Tuesday 11 March 2014

Wheel work goes on

The stack of liner boards
ready for fitting
Over the past couple of weeks some of the volunteers have worked an extra day.  As a result, the bucket boards are complete and more than half of the wheel liner boards have been fitted  (there are actually 48 of them, not 40 as previously stated).
They are made from larch tongue-and-groove (t&g) board, and are initially prepared by cutting them all to the same length.



One of the liner boards being
persuaded in to place
They are then offered up to the wheel and marked for the bolts that hold them to the casting and for the three brass screws that fix them to the bucket bottom boards.  After drilling they get an application of Roofer's Mate sealant on the mating surfaces before being fixed in place.
Ray cuts a board to fit round a spoke
The boards that coincide with the spokes are a little more complicated.  They have to be cut to fit round the spoke and the casting that it fits into.  They cannot be fitted in the normal sequence, as the t&g would prevent their being put in their place.
Fitting a board trimmed around a spoke
Instead, the previous board is removed, the trimmed board fitted, and the previous board hammered in from the end.