The bar now has most of its external cladding apart from the bar top. Chris
Smith has made all the shelves for behind the bar and these are now in place. The cupboard door at the far end of the bar
has been fabricated and hung. Another fiddly job behind the bar was the cutting of the three holes in the internal side
cladding to allow the three steam heating controls to be positioned. A reinforcement member has been installed along the
back side of where the top of the bar will go to allow us the facility to install handpumps if required.
Dave Simpson, Jim Ormiston & George Craig continued with the roof preparation prior to application of the final covering.
A lot of filling and sanding was done.
Work continued on the inside of the windows. The framing verticals were drilled and temporarily screwed into place. The sills
had the drainage channels routered in - a tricky job this as the depth of cut varies with the positiojn along the sill to give
4 sloping channels to guide condensation to the drain orifices. The sills were also drilled for the fixing holes and the ferrules
which mate with the drainage pipes were inserted. After attaching the drainage pipes, the sill was screwed in place (again
temporarily). You can see the drainage channels leading to the drain ferrules in the photograph on the left.
The window bars for the two corridor windows and the three windows opposite the bar have been sent south for chroming.
Alan Wilson has reassembled the furniture on the east gangway door and this has now been hung. Similar work proceeds with the west door. The corridor saloon door has had its shiny new 3-bar handle and mortice latch fitted - this seems to function OK. Vestibule saloon door followed the next week.
Jim and Bob have been fighting long and hard to complete the sliding door which gives access behind the bar. The second skin
of the partition was added first, then a recess cut in both panels to allow the door handle space when the door is fully open.
The door jam has been made from another piece of Gresley treasure trove, but of course the lock was at the wrong level, so the
jam had to have a bit cut off the bottom and glued back on the top so everything would be at the right height.
A bit of
routering and lots of Jim's sandpaper elbowgrease combined to produce the grooved edging strip for the sliding door which
mates with the convex moulding on the doorjam.