Tears on my pillar

Carl writes…

Fortunately the broken section of transom rail was with the kiosk when ‘Kelly the Crane’ brought it over [from Derbyshire] to Norfolk. It was the missing piece of the jigsaw & fit perfectly; however it had to be thoroughly stripped of paint & rust before I could could ‘operate’!

After buzzing a ‘36′ pad over the broken section & grinding a ‘V’ in both this & the structural transom rail I was ready to re-align. In order to aid perfect alignment of the section when welding, I drilled a hole through the broken section & the corner pillar. The broken section’s hole was enlarged & countersunk. The hole in the corner pillar’s top was threaded with a 5/16 Whitworth ‘taper tap’. A countersunk steel screw was nipped tight between the sections prior to welding. This screw will remain in situ & be coated with body filler creating the correct aesthetics.

After welding, the ‘36′ pad was used to ‘dress’ the weld; this ensures the weld trail is flush to the surrounding surfaces.

Oh no! A bit missing!

Hang on, what’s this bit of broken iron I’ve found in the back of the transport truck…

It fits! Would you Adam ‘n Eve it?!

Grind the paint off…

Tap and die job. Looks like we need a Whitworth 5/16th taper tap here.

The bolt!

The hole!

Beautiful flush fitting.

But it will need welding to be fully invisible.

“I’m melting!”

I’ll see you burn…

Stuck on you.

Because you’re so smooth

On top of the world!

Can you fill me in?

For those following the studio blog, it will be back soon. There’s a community project coming up in mid-Sept relating to the Widcombe song, and Howard is soon going to be back to fit my wall plates in the next week or so (the only current sound leakage from the live room is from the cable hole in the wall!). For now, here are some more visual treats for phone box restoration fans!

Kerris fills the casting imperfections around the 'Telephone' sign frame area.

Kerris (one of Carl’s phone box restoration team at Remember When UK) has been back filling all of the casting imperfections. She has also begun ‘prepping’ the roof for paintwork pre-installation (you may recall the roof is actually a replacement one – see previous post). Carl has now loaded the K6 back on to the GPO trailer (an authentic 1930s antique itself) getting it ready for welding. It’s easier welding a horizontal surface, he tells me.

I’m now getting to the stage when I need to decide what to do with this thing when it’s finished. People use them as garden ornaments, but I’m really really tempted to put a proper phone in it – just seems kinda the right thing to do. In an age of mobiles and Wi-Fi, having a landline in the garden seems wonderfully obtuse. But on the other hand I’m not sure I’d want people leaping my garden fence in the middle of the night to make phone calls – although a lock on the door also seems against the philosophy of the thing. Am I being paranoid? Has telecommunications become such a cheap commodity that phone phreaks no longer exist?

You’ve never seen a phone box from this angle before…

The K6 on Carl’s authentic 1930s GPO trailer.

My K6 horizontal on the trailer. A queue of phone boxes in various stages of repair stands behind.

GPO trolley from the other side – note the two mini wheels on the front.

The trolleys tilted so a single GPO installer could put the K6s in place unaided.

Fully upright.

Yes – even Carl’s workshop is 1930s retro…

Imperfections in the roof casting being sanded out.

Kerris fills the casting imperfections around the ‘Telephone’ sign frame area.