April 2015

Good progress was made in April on the roof decking as well as on the truss rod fittings and re-aligning the north outer sill.

Ron and Bill K. are working on one of the truss rod brackets.  Because of no access above to drill downward they must defy gravity and drill upward through the sill for the bolts to hold the bracket in place.

This is another corner of the car showing the steel bolted in place.  Just below the sill is a spacer (to compensate for steel added for reinforcement), the bolster, and the truss rod bracket.

Two more Friends defying gravity on a somewhat "higher" level.  John and Tom are actually under the car drilling the hole for the center pin for the truck with the magnetic drill.  Note the high tech augmentation of the magnet.

Meanwhile, Bill L. is having his own fun with gravity stripping the paint from the ceiling over one of the end platforms.

In this photo Tom caught Bob and me removing the support for the platforms along the side of the care so we could access the tie rods.  These were lengthened slightly in the process of straightening the outer sill on the north side.

Here Bill K. is modifying some of the hardware for the truss rod brackets.

In this photo early in April Don and Jim are finishing the decking on the lower roof on the south side of the car.

Later, work was begun on the decking on the clerestory  as well.  The appearance of the car is changing quickly now.

The fascia for the clerestory was a bit tricky.  This is a view of the end of a piece in place showing the milling that had to be done.  The upper outer corner is rounded, while the lower inner corner is cut out to accommodate the clerestory window frames.

The last project this month was the re-aligning of the outer sill that was replaced.  For whatever reason it was bent inward slightly so that the car was narrower in this area than it should be.  This meant removing the outer framing pieces, loosening the tie rods, and jacking the sill outward.

In this photo Tom is removing the old framing pieces which involved removing the metal bracket holding it against the outer sill.  The inner end is morticed into the intermediate sill.

This photo shows several of the new framing members, slightly longer than the old, in place.  John appears to be securing one to the sill.