Summer Progress update
21 September 2005 - thanks to Ben Williams for this article
A quick round up of recent progress...
July 7th trip
Back in July we fitted two more windows to the front of 68030 - quite a fiddly, slow operation when the pieces needed to be trimmed slightly etc. The process of feeding the sheets into the seals and getting everything right on both sides takes time and patience! The largest windows will be tackled next time as we needed a new blade for the jig-saw....
Onto the roof of the Matisa briefly to scrape the loose peeling paint off (last colour seems to be the trademark Scottish light blue/grey) and examine the brackets for the air horns (one of the original two remain up there) and the brackets at front and back for the work lights (neither now remain - one being a mystery loss as it was present at Stranraer when it was loaded and then missing when it arrived at the CVR!)
We also had a better look over the Permaquip - the main area of concern is the amount of rust that is present - more than I first thought. The big problem is where the box for the lights / wiper motor etc is fixed to the top of the hinged cab door. Both pieces of metal (on the box and the cab door) are rusted right through which means a hole where all the electrics are.... There is also quite a lot of rust at the rear which got me thinking exactly how much work and expense is going to be involved in this machine and whether it will be worth it!
Had fun operating the turntable though and turning it round to face the opposite direction! Think that will be as far as it moves for the time being........
Sept 18th trip
Myself, Vince and Mark spent the day at the CVR today and made some more good progress on the Matisa - unfortunately we didn't have the tool we needed to carry on with the windows but we have temporarily secured some of the polycarbonate pieces in two of the openings with timber batons which will keep the weather out until we have time to sort them out properly.
Three of the glass windows which are undamaged have been properly cleaned up now and I think we will keep these in place as there is no point in replacing them at the moment. This now only leaves two of the large openings on one side to secure and one of the small windows at the front which we will hopefully see to on the next visit. One of the large windows on the opposite side is badly cracked thanks to our little friends in Stranraer but again this will be kept in place for the time being as it is keeping the weather out.
More of the bodywork was sanded and filled and Mark began re-wiring the pile of spaghetti into the new control panel. Vince made a start on sanding down the Permaquip's bodywork.
Its been a while since our last trip but we hope to make a few more frequent trips between now and Christmas to make real progress with both machines - namely finishing the electrics and engine in the Matisa with a view to starting up the engine again for the first time and securing the Permaquip so it is more watertight than at present. Mark had a look over this machine a week or so ago and it seems it is mechanically quite complete but the bodywork is in a bit of a mess. We need some new batteries but with a bit of luck this is also not too far from being started up again....
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