The Type Of Bench You Can't Really Sit On..

Over the last few visits, we've been installing the bench tops, onto which we can mount cranks, compensators and ground frames.

Making use of the bench after bolting it all together

Previously we had recovered and planted the concrete legs, paying particular attention to their alignment and levelling, as well as their position. The tops require bolting to these legs, which requires us to drill through the wood in the correct place, so that we can pick up the pre-cast holes in the concrete.

Work underway on the bench

To achieve this, we first place the timber (good, reclaimed hardwood sleepers) into position on the legs. We then mark from underneath using a stick dipped in paint. We then turn the timber over and drill through. This enables the holes to end up in the right place where they meet the concrete at least. Whilst we carefully eye up the verticality of the drill whilst drilling, this isn't quite as accurate as we would like, were we to have been drilling from above!

We then cut threaded bar to a suitable length, before feeding it through and tightening up to clamp everything together. Large, square washers have been used to spread the load on the timber, otherwise the nuts and smaller washers would be pulled into the surface of the timber. This would then encourage water to pool and find its way into the timber more easily. Of course, we took great care to align the washers neatly when viewed from above!

Keep your feet off the seat?
We will plug the old holes in the tops.

The large bench pictured, consisting of 3 timbers for the top, is to take a 5-lever ground frame to control both the turntable road access from near the Junction box as well as the crossover between the two running lines. Which has to tie in to our S&D project! The same process for bench installation will continue along the rodding run for the box...

 The ground frame bench, complete with phone standard,
looking back along the rodding run.

One obstacle we have hit (twice, now), is the discrepancy in depth between the sleepers we are using against what we'd planned for. We had to shuffle our timbers to find three that matched for the ground frame, and will have to notch out the bottom of the next one along to lower the top sufficiently to allow the rodding to clear the top of the cranks as it should. We had set the bench height on the assumption of a 5" deep timber, but ended up with one that was over 6".

The other error was caused by working from the wrong drawing, but we have improvised and are using a steel top to compensate! This bench was in an awkward position, so we REALLY didn't want to have to dig them out again to lower them!

The two compensators need to sit lower than timber would allow here,
as we need to drop down from the rodding to ensure it all clears.

We will now start bolting down the cranks and compensators to these benches, before moving onto the next legs.

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