Saturday 9 December 2017

Maintenance Update (wedges, plates, frozen, coffee)

Wednesday 6th
Our new needle gun arrived on Monday, so I have marked it as “2807”. However, it didn’t get used today. I had to fit a connector to it (which I purloined from another air tool that we never ever use) but …… it was a tad quiet in our group, as Bruce took the day off (birthday) and John G took the day off (out with his son). This gave me the opportunity to do some wood cutting. From a H&S perspective, I will not use our band saw if there are people walking in & out. Also, it is not sensible to use it when there is wet paint around! So, today was ideal.

I had acquired a large (desk top sized) piece of hardwood from which to make wedges. It was too big to handle safely, so initially I sawed it in half. Then I cut a straight edge because it had been broken when removed - I don’t know where from; I found it in a skip!).


Then I could cut strips 20mm x 12mm (sorry to have to use mms); chop these into 9mm lengths, and then turned each piece into two wedges.

Andy Smith [P-Way] popped in to see how his boot scraper is coming along. I applied its top coat today.

Meanwhile, over at Winchcombe Ray was making metal plates for use on some door parts where the wood has been nibbled away by a bolt.


The plates will protect the wood and enable the bolt to hold the door pieces together.



Gil & Fred were there, too, but I didn’t see what they were up to!

Saturday 9th
Rob, Bruce and I were in attendance, but decided not to do a lot, as it was somewhat cool. The water supply to ‘our’ van was frozen solid. Apart from a slow progression of rail chairs towards becoming boot scrapers, Bruce had an investigate into how to repair one of the castors on our heater. See: jobs are thin on the ground, so little things get attended to!

Fred & Gil joined us for elevenses. It’s warmer in our van than in their siphon.

Rob managed some painting, but was then called off to be induced (seems to be done in several stages these days). Luckily this was at lunchtime, so he snook off with a hot coffee in his hands. Probably the envy of the rest of the group of newies.

Bruce & I decided that neither of us would be here on Wednesday, so we cancelled Wednesday.
Bruce left, and I finished off a couple of things before departing. Rob had finished his session by then, and there was no point in starting anything new, so …

I thought I’d call in at Winchcombe station to see if they were displaying boot scrapers. They would have been, but they’d sold them all! Apparently, a lady had driven 50 miles to buy one today …luckily the staff suggested she ring the Flag & Whistle, which she did. They did have some.

Not liking to leave a bare shelf, I turn around and headed back to Todders and extracted eight boot scrapers from the van: two for the Flag & Whistle, and six for Winchcombe station. Lynn got quite excited because her Flag & Whistle has now sold 98 this year! She reckoned that she would have made the 100 by nightfall. I didn’t wait to see, but I may well pop in tomorrow (snow permitting) to see if she has made the ton.

Brian has received info from Llan to say that 2807 is scheduled to be in service:
December: 2 & 3, 9 & 10, 16 & 17, 22-24 and 30 & 31.
Reids are booked to collect her on January 8th to return to Todders on 9th.



Roger

No comments: