A rather grey, wet and dismal morning in Tywyn, but as we are still able to work inside the museum this week, it didn’t present a problem.
Max Birchenough, Andy Sheffield, Charles Benedetto, Pete Thomas and John Olsen picked up from last week with Charles ascending the scaffold tower to apply the micro crystalline conservation wax to the last display panel of locomotive nameplates. Pete made adjustments to an existing headboard mount so that it would fit a different head board, while Max continued his patient rust removal on the Chattenden and Upnor points indicator. John had been working on this during the week and successfully freed it so that we are not limited to just cosmetic restoration.
Andy had brought in his own paint brush to meticulously paint the frame of the large glazed panel just inside the platform entrance in fresh white. John made a simple fillet of wood to raise the Night Mail headboard by 3 1/2” so that it now matches the heights of the others around it on the beam upstairs. He also liaised with Ros who was conducting an overdue PAT test of all the museum’s electrical apparatus; one multi socket trailing block was found to be defective but otherwise we have a clean bill of health.
Ann McCanna came into the museum to check on numbers for our morning coffee and we joined her and Tom Place for our convivial chat, chocolate biscuits and caffeine fix.
Much refreshed we returned to the museum to tidy and clear away all the tools and scaffold tower, as next week we open for the schools half term holidays; the opening will be for two weeks so we will be hoping for dry weather so that we can work in the yard.
With the museum clear of obstacles, we left Ros to his work and finished for the morning.
Photos by John Olsen