Museum working party 3rd March 2022

The weather in Tywyn this morning was a persistent soaking fine rain, so Andy Sheffield, Max Birchenough, Charles Benedetto and John Olsen convened inside the museum to work on the grey exhibition plinths. These plinths are used to display heavy quarry rail castings and are incredibly difficult to move as they have no hand holds; this mornings job was to correct this deficiency. By using a hole cutting drill to bore two holes and then cutting out the intervening MDF with an oscillating head power tool fitted with a blade attachment, a simple handhold was made in each end of three plinths on the ground floor of the museum. The holes were then filed and sanded to remove any sharp edges.

To make the work easier the display items had all been removed from the plinths; this revealed that some of the coach screw fixings were beginning to pull the MDF apart, potentially allowing the heavy castings to be moved. To prevent this occurring the damaged holes were opened out to 12mm and coach bolts, left over from the rebuild of wagon no. 146, threaded through to provide much more robust and durable fixing points.

In total three plinths were modified and washed down prior to re-attaching the display items and restoring them to their correct locations ready for when the museum is open over the weekend.

Photos by John Olsen