use of the lumber. Kirk Warner was visiting from Florida and gave a big boost to the doors we have made earlier for Chicago Great Western X 38, as he sanded and primed both sides, touching up the woodwork along the way. He got custom glass cut and he and Victor Humphreys finished glazing more of the windows for the cupola cab. Meanwhile, Jim Leonard, Rich Witt, and Dave Rogan were at work for the very fancy round top windows we are making for Boston & Maine 1094. Here they are at work on the router table profiling one of the bottom rails. Once the stock is cut to the proper size the next work includes a roundover beading in the profile and creating a rabbet to accept the glass. The same profile must be created for the rest of the sash frame, including the round top and sides. Rich and Dave made use of many jigs and templates to accomplish the work. Here you may see some of the result, and by days end all that was done to satisfaction on both windows. Henry Vincent was seen stripping decades of old paint from a door drop sash for Chicago Aurora & Elgin 36. There is never a shortage of work and more parts to restore. We often work on many elements at a time for productive volunteer efforts or when one small step is accomplished and there is more time left in the day. Welcome to volunteer Jonathan Soucek who is a grandson of Henry Vincent. Here he is stripping paint from a steel panel, removed for restoration from CA&E 36. Jim Foraker was working on reassembly of the AC motor to drive a new table saw for our wood shop. This effort has been going along piecemeal for several weeks as time allows. The popular book "Motors for Dummies" does not seem to cover three phase motors that are over a century old. Jonathoan also pitched in by applying some finish paint to the handwheels to be used on the new table saw.
Sunday, March 17. 2013Wood Shop Update - March 16, 2013There was a lot of good work done by a lot of good people and here is a sampling of what was going on. Of course I did not record images for all the work, but you get the idea. Still, a lot of photos to post, if you do not mind. Victor Humphreys was prime painting the moldings and the panel inserts for the new doors for Chicago Great Western X 38. As the saying goes - there is always something to be done. In this case, every week, we take a step closer to completing these doors. Good friend and volunteer Kirk Warner was visiting from Florida - he and Victor are working on getting some new glass cut for the project. Or - the other side of the panels. They also got primed, in this case with a different color primer, since the interior will get a lighter coat of finish paint. There continues to be real progress on Cleveland Transit System 4223. This PCC car is getting interior window post caps, here shown with Eric Lorenz fighting the good fight. Loren Tweed is also working hard on the 4223 project, the current task of installing the post caps. They have all but a handful of 'stinkers' installed. The 'stinkers' being a few that need more persuasion to fit properly. We made major progress on the two 'special' round top windows for the Boston & Maine 1094 passenger car. A lot of different volunteers contributed to the progress - here Bill Peterson is working on tenons for the round top rail. The tenons have been cut and fit for the first window and Rich Witt is working to trim and fit the joint for an exact match. All the parts are fit and clamped into alignment and a hardboard template fixed in place. Then a pattern cutting router bit follows that to finish cut the exact curves and shape. Tim Peters, Buzz Morisette, and Bob Kutella discuss ways to work with the grain of the pieces rather than fight them. Rich, Tim and Buzz are making the chips fly on the first sash with the pattern. Rich has just helped the tricky routing on sash number two. The point here is to inspect the job carefully and do any touch up work while the template is still in place and the tooling is set up. The next tricky wood working job du jour (it seemed every job was tricky today) shows Tim cutting a special springboard jig to aid in creating new molding for Chicago Rapid Transit 1024. Time for the first try at the molding profile, using custom ground knives on our spindle shaper. In this respect every job is special and a variety of guides and jigs need to be designed and put in place to make quality work - and do that safely. It is always a learning experience - ask Tim if you do not believe me. You do not succeed try again. There are a number of factors in play as Victor Humphreys and Tim run another blank piece of white oak through the machine. Height, width, position of the knives, feed rate, how the work is supported, etc. Let's try again. If you look at the series of photos above you will see things added and changed to the set up as one by one a potential problem is noted and we fix that area. Now, if only we had somebody that ran a shaper for a living for 40 years, he would probably converge on the best way quickly and be laughing at us. Time to end this post and show you the door. That is, the new door we are making for our depot. The last two pieces were tenoned and are in the process if final fitting. |
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Comments
Fri, 03-29-2024 21:26
We're slackers and spend more time working on the equipment in the shop than keeping all you readers updated. We'll work on it, but I'm sure updates [...]
Thu, 03-14-2024 08:02
What happened to the Department Blog? It's been over 2 years and I still regularly check for updates, but nothing comes...
Mon, 12-27-2021 16:28
Happy New Year to all the Departments at the Illinois railway Museum! Thanks for all the good work you do in railroad preservation. Ted Miles, [...]
Wed, 10-13-2021 13:33
Was the CB&Q 1309 every transported to IRM?I’ve been reading old issues of Rail&Wire and the car was mentioned several times.
Mon, 06-07-2021 22:40
I was wondering if in the model layout display what scale would you guys be using and would you be displaying model train history as well? Just [...]
Wed, 06-02-2021 17:27
Nice to see 428's cab back on. Looking forward to when it is operable!
Tue, 06-01-2021 16:47
I hope the work will continue on the UP #428. Now that they are the museum's connection to the national railroad network; she would be very [...]
Sat, 04-17-2021 23:07
What is the status of 126, the Milwaukee Buffet car that is in S. Dakota? Any guess on when or if it will get to IRM?
Wed, 04-14-2021 21:09
Perhaps it is time to scrap the remains of the c, B & Q 7128 to make room for the Villa Real. Ted miles, IRM member
Wed, 04-14-2021 15:26
Hi IRM my name is Jason and I was wonder If you guys would be willing to save a CN Dash8-40cm they are currently being retired by CN and being [...]
Fri, 04-09-2021 19:56
Bear in mind that the Nebraska Zephyr is an articulated train set, so cars cannot be inserted at will. Although cars and/or a second engine could be [...]
Wed, 03-31-2021 11:37
I believe Silver Pony is currently on the back burner, and has been put into storage in one of the barns. The car needs a lot of work done to it's [...]