Wednesday 23rd July 2014 - Hot and Dusty at Wishaw

Four troopers went  to Wishaw to continue the good work on the Broadway Footbridge.
Here is Jim's Report:-

Bill

A hot, dusty and at times rather smelly day for the four of us present at Wishaw today.  The smelly bit was down to the farmer depositing a skip in the outer yard, where the main span is, and then proceeding to tip rotting vegetables into it for most of the morning.  We certainly noticed an improvement in air quality after it had been removed.

The prime objective was to remove all the remaining timbers from the walkway of the main span.  By 10:30 these were all out and the remains of the screws which had held down the plywood were being chiseled off.  

Main span with all floor timber removed

The tarpaulins had done their job and had kept these timbers dry whilst collecting large amounts of rainwater, which in turn had opened up gaps in the roof.  In clearing away the excess water I managed to get about half the timbers wet so a drying out period was needed before we could stack these ready for their 300 yard trip to our storage container.  Thanks to our colleagues at Moveright International this was done in three trips and by forklift truck.  As part of this exercise the timbers have been numbered so we know in which order to put them back.

Jim

 Roger J and Ian removing the last of the screws

Having sorted out the timber recovery Ian then spent a couple of hours trying out out a couple of Hiltis to chip off the worst of the rust on the main span.  Our recently donated generator worked brilliantly.  Unfortunately the large Hilti expired very quickly although it had certainly made a great impression where it had been used. 

Ian trying out the needle gun

The needle gun was rather light weight for the areas we were attacking.  So we may need to look for some better equipment if this exercise is to continue.

The floorboards drying off in the yard

Peter T spent most of the day working on the staircases trying to drill out some very rusted in screws.  Late in the day Roger J managed to prise off some more rusted bolts from the spare staircase, which we are using as a training ground, before we try the same thing on the two staircases we want to preserve.  Having had a closer look at these staircases there doesn't seem to be any metallic cross bracing under the stair treads.  This means that the timber steps provide the rigidity between the sides and may account for why there is so much heavy duty timber and such a large number of screws holding things together.  We may have to review our plan for dismantling in view of this.

All floorboards safely in store