Thursday, April 21. 2011Wood Shop Update - April 20, 2011A lot of the wood shop work is specific to the volunteer's favorite or currently active project. We do just as much or more work from a pool of interested and willing volunteers, who get to experience a variety of tools and techniques and learn in the process. The first section of this report deals with constructing a new door for our East Union Depot. John Faulhaber explains to Simon Harrison the geometry of a mortise and tenon joint and the steps to try to achieve a perfect fit as the door top rail is matched to the right hand side stile. Next John Faulhaber is using the table saw to nibble away and size the tenon for the middle rail of this door. At each step in the process the parts get to be assembled to check that everything is in order. I suppose that would not be necessary of we were making twenty or so identical doors. But for a one of a kind item it is quite an important step. By end of day, parts are dry fitted for the frame and top rail, and Victor Humphreys and John are working on the middle rail Steve Iverson has combined some vacation time with his latest trip to IRM for the Annual meeting. He has been working to help Frank Sirinek continue the progress on Kansas City Public Service 755, one of our PCC cars. He is making new wood parts while behind him to his left is a restored and painted ventilator housing waiting to go back on the car. Certainly RAPID progress as Tim peters continues on the epic restoration of a wood L car, Chicago Rapid Transit 1797. Timbers shown in last week's shop entry have been completed and painted, and here he is consolidating and repairing more wood parts for the car. With the addition of the new shop annex, some of our sawdust collecting system had to be dismantled. Henry Vincent takes on the role of 'tin knocker' as he hangs a new run of ductwork, to suck up sawdust and debris as fast as our volunteers and machines can produce it. Simon Harrison and Rich Witt have had enough of a bench vise that really offered as many problems as benefits. So they removed it, and are installing a different one from our 'stock'. We really never had ONE good bench vise and now seemingly we need THREE in working order considering the number of active projects in the shop. As a footnote, one of our members notes a reminder that our Member Photo Gallery on this site hosts thousands, maybe over ten thousand images. All of those used in my BLOG entries are hosted there, as well as a myriad of other images for virtually every piece of equipment, operation and activity on our campus. In our BLOGS you get to see those images along with some of the 'back story'; but feel free to explore the albums and images in the Member Galleries for your favorite topic. Sunday, April 17. 2011Wood Shop Update - April 16, 2011Tim Peters has two new end beams well in hand, destined for installation on CRT 1797. In the past few weeks we were able to acquire some old growth southern yellow pine timbers from a salvage site, and this allows some key steps to once again move forward. We invested a lot of money on this and other projects to secure this material, at about 15 cents on the dollar. If you can help out here with a donation, there is still more wood left that would suit and be tailor made in size to work on a number of projects. Buzz Morisette was glazing some of the new windows constructed for caboose MILW 01984. Better be careful swinging that hammer around all those sheets of glass! Victor Humphreys was continuing the prep work prior to prime painting our new base for the heavy circular saw we hope to place in service soon in the wood shop. Rod Turner had completed some additional welding on this during the week, thanks. Roger Kramer and Bob Kutella are working on a base rail for a new station door. We had hoped to complete this last season, but other projects intervened. Here we are sawing stop cuts to define tenons on this large slab of wood. Yes, we do something beside turn out prodigious quantities of new windows in the shop. That said, there seem to be endless quantity of new windows needing to be made. (As an example there are 96 panes of glass in the Sand Springs 68, and it does not use storm windows) It was good to see Henry Auchstetter out for the day, and he is discussing and examining a deteriorated window with Bob Kutella, the new ones to be destined for the Glen Springs. All of the many projects underway rely on two things - dedicated hardworking volunteers, and a source of funds. Can you help? We will teach skill sets and apply your labor, you will have to wrestle with your checkbook yourself! Thursday, April 14. 2011Wood Shop Update - April 13, 2011We are in the home stretch of completing the large window order for new frames for the IC 3996. Here, Rich Witt is routing the last few pockets in the bottom rails for brass window lifts. By day's end they are all done! Some of the crew who worked on these were, l to r, Lorne Tweed, John Faulhaber, Bob Kutella, Roger Kramer, Rich Witt, and Simon Harrison. At commercial cabinet shop rates these represent over $2500 in value, not counting the cost of materials. Good job guys. Not everything in the wood shop means you will get covered in sawdust. Roger Kramer and Lorne Tweed are on a laptop using WiFi. What is WiFi? Henry Vincent was continuing to do all the thankless finishing touches in our shop space addition. Here he is installing base molding along the walls. The picture caption? Note the bright HALO hanging over his head as he works. George Clark was cutting and fitting the last side sill timber for the north side of Lake Shore Electric 810. Can the finished siding be far away? Lorne Tweed and Simon Harrison were taking turns using a pneumatic needle scaler to remove heavy mill scale from our newly fabricated table saw base. That is one of the necessary steps to assure paint and primer can be applied. In case you are not familiar with a needle scaler, come on out and we can put you on the business end of one! All of our rail equipment uses brake shoes to grip the wheels and cause them to slow and stop. The vast majority are cast iron and almost every trolley car uses a shoe different from the others. Different manufacturer of the trucks, different wheel sizes, different decade of construction, etc. Above is a test shoe we had cast for Chicago Surface Lines 3142. That is one of our regular operating cars, and is very popular with members and visitors alike. But the brake shoes are worn to the point where the car's operation may have to be 'rationed' or suspended entirely without new brake shoes. There just is not a foundry on every corner to make these and we are actively searching for one with experience in this type casting. So far the costs seem to be substantial, to the point of being prohibitive. If you like riding or seeing this car run, please consider a restricted donation to R3142 fund. That fund still carries a negative balance from the emergency motor repairs last year and we need to pay that off and get funds to make new brake shoes -- OR -- |
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Comments
Mon, 09-08-2025 08:22
Good job on the Burlington Nortern 9976. OK.
Tue, 08-12-2025 12:56
No new news that I have heard of thus far.
Tue, 08-12-2025 12:53
I'll also be doing another update on it soon. Keep en eye out for that.
Tue, 08-12-2025 12:47
A little work was done to it for Diesel Days this year. You'll see photos floating around for the temporary short term job that was done to make it [...]
Wed, 08-06-2025 13:01
Is steam car CN 15444 going to be coming to museum several times it was to be moved to muesum
Sat, 07-19-2025 18:56
Yeah, sadly it's still there as of 7/19/2025
Thu, 06-12-2025 19:14
Its been 14 years guys, where is the unit? Like really? Did you guys misplace it? Or are repairs taking that long? At this point be might we will have [...]
Wed, 04-09-2025 17:40
Jamie Thanks for the update. She's gonna shine like every thing else you guys do! Smeds
Thu, 03-06-2025 16:28
Yes, there is a wye. Those two have been MU'ed on diesel days a year or two ago.
Wed, 03-05-2025 14:04
7009 number boards look good. Is there a way to turn a locomotive around at IRM? In case you ever had a mind to connect 7009 and 6847?
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...