I decided that the Caboose needed some color so I made 2 stained glass windows for the 2 - 2' X 2' windows at the top of the cupola.  The Owl and Flying Dragon turned out good  Added lots of color and blocks out the sun in the afternoon.  Karen at work in her Caboose  The glass work starts with sketches and drawings at the size the window will be.   Here you can see the picture turned into drawing then a pattern. The glass band saw is in the foreground for the Moore difficult cuts.  I use a piece of plywood marked up with center lines then make a frame the size of the glass and lay the pattern in it to fit the pieces after they have been cut.There are 2 glass grinders on the work bench, one with a 1" bit and one with a 1/4" bit to fit the glass together.      Here the glass is being fit together then the edges are foiled with copper tape for the solder that binds it together. You can see the foil tape a...

The Caboose project started last September 2016 and I spent 890 hrs on it over the 9 months. All the work and fabrication was done by me with the exception of the sheet rock, tape and texture.  The finished ladder is shown above and the 1" pipe and bender shone below while bending the top of the ladder.  Top handles will be placed separately from the ladder.  The ladder all welded together and painted.  This is Jeff taping the sheet rock after he finished hanging it. Sanding the joints is very dusty. With all the sanding done texture is next. Jeff with the texture hopper spraying the texture. Note all the windows, doors and supports are taped and covered for the third time. I bought a airless sprayer at Harbor Freight on a Mothers Day sale rather than rent one from the Home Depot. I went through 7 gal of paint and the walls and ceiling were still not covered so we got 7 gal's more and Karen helped me roll it on to get good coverag...

The caboose project is coming along with all the framing done inside. While waiting for the sheet rocker to schedule us in I worked on the outside metal work. Completed hand rails on the West end are shown below.  To make the 4 hand rails I used 50' of 3/4" conduit as I have a bender to make the 90 degree bends and it looked to be the right size for hand rails.  The hand rail was laid out on the floor and the pieces cut to fit the pattern 4 times then welded together. 3" X 3" X 3/16" plates were cut for the mounting plates and welded on.  All the rails were ground smooth, cleaned and center chains added before painting.  This is the East end with hand rails in place.  1" X 1" square tube and 1 1/4" X 1/4" flat bar was bought for the step and ladder fabrication.  I had a set of aluminum running boards from the 74 truck that were damaged from a tire blow out the I was able to straighten for the boarding steps. You can...