A remarkably mild Wednesday but a lot got done. We had a full team at 10.30am as Paul and Stephen appeared but had to leave later in the morning. Ian continued his thankless task of rubbing down seat latts and there are now over 40 done out of 52. Jim and I carried on with the seat bearers and window sills on A side and by the evening the rear bearer was fitted and the window sill and support rail. The jointing piece for the spacer between the front and rear rails is made and hopefully next week the front bearer will be fixed. Michael came again and finished off the other two cotter pins for the spring hangers then started drilling out the brake beams and brake blocks ready for the bolts that hold them together.  I devised a method of measuring the spacing of the holes in the cross members that the sway bar is bolted through.  These are under the tram and inaccessible but with the aid of an old tape measure nailed to a piece of 2 by 1 and a pin halfway along it the centre spacing of the holes was measured and the drawing can now be completed.  A satisfying days work.

Happy New Year to all readers.  Today was a wet but not too cold Wednesday so we mainly worked inside.  A new team member  Michael Cook joined us.  He had made the mistake of mentioning to me before Christmas that he was a time served engineer so he got recruited to come and make cotter pins for the brake gear.  Anyway he spent the morning tidying up the lathe and the workshop and then made two of the cotter pins for the brake hangers.   Ian spent the day rubbing down more seat latts and by close of play had got 38 finished (only another 18 to go).  Next week we are going to stain some of them and do some colour matching.   In the tram Jim and I spent the day sorting out the seat bearers and window sills on C side.  I made a dovetailed joint strip to keep the front and rear bearers the right distance apart and Jim  finally installed the window sill and the top moulding for the seat back.  Next week we will start on A side.  I then measured up various parts to design the sway bar.  All in all a day of steady progress.

Well the last working day of 2011 has drawn to a close but we had a good day.  Ian spent all his time carrying on rubbing down the seat latts.  He's now done 30 of the 52 that are needed. At least it keeps him indoors and away from the cold winds.

Jim spent all day sorting out the top seat rail on C side.  This is a rebated moulding that supports the window sill and also holds the top of the seat backs.  It needs to be notched round the 3 window pillars.  By the end of the day it was almost ready for fixing but we also needed to secure the ends of the lower seat rail which aren't attached to anything.  We found a way to do this and hopefully next week the top rail will be screwed into place.

As the weather was promised to be dry I rolled the running gear out of the top garage and started to fit the brake hangers and brake shoes.  The first job was to remove the bracing from each corner in turn then to install a length of floorboard before bolting down each hanger and screwing the bracing back into place. 

Once a pair of brake blocks had been hung in their correct position a brake beam was placed between them, the blocks were clamped to the wheel and then the brake beam was centred and marked ready for drilling.  At the same time the projecting lug on the brake blocks that the beam is secured to was marked for drilling in due course.  I got the first axle done before lunch and finished the other one in the afternoon with some help from Stephen.

The last job for me was to trial fit a brake release spring, using a G cramp.  This showed that they need to be 'tweaked' a little to their correct shape.

Stephen joined us after lunch and, in between helping me with the brakes, started fitting the metal straps to the rocker panels.  All in all a very satisfactory day's work.

One last working day before Christmas and a nice mild one after last week.  Jim spent the day fastening the screens at B end and then making the window sill for C side, which needs notches cut in it to fit around the window pillars.  Ian painted the metal strips to go on the rocker panels and then carried on rubbing down more seat latts. I started by collecting the new seat frames from Tattersfields and then spent the day reassembling my trial seat length using 2 sets of the proper frames. I started out by trying to work out how to get the screws in from underneath and keep it all square and ended up making a jig for the process. I was struggling at one point but Jim provided the solution so the jig for the seat bases, which have a concave curve, is now made and will hopefully work for all 28 frames.  I will have to make another one for the seat backs which are convex.  So I then assembled the seat base and tried it on the bearers.  It looks good.  Hopefully some more pictures next week. 

A Happy Christmas to all readers.

A really Cold Wednesday, especially when my daughter texted to say she was on Bondi beach as I was handling very cold castings.  I set out to drill the first holes in the brake blocks.  These are the ones that the cotter pins that they hang on go through and need to be 16mm diameter.  I got 4 pilot holes through and then enlarged them in stages to 13mm and then ran out of drills, so by next week I'll have to buy a 16mm drill.  Jim carried on fixing trim strips, bedded on mastic.  This took us to lunchtime.  Stephen then joined us and after lunch he drilled the brake column support brackets and Jim and I started to sort out the various mouldings for the seat rails.  I sanded down the window sills and Jim started marking out the rail that supports them.  This proved difficult as we have no lights inside the tram and some fool, had gone and screwed a roof on since last winter. The garage lights don't penetrate the winter gloom very much.  After nearly making several mistakes we called it a day slightly early and are going to get some temporary lighting in the interior for next week.  Not a huge amount of progress but some.  By the end of the day I was able to temporarily hang a brake block on a brake hanger and it looks the part.  Hopefully a photo next week.