Riveting starts

Monday on the canopy.

A team of five today, supported by two members of the loco department. And a cold, bright sunny day. We are very lucky with the weather, it was almost idyllic. Sunny all day long.

This was a special day, with riveting of all the holes, temporarily occupied by nuts and bolts. We want our canopy to look authentic. No welding here, no box section steel, no RSJs. We will be looking at this for 100 years or more, so it's worth going to that bit of extra trouble. And yes, people do look up. We want them to marvel.

Riveting is no longer common, so we had to scratch around for the right kit, most of it made available by the loco dept, which also came in person to help. Such is the collaboration between departments. 

Ian brought sackfuls of rivets, which were kept together in this shopping basket.

Does the Coop know where one of its baskets went...?

John was on heating the rivets today, so was listening out for calls for 'one large' or 'two small ones', which he would then bring to the right temperature on our little temporary barbie.

This is what it looked like. It was really just 3 or 4 firebricks on a tray, the whole thing supported by a stack of pallets.

We forgot to bring the long steel nips with which to pick up the hot rivets, so had to make do with a small pair of pliers.

We got very close to the hot bits, but were saved by a pair of thick leather gloves.

We can't show you all of the action, because all of the team members were busy at once, so you'll have to do with snapshots in between.

This is the first corner we did. It's half finished, 10 rivets out of a total of 20 here. Looking good though.

You grab the hot rivet, on a signal from rivet heater John, with the pliers and then try to insert it in the hole indicated by Neal. So far, so good. But sometimes fate intervenes, and the rivet won't go in all the way. This is because there are several layers of steel to go through, and some have shifted imperceptively. In desperation Neal gives the soft, hot rivet a few burps with the gun, and then it goes like this.

We said, OK, this one is for a corner !

Luckily it came out OK, before we had gone too far.

 

After doing 30 rivets quite easily, we decided to have a coffee break. Reading the weather forecast, we brought up 5 plastic chairs, so were able to sit on our little 'balcony' in great comfort in the sunshine.

Steve had bought some doughnuts - yes !! They went down just fine, leaving a bit of an argument about the last one. Neal won.

 

 

In between, there were other jobs. You might remember from the last blog that John had been doing a bit of fabricating at Toddington, and this was the result:

A large, U shaped bracket (one of a pair) for the ends of the two purlins. Neal is starting to fit one of them, and this job was completed by Steve, who spent a lot of time drilling and reaming holes here, while we hammered in rivets nearby.

Then it was lunch time, and hard hats off. We knew it was going to be sunny today, so we got 5 chairs up here, and sat in the sun on our terrace. Luxury!

More work after lunch, still under a full sun. Steve is drilling the holes here to connect the new extension pieces to the ends of the purlins.

The riveting team had now done all of the 30 rivets in the Malvern side fascia board (the one with the largest number of holes) and is seen here on the bottom of the arch supporting the ridge purlin. 

5 rivets are needed on the gusset plate here.

 

But one of the rivets wouldn't play ball, and caused us a lot of delay and trouble. While things were going so swimmingly...

The top rivet here didn't go fully home at one end. We've got both rivet guns going full tilt from opposite ends, but this one didn't go fully home.

It took ages to get out. We tried hammering it through, using the rivet gun to drive it back, drilling a hole through it to relieve the pressure, and finally we had to resort to the gas axe, which eventually worked. Then a new and better rivet was driven in, and this one signed off as well.

Steve carried on regardless, never mind what the others were up to.

Here you see him with a big electric drill, with which he reamed out existing holes after removing the bolts. When you have three layers of steel to go through, it often happens that something goes out of line when the actual rivet is offered up, and then it won't go in. Fast action is then needed to get it back out, before it becomes jammed.

Here's an action picture of Ian and Neal hammering a rivet home on the Cotswolds side fascia board, amid much noise and smoke.

It's a good thing our neighbours in the B&B haven't got any guests. We won't be long now.

 

 

Question: Where does a rivet gun come from these days?

Detroit is the answer, USA.

This is the real article. Ours was powered by a massive road compressor stabled down on the platform.

The end of the day is near here, as the light begins to fade. We completed the other object with lots of holes to fill, the Cotswolds side fascia board. 

After fitting the diagonal bracket to keep it all square, we called it a day for today. A quick count revealed that we had driven home 70 rivets. We think we have another 30 or so to go, mostly in the area of the lower half of the truss, where it sits on the posts, and its adjoining bracket work.

That'll be for tomorrow. All that was left to do for today then was to give each rivet head a dab of primer, to keep the rust at bay for  awhile. Once we are in the dry, we can repaint the whole area.

Thoughts are also turning to the corrugated iron sheets we need to extend the roof. Later this week it looks as if we will be getting a supply from storage at Toddington, and also this week the glass sheets are due to arrive.

It's all go!