Nearly a full team today with 4 of us.  Ian painted some newly machined bits that needed primer before we assemble the axleboxes.  The put a coat of undercoat on the roof so that we can mark out for the seats/handrails/floor latts etc.  This certainly made a difference and it looked surprisingly smooth.   Jim brought the two door screens and spent the day making sure that they fit.  These were missing aprts and have been made from old tram doors and llok good.  Now that they have been trial fitted the next job is to varnish them.   I spent the morning marking the stair tread supports then started shaping them.  Stephen arrived at lunchtime and we both worked on the stairs drilling pilot holes and shaping supports ready for assembly.  Nothing spectacular but all in all in it was good steady progress.

Just three of us today but a lot of work got done.  Ian finished off painting the suspension and axlebox parts and then spent the rest of the day removing sawdust and a lot of rubbish from inside the car and generally tidied it up.  Jim started by putting another coat of Cuprinol on the roof then spent the rest of the day filling and finishing the edges and nosings round the canopy bends.  I started by routing the upper edge of the canopy bend nosing at D end and then Jim sanded the underside.  During the week I had collected the stair treads from the joiners with the backs cut accurately and nosings cut.  A prototype tread was then marked out and the supporting blocks shaped and drilled then the tread was assembled and checked against the marks on the stringers.  All was in order so I spent the reat of the afternoon, marking and drilling treads and blocks.  On the way home the door gear was left at Elliott Engineering for the wheels and axles tro be made and assembled.  All in all some good steady progress.

Another good day of progress with a full team.   jim spent the day rubbing down the ventilator strips and edges of the roof and removing excess mastic redy for filling and primer.  Ian finished painting the supension units then carried on with more mastic removal.  paul spent the day routing the steps and got all 12 ready for final trimming to shape.   I spent the morning sanding dwon the rest of the roof and then in the afternoon Jim filled and sanded the remaining screw holes and gave the planks a coat of cuprinol ready for painting next week.  

The canopy ends now look like this

This a a great improvemnet on previous weeks.

Stephen and I spent the afternoon finishing the reinforcement of the old underframe and then trial fitted a suspension unit to it.

This is probably the first new hores tram suspension of this ttype to be assembled for over a century.

It's taken a lot of effort but is worth the effort and fits exactly to the old underframe.  This is a tribute to the late Bernard Donald's measuring and setting out skills.

All i n all a good week.

A very  busy day with a lot of proparation work done.  I didn't arrive till lunchtime after giving a talk about the project but Jim, Paul and Ian were hard at work. Paul finished setting up the router and then spent the afternoon cutting out the 12 stair treads.  These are cut roughly to shape with a jigsaw then the inner and outer edges are finished accurately with the router.  All 12 are no cut and 4 of them have had the outer edge routed and are looking good.  Ian spent the day filling screw holes in the roof ready for sanding down.  Jim spent time sanding down the cut edges of the roof ready for routing to shape in due course.  In the afternoon I started to use the orbital sander on the roof to clean it up and level off the boards, while Jim continued work on the edges.  It is slow progress but the tram is steadily coming on.  I can only apologuise to readers for not taking any more photos today.  On Monday 4 of us had a very successful research trip to Crich and I spent time measuring up the brake gear on Chesterfield 8 so that I can use my notes along with bernard's  notes to get started on the drawings for the components.  Hopefully next week I'll remember my camera.

Another steady day.  After the heady progress last week to put the last roof plank on this week was steady finishing jobs on the roof.  I spent the day trimming the ends of the planks to give a neat overlap over the canopy bends and then marked them and cut them to final shape with a jigsaw.  Jim helped out with the shapes of the curves at the edges.  These now need sanding smooth before we use the router to put the shape of the nosing on the boards.  Ian spent the morning painting suspension componentsd and then started scraping mastic off the drip rails.  Paul spent the afternoon setting up the router to start cutting the stair treads by buyilding a bench across the tram so that he has a firm platform to work on.  Hopefully the cutting will start next week.  The Brake springs are now ready and should be back in time for the AGM.