On Saturday Jonathan turned up again to do some painting on the various projects we have on the go at present.The Sunday promised some glorious weather after the the recent chilly conditions, so it would be outside work today.
I was joined by Jonathan, Len, Clive and John, Clive had purchased a large funnel for the "Witches Cauldron" project, we have tried electric extractors fans of different sizes and some hand dryer motor fans. The only one which blew enough air to keep ribbons in the air over the cauldron, was a hand dryer motor, unfortunately this type of motor uses brushes and is designed for only partial use, not continuous use.
We tried an eight inch and a twelve inch extractor fan with no success, even using the funnel which Clive had brought in, to see if it would concentrate the air, still no good. A large desk cooling fan was then tried, but when it is laid flat the air being pushed upwards is negligible, it must be all due to the aerodynamics of the fan blades.
N.B. So If anyone can lay their hands on an industrial motor which is rated to run continuously and will provide a good updraught we would like to hear from you, otherwise this project will stall as the actress said to the Bishop. It was then back to the carriage plug refurbishment programme, seeing that the weather was so good, we gathered up some refurbished plug and leads and some tools and made our way down to carriage siding two, to check on which carriages still needed their plugs changing for new ones.
We worked our way down the line of carriages checking on the plugs and the chains which stop them swinging against the sides of the carriage. Chains were fitted on quite a few of the carriages were they had come adrift or were missing.
One of the blue and grey carriages we found, had original plugs and leads from when the carriage had left the works in the middle fifties, these were all removed before walking back to our workshop for some well earned lunch.
The covers we had removed from the carriage plugs were cleaned up in our workshop so that we could seal the covers with silicon sealant before refitting them.
All four carriage plugs were replaced with refurbished plugs and leads, including a refurbished black Bakelite pattress of which the original one had a broken brass screw in it.
The covers were refitted with new screws and new retaining chains.
The old plugs which we replaced will be stripped, cleaned and rewired using new cable in the coming weeks, it is a nice job to do when the weather is inclement.
I went off early to watch the footy Wigan Athletic were playing Ipswich at home, handy we won 2 -0.
That was it then for another day in The Electrical Volunteers department for another week.
