Sills and steel - 8-3-2013

This photo was taken at an earlier work session, and shows Bob and me drilling the plate for bolts to fix it in place on the end of the car.  We took turns drilling and squirting Greg's "special juice" on the drill for lubrication and cooling.

Here the plate has been installed and bolted in place.

The upper plate will be welded to flat pieces of steel which in turn will be welded to the large angle steel that goes across the end sill under Lenny's feet.  There will be shorter pieces welded to the longer one to make an X that will be over the framing and under the siding of each wall next to the doors.  On the right Lenny is cutting a piece of steel while Glenn supervises.

Bob has removed the moulding from near the middle of  the end panel above on the left and is chiseling out a channel for the steel to pass through.  This piece of wood protrudes slightly from the plane of the remainder of the framing.

The remainder of the time was devoted to fitting of the platform end sills.  Craig inspected the sister car at the Colorado Railroad Museum and took some photos which showed that the sills are very slightly spread out on the outer ends in relation to the inner ends under the car.  Eventually there will be spacer blocks and an end piece to hold them together.  They are temporarily held in place with pipe clamps that can be seen through the door.

This photo shows the inner end of a sill which has been tapered to accommodate the truck assembly.












Next we drilled the holes for the retaining bolts for the end sills through the angle steel that was placed around the inner sills, using the existing holes in the inner sills as guides.  The drill also marked the new end sills for later completion of the holes through them.  Tom is guiding the drill, while Bob and I are applying pressure using Tom's patented ad hoc drill press.

Finally, the sills were removed and the bolt holes completed all the way through.  Glen is keeping the drill vertical while Tom is doing his thing.