Hello everyone and thanks for joining us for the last update before Christmas. We’ve wrapped up our last bit of work at Quorn while we move to Rothley over the Christmas period to work on B777728, which was withdrawn earlier in the year with a roof that was trying to break free.
Our weekend starts this time on Friday after B777728 was placed into the shed to start its drying out process. Nick and Charlie stripped the roof hoops and roof sheet, then removed the previous roof edge repairs.
On Saturday the team were back at Quorn, first task for Nick, James and I was to vacuum test 3606 to prepare it for release on Monday. We’ll have to sort out getting the Esso plates fitted at a later date, but we can do this from two ladders. Only three missing split pins were found on the inspection, which were all rectified.
Mark, Oliver, Tom and Dan carried on with needle gunning the Lowfit, getting the west side and the headstock back to bare metal and then splashing the primer around.
Charlie, Harry, and James though also joined by Oliver and Dan carried on the ground works on the ramp up to the dock which got tested with both Danny and Hector.
Ernie carried on with the welding of the cylinder dome, in the cycle of finding then repairing leaks in the weld, though thankfully this time all the leak have now been rectified. This dome can now be painted inside and out, and put back into use. Ernie also welded the one corner of the side of the Lowfit, both ends of which have cracked the lower weld.
Today, Nick, Charlie, Ernie and I went to Rothley to remove the door ‘noggins’ and start to measure and cut the new roof edges. Charlie prepared the metal frame of the van, which Ernie duly primed.
Charlie and I undid the door top frames and removed them from the van, then measured up for the new roof edges.
After we got the pieces cut and before leaving, Charlie painted the framework where we had been working to get it ready to fit the repair pieces.
That’s where we wrap up today, all that left for me to do is to wish you all a Merry Christmas! We hope you have a restful and happy holiday. Join us again next week, where we’ll have a bit of midweek working to report on, as well as the activities of the weekend.
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