a beautiful day in the neighborhood

Hi all;
another great day
Nappy arrived later in the afternoon to continue working on #35's cab restoration with Bonnie while Mike E, Ronnie +Jordan   continued to replaced rotted steel on Dinky #397.
John G began to paint the truck assemblies on the Ping Pong Coach while Mike B began painting the trucks on Caboose #12.
Also, John came in and continued to make great progress by finishing up #398"s cooling system.
He has began working on the heating system. 1 item down and about 100 more to go. No one ever said things moved too quickly on a restoration!
Big John & I worked on Dinky #398. He, painting the fireman's side after I needle scaled the roof. It was too far gone just to sand down and paint. afterwards, I put a quick coat of yellow on it. Next week we should get a much better 2nd coat put on.
I also needle scaled the entire front walk way and the buffer beam to where the front coupler is attached.
This was not primed yet and will be addressed Saturday. If time and manpower  permits, we will also get the entire area painted black. It looks great naked but was originally painted black.
We are going to remove the front grill and frame to needle scale the paint off separately and maybe add a bit of "bling" to the wire mesh by painting it a contrasting silver or black. Not "prototypical" but could look great.
as per usual, Leon kept us all safe and things humming along beautifully while Steve T kept things lively and did a lot of the set up work for the dinner.
All in all a great day before we had our "Volunteer appreciation dinner"
This was to honor us all who proudly give of our time for the Museum.
Having had to leave before the food was served, I was told that it was real good and everyone had a very nice time-very informal, no speechifying!
Keep the faith!
Gary