Another very good day's work.  A quick trip to Batley first thing to pick up the rubber components for the suspension.  Then off to the tram. Paul carried on working on the tudor arch covers and these are now ready for fitting once the screens are fitted.  Jim spent the morning fettling the mouldings that go under th B edge plank where it runs onto the canopy bend.  I spent the mroning finishing screwing down boards 10 and 11 pn the roof.  Then removed all the cramps and debris and the finished result looks like this.

This certainly looks different to the rotten boards covered in roofing felt that we found 5 years ago. In the afternoon Jim and I fitted the B side edge board that leaves a gap for the the last 4 boards to be sprung into.

After lunch Jim and I spent some time putting a suspension unit together now that we have all the components.  These come from 6 different sources in 5 different materials and were designed in a mixture of imperial and metric units.  A scrap piece of Douglas fir was used to act as the solebar and a scrap piece of oak for the tie bar, which will be fabricated in due course. By a miracle everything fitted and this is the end result.

Having done that I've just spotted the deliberate mistake, the stretcher bar at the top is fitted upside down.  The whole unit will be bolted to the solebar with 1/2" Whitworth bolts that go through the rubber washers.  We believe that this is the first suspension unit of it's kind designed from scratch and produced by a society.

A few weeks ago I mentioned that we had fitted a torsion lozenge.  Here at last is a picture of the one that goes on the B side.

A very good day.  Paul got on with fitting the boards above the doors which are looking very good.  One corner of the B end one had been cut out to allow the door to swing instead of slide.  Paul has spliced a piecve of new oak into it with a finger joint and it;s very difficult to see the joint.  Ian Dougill appeared and spent the day removing excess mastic from the roof.  This squeezes out of the joints as they are cramped up, and gets all over  my boiler suit as I crawl around on the roof.  The first 5 planks now look very clean and a lot better.  I managed to fit and cramp 4 more boards and we have now got 11 out of 16 fitted.  Hopefully next week we'll get the edge board on A side fitted and then measure up for the short closure board that goes next to it.  The idea is to fit the last 4 boards at one go and squeeze them down together to get them really tight. 

Away from the tram there is steady progress with the engineering.  The nould for the rubber cones ahs now been delivered and I approved the first two protypes yesterday.  They should be delivered next week.  The covers for the axle boxes have been ordered and I spent yesterday afternoon looking for spring manufacturers for the axle keeps and the brake pull of springs.  It looks as if at the third try I've found a manufacturer willing to make the brake springs.

Another steady day.  I mananged to finish fitting another 2 rood planks so 7 are now fully fixed.  Jim spent the day preparing up to no 12 so they are ready for fixing next week with all the v grooving and routing done.  Paul spent the morning fitting the boards that go above the foors on the inside (sorry no picture yet.)  One of thes at B end is original and the other is new.  They ahve holes at each upper corner for the truss rods to go through and we are trying to get the truss rods fitted as soon as I have planked the roof.  Jim is going to finish the screes, which also have holes for teh truss rods, and I have to get the door gear designed and machined.  So plenty to do over the coming weeks.  the rubber cones should be reayd in a weeks time so then we will be able to trial fit the suspension units to the old solebars.  All in all a steady week.

A positively warm and balmy Wednesday after the last few weeks and it don't rain which helped.  Jim spent the day fettling the B side roof edge plank to get it ready for screwing in place, hopefully next week.  I spent the morning preparing 4 more planks for fitting, by planing the V groove along each side on teh underside of the canopies and then routing the central V groove that simulates the ceiling planing in the saloon.  Then in the afternoon we got another 2 planks fitted.  Getting the screws in the right place is more difficult as we can no longer see where the ribs are so Jim spent some time drawing lines across the canvas to show me where to drill the screw holes.  We don't want any screw coming through the ceiling.

We ended up with 5 planks fixed and for the first time in well over 4 years I was able to sit on the roof of the tram, a real advance.  My arms aren't long enough to reach the next plank from a apir of steps.  We also need to buy a short ladder for safe access to the roof via the B end landing.

This shows that the old rule applies that as soon as a surface it created it gets clutterred. However it is starting to look like an upper deck.

This shows the V grooving under the canopy bend.  The mastic will be cleaned out next week and the over length boards willbe trimmed neatly in due course.

All in all a good day.  Hopefully we will be past the half way mark next week.

Not much progress away from the tram aprt from the rubber cones still being produced.  Also Volume 5 of Leeds transport has now been printed and is away for binding.  Here Jim Soper is seen examining the first pages for quality and colour as they came off the press.  The other gentleman is David Crossland from Amadeus press.

A quite cool Wednesday thanks to a lazy North Wind but plenty done.  We got the first two 'normal' roof planks fixed on C side so there is now a run of three planks which look very good.  First however we had to fix the strange spacer that goes under the centre of these boards in between the centre ribs in line with the central windo0w pillar.  Dave Tanner, who helped us move the wheels, tells me that these are 'torque lozenges' much used in aircraft construction, to keep parallel stringers from twisting.  The first torque lozenge was fixed and mastic applied in the groove then the first plank was inserted, lined up and cramped into place.  Then 12 2" no 12's were inserted to hold it in place.  The cramps were all moved up and the next one was done.  At the same time Jim and Paul worked at putting the moulding underneath the A side edge plank which we will fit next week.  The planked area on C side looks great. 

We also took delivery of the machined axle boxes and sliding collars.   The mould for the production rubber dampers is being made so they shoulkd be delivered in about 2 weeks.  Then we will be able to make a trial assembly of the suspension.   Also Jim and I went to watch the first pages of Volume 5 of Leeds Transport being printed so that Jim could check the colouring.  They looked good and the process was fascinating.  By now the 6 tons (yes that's correct) of paper should have been convereted ito 448 pages by 1800 copies ready for binding.

All in all a good but cool day.