March-April 2019

Installation of the flooring was completed and most of the panelling on the end walls was put up.  Work also progressed on the doors, seat frames and priming the clerestory framing.

 Dean and Bill L. are installing the flooring this day.  Watch your toes, Bill.

As they got closer to the wall there wasn't room to swing the mallet to tap the boards together so they had to get creative with spacer boards and pry bars.

John joined the crew and is placing a portion of the last (ripped) board down.

Finally the last piece to the puzzle.

The floor is done!

Craig uses his router and cuts a hole in the new floor.

This is for access to the king pin which passes down through the floor and into the truck allowing the truck to rotate on turns.

This is one of the original plates that covered the king pin.

 With the floor completed the end walls can be finished since the wall boards overlap the floor boards.

Dean is nailing a board in place.

Looking good!

Here is a close-up of one of the panels.

Next the base boards go in.  First they were sanded, in this photo by Mike and Don.

The ends of the boards were cut to 45 degrees where they abutted one another to provide an overlap.  Craig is adjusting the chop saw.

The first one is in place.

A narrow piece of moulding goes on top.

The "bull nose" moulding will go on top of that.

First Craig needs to shave down the finish boards to be even with the framing.

The bull nose moulding is shown in place at the top of the photo.

A considerable amount of filling of nail holes and sanding was done by several of us, me included.

Jim K. is adjusting the strike on one of the doors.

This is the original hardware that has been cleaned up.  It looks good!

Craig is sanding the door frames.

He has made and installed thresholds.  The gap looks good.

A view from above with the door open.

There was more grinding of burrs on the seat frames.  On the left Don is using a grinder with a  disk and on the right Mike is using a small wheel on a drill to get in the smaller spaces.

The seat frames were sent out for blasting and powder coating and came back promptly looking very good.  This is one of the outer frames that goes against the wall with the legs cut off.  Wooden arm rests that Craig  made are mounted on the arms.

In this photo the frame has been positioned on the bull nose moulding temporarily. centered on the wider space between the windows.  It will be fastened to the wall and a second frame with legs will be opposite to support the seat and seat back.

Tom has been priming the framing in the clerestory.

He is doing that before the copper sheet metal below the clerestory windows is installed.  It will overlap the metal on the roof already in place.

One side is done.

I have had a question from a viewer on how the roofing pieces are joined together.  First a bend is put in the edge of a sheet and two sheets are overlapped as shown here.

Then the seam is pounded down flat as shown in this view of the ends of two sheets.

Finally the seams will be soldered to prevent water intrusion.  In this photo there is soldering around the vent but the seams between the sheets have not yet been done.

John gave a demo of the coupler pocket components at the last work session.  Observers are, L to R, Craig, Mike, Bill L. (top of head only), Don and Jim M.

The king pin is in place in the left of the assembly and the coupler will attach on the right.  There will be three springs on the horizontal shaft between the bars to cushion the actions of pulling, coupling, etc.  The unpainted angle piece will attach this assembly to a steel bracket already in place under the car.  Final assembly and installation will be done next spring in Antonito.





Thanks again to John, Tom and Don for contributing photos.