Hello, this week the team have attended to a ShocVan roof.
Firstly though some mid-week news; Ross and myself took a trip up to see the Barrow Hill Engine Shed Society. Paul Beardsley had visited us last year in Test Car 2, and subsequently invited us to talk to them at one of their monthly presentation sessions. On Thursday after they had shown us around the Roundhouse and sidings, we spent a very enjoyable evening talking to a group of 25 society members about our wagon restoration work at Quorn and also Test Car 2.
With the sunshine over the weekend we took a look at the roof of Shocvan B852838. This van had been restored in 2017 and after 6 years service we noticed that the roofing felt sheets had started to crack and shrink at the joints and roof hoops causing concern that it’s not as water tight as we’d like it to be for storing our re-enactment parcels in.
The old roof covering was removed, carefully extracting it from where it had been stapled to the roof edge laths.
The roof end hoops were removed. Thomas and Dan got to work cleaning them up and painting them with primer.
Some of the roof edge bolts had pulled through the plywood; the nuts were seized therefore these were cut off. Replacement bolts were fitted with penny washers to hold the roof sheet down.
Some of the roof edge laths had rotted and split. We cut new pieces to size and fitted these; G-clamping them in place before securing.
We decided to again use our tried and tested method of roof covering with an old tarpaulin cover sheet. The roof was lightly scraped and cleaned before the cover sheet was dragged over into position.
Once the sheet had been smoothed out, which was made a bit easier with some sunshine to warm it; the roof end hoops were re-fitted with sealant along the edges.
The edges of the sheet were pulled tight and stapled to the underside of the new laths paying special attention to the length above the doors. An extra flap was left to provide a water run-off above the doors.
All the edges of the sheet were then trimmed.
Nick had also taken delivery during the week of a replacement (second hand) wheelset which is destined to go under our coal hopper B425356 which is currently out of traffic due to thin flanges.
Thanks for reading, join us again next week; all the best, Dave
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