Wednesday 30th July a cloudy start that turned out nice.

The cupboard moved to Honeybourne for the toy museum has been having work done, A stripping off of the paint and broken glass removal.

Glass cut and fitted it now has a coat of new paint

A display cabinet in the museum carriage has had 2 glass shelves fall down off their dowels no idea why but it must be hot weather related as they will not go back on enough to stay put.

The dowels are glued into the uprights so a work around was required which resulted in some stiff wire going on to sit under the glass.

 

The wire wrapped around the dowels and tied across so the glass shelves cannot fall.

The screw replacement on the Ocean Mail museum coach goes on but slot head brass are now getting in short supply and rot in the frame has meant much fitting og doweling and wooden skewers to fill the voids. The box contains a few of the screws fitted in the last 102 years

That is the full length of the dock on the carriage is done so needs sanding and painting.

The British automatic company embossing machine has been greased and oiled so a test was done using cardboard and a temporary handle

The cardboard test piece proved it works so a roll of 15mm X 0.1mm aluminium is to be ordered and tried as this machine could be useful for marking exhibits.

 

 The  story of the Plastic Garden Storage box.

We bought a garden storage  box so that we could store sales items for our second hand shop at Toddington station.

We  often get donations that are left on the floor of the shop, so to put items in the storage box and out the way until sorted is a good idea

The box left at the rear of the  shop has been stolen after just 2 weeks ,and during this weekends' ( brilliant) diesel gala many donations have filled the shop floor.

We have an old metal trunk that has been rusting away in the garden of 1 station cottages ideal to replace the missing box, but it needs much work to save it. 

1864 is faintly visible on the front, the year  the Clifton suspension bridge opened, Stanley found David Livingstone and the American Civil war was well under way.

The lid has fallen off but  lets see if we can do something good with it.to be continued....

Can you make out the faded date, 1864, on the photo below ?

 Gluing a torn out Page  

Just to see if it could be done, I thought Ii would have a go at repairing a page torn from the edge of this 1950's VW Beetle guide book.

I, ironed the page, and the page stub flat, ran some wood glue along the torn edge an united the torn edges together with some aluminium foil between the repair and the rest of the book.

It worked , and the repaired page is as now as it ever was.

Also nice to have returned, the much repaired GWR Season Ticket enamel sign found buried, folded in half in the ruins of Toddington Station now looking as it would have done in 1904,

on the booking office wall in Broadway ticket office

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 Wednesday 23rd July a nice summers day and slightly cooler for working.

The 1938 water fire extinguisher has been tidied up and is going into one of the carriages on the railway as a period piece.

But it has thrown up a surprise the glass containing sulphuric acid is in tact so a good job the plunger to break it is missing, they operated with water containing baking soda that reacts with the acid and causes the water to expel under pressure. For safety it will need removing before exhibiting although it has survived 85 years.

               

The old ticket sign is now ready to go and be mounted in Broadway ticket office.

The guard mannequin has been removed from the passage in the museum coach freeing up the north end for displays. 

This also opened up an opportunity to get a large display cabinet out and wheeled over to the Honeybourne signal box where it will replace two smaller wall mounted displays.

Most of the time was spent on the museum coach screw replacement job all the steel cross heads are coming out and cross head brass ones fitted but rot and damage in the frame has necessitated a few yards of dowel and wood being put in with glue so the new screws go tight and hold before filling over and sanding in excess of 50 were changed today but it is a slow job..  

That was enough for the day.

 Wednesday 16th July a nice summers day.

There has been extensive work on the Morris cab with much sheet metal replacement now the rear body sides are off for ease of access, the work is still on going.

            

The plastic on the skittle alley in Honeybourne has gone brittle and is failing so the top has been patched with the curtain and a new plasticard curtain will be made.

                                        

We have been given a stamping machine to make labels and markers this uses a thin aluminium tape that letters are punched into, it looks ok but needs a suitable tape so may be a working exhibit that we can use for tags.

                     

The museum coach screw replacement goes on and on it is time consuming but there is no way around it to preserve the wooden frame from water ingress.          

                          The previous weeks work rubbed down and painted

The top rail is now center of attention requiring even more dowelling fitted for the new screws to grip.

                screws exposed                                              holes filled with dowels

         

                                       The work of filling and rubbing down goes on.

There are loads to do

 The Midland Railway Lamp hut

This building was recovered from Brookethorpe, with Whaddon, Church yard, south of Gloucester a few years ago.

Moved there, from the nearby, main Gloucester Bristol main line, for use as a Churchyard tool shed.

It has been sitting in the Garden of 1 Station Cottages Toddington awaiting a future.

Our Trustee Mike Dodd, has arranged its restoration and a move to Toddington yard as an example of a typical lamp room , complete with an interior filled with the artefacts you would expect to find in such.

The Tewkesbury YMCA railway group have undertaken its restoration, and have removed the last 120 years of paint, giving the building an, as new, look. 

Many thanks to the volunteers

 GWR Ocean Mails Coach 185

Repair work is underway on this vehicle after discovering the filler over the screwheads holding the metal cladding in place is coming away.

This is the downside to the  exceptionally hot weather which causes the panels to move causing any loose screws to pull out of the wood.

The protective varnish has fractured and crazed on the side facing the sun.

We remove the loose screws, then insert wooden doweling and glue, and use brass screws to replace rusted away steel ones.

Keith noticed a brass door handle falling off, the woodwork in the door had to be repaired to mount it successfully again.





 

The next photos shows a bodged attempt to repair a split in the door stile.

Car Body filler has been used to hide the split and as ever this achieves little.

So out it came, the crack thoroughly cleaned out, then glued, and clamped.

 

The door is now structurally stronger now the vertical split has been glued