With a few hours' work, we were able to complete most of the work required on the reverser for car 36. Rod Turner supplied some special putty for building up the broken part of the insulator board, and fixed and reassembled it. It looks good and should be strong enough to stand up to the forces imposed by the fingers as the frame rocks back and forth.
I sand-blasted all of the surface rust and crud off the rocker frame itself, as seen here. It was probably always bare metal, but we decided it couldn't hurt to paint it with Glyptal, an insulating varnish. I also scraped all of the old Glyptal off the transite boards and repainted them, as seen here.
And I polished up all of the brass fingers. With a couple of trips out to the car, I managed to free up a frozen rocker arm, so all the moving parts now move freely. Here the kit is laid out on the table.
Finally, the rocker assembly was put back together, and looks like this. Notice that the spray version of Glyptal has a different color than the brush version. But it's ready to go back on the car.
I hadn't been out to Barn 2 for quite a while. Repainting of the 451 is nearly complete, except for one end, and it looks great!
These pictures are the best I could do with the ambient lighting. Note that this is the original 1945 paint scheme, so the grey color is different from the other red cars, more like the grey on the blue cars. 
It will be an interesting contrast. And Jon Fenlaciki is still working relentlessly on the windows.
It will be an interesting contrast. And Jon Fenlaciki is still working relentlessly on the windows.
And here is Jim West, needle-chipping the CGW combine, als0 in Barn 2. What a huge job!So in conclusion, we wish everybody a safe, prosperous, and happy New Year! Stay well, and don't do anything I would do!