Friends and Family

This weekend I had some help on Clarabelle. My dad and his wife Thi are staying at the moment over the school holidays to help look after Chester. But on Saturday he was with his mum so I took Dad and Thi out to Clarabelle and put them to work. We were joined by my friend Pallave - who proved very handy with a paint brush!

Dad putting a coat of paint on the bottom of one of the dining area seats

Dad at work while Thi looks on. Thi spent most of the day cleaning and tidying both inside and outside the carriage.

In all fairness to Pallave, she was not expecting to be put to work and so wore some nice clothes. But she was happy to get into it, borrowing one of my painting smocks and laddering her stockings in the process!

The end result of our combined day's labour was to finish painting and then reinstalling the dining area. Pallave, Thi and Dad all looking suitably pleased with themselves!

Thanks guys! Clarabelle really appreciates your efforts. Now, about next weekend ...

Fixing some holes

Remember last week I signed off with a comment that I'd found a whole bunch of new leaks on Clarabelle? Well this weekend I fixed them. Trouble is there's not a lot to show for a few hours effort!

The Northern Side

There were two types of leaks to deal with. On the northern side there were some leaks in the top lights. Closer investigation showed that the timber in the frames of some of the top lights had contracted a little opening up tiny gaps at the corners. This was pretty easy to fix with some acrylic filler and paint but it did involve lots of up and down ladders.

A repaired bottom drop light seal

The second fix up was a bit more involved and only seemed to effect the windows, or drop lights, on the southern side. The main problem was that the lower margin of the seal against the glass was in pretty poor condition so I had to chisel out and level off what was left back to good timber. I then cut a 6mm quarter-round beading to length and glued it in place using acrylic filler. The beauty of using acrylic filler and acrylic paint is that it's easy to get a good, flush seal - the repair is almost invisible.

Mostly Painting

Two nights on board over the Easter break meant one and a half days clear to just work on Clarabelle.

I started by finishing off the outside fix-up started a couple of months back. This was just a painting job and, over night on the second night it rained heavily. Good news is these gaps have all been sealed. Bad news: the rain identified a whole bunch of other leaks elsewhere in the carriage!

Now all I have to do is scrape the paint off the windows!

While I had the right colours out I finally got around to finishing off the door seals. I think they came up OK!

Chester poses with the newly painted door seals

Then it was inside the carriage to continue fix-ups there. I added some trims including beading around the top lights, then more painting.

Dining area wall with added trims and new paint

More new paint along the corridor opposite the dining area

Table at home

Didn't get out to the carriage this weekend but I did get to work on the dining table at home. You may recall that a few weeks ago I strapped it to my trailer to try and take a warp out of it and to pull in some of the edge pieces that had begun to separate. The strapping seems to have worked taking out most of the warp and pulling the edges in considerably.

The strapping had pulled in the edges and closed the gaps I'd recut the other week

Brass slot-head screws pulled the edges in further and will hold them there

I recut the open joins to even them up a bit

Filled and sanded, the results are pleasing

At this stage I've only sanded the top surface and wiped it over with turps but the beauty of the Silky Oak shines through

That last caption belies the fact that it took two and a half hours of sanding to bring the surface back to fresh timber!

Toplights and table

This last weekend was a short visit on a hot day to finish off the job I had started the week before. I also took some work home with me!

First up, fill the hole from last week where the rot was with builder's bog

 

 

The bog sets quickly allowing sanding off

A new section of 9mm quad is added, held in place by acrylic sealant

Then a good coat of 3-in-1 and the whole area is as good as new!

Some time spent with an old chisel and sander cleaned up the area surrounding both toplights before the whole lot was sealed with 3-in-1.

My home work was taking the dining table out and doing some remedial work on it. I build this table several years ago from a solid slab of silky oak that a mate gave me. Despite some elaborate devices on the underside, it has warped since I installed it. So, as part of the renovations of the dining area, I'm trying to straighten the warp and generally refurbish the piece.

Dewarping by strapping the table top to my trailer with chocks underneath running against the warp.

The warping has cause the edge pieces to come out of shape and open up so I recut the corners and have the errant pieces strapped back into place.

This is just the start of the table refurbishment. After she has been strapped down for a while, I'll screw in the edges to tighten it all up then strip the upper surfaces, refill joints and cracks and revarnish the whole lot.

More rot

It's been a while (again), sorry about that! But I managed to get out to the Old Girl last Sunday and have a bit of a tinker.

The dining area with a freshly painted ceiling and bulkheads wrapped for protection

First up I finished off the ceiling in the dining area and began sanding and repainting the western wall. Then I thought I should investigate a couple of leaks on the other side...

A bit of attention with the sander and the problems were quickly identified

I had noticed on a previous visit after some rain that water had collected on the inside sills of these two windows so I set about looking for where the water could be getting in.

The hole left after the rot was cut out

 The corner of one top light was hiding a nasty bit of rot that had to be dug out.

The cracked drop light

 On the other window the drop light had cracked in one corner and so needed patching up

Sitting in her undies

I was able to patch the minor cracks but didn't have the tools or goo needed to fill the hole where the rot had been so I slapped around some 3-in-one (primer-sealer-undercoat) to protect the exposed timber and glued a piece of plastic over the hole to protect it from damp. Not expecting any rain this week, in fact there's a bit of a heat wave happening, so it should stay all nice and dry until I can get back at her next Sunday.

A quickie

Plans for a full day painting and fiddling around on board were thwarted by hot and not very pleasant conditions. But having driven all the way out to visit Clarabelle, I had to do something to justify the trip. So I plumbed in the waste water pipes for the pull-down sink.

This has taken far too long and too many trips to the hardware store trying to get the bits to fit together and do the job. That's what happens when you try and plumb in non-standard fittings in imperial sizes using modern metric pipework! But all's well that ends well; it works!

OK, I'm not the world's neatest plumber, but it does the job