Seat upholstery:

As time allows, Katie takes on projects including seat, armrest, and related upholstery for steam locomotives and coaches. For locomotive cabs, she sourced a very durable snowmobile seat fabric and durable thread that holds up to UV rays, oil, abrasion and weather. She also recovers coach seats that incliude simple slip covers for existing seats, to complete re-fitting with modern fibers to simulate vintage horse hair-padded mohair seats for late 19th century museum-quality pieces. This kind of craftmanship is getting more difficult to find so we offer this service for those who can’t find it locally.

Dust Guards, Dust Seals

The business of making journal pads keeps me busy enough along with my other interests. However, I enjoy the diversity and challenges of new projects so I try to accomodate other needs if suppliers are no longer available. Some customers expressed interest in purchasing dust guards for the back of the journal boxes. Typically they are only accessable with the side frames off the axles. Dust guards prevent dust, grit, water, and other contaminants from fouling the journal box.

The orignal pieces used formed plastic with rubber lip seals around the axle. As you can see in the photo, this NOS example has cracked rubber and sustained rodent chew marks from dacades of storage in a hot box car. A new supply can’t be located so we (or you) can make a replacement using 1/2” thick neoprene sponge foam. While the seal might not be as precise as the old rubber lip seal, this new material is commonly used by excursion railroads with equipment that run thousands of miles each season. They simply cut it with a box knife to a pattern and install. If you need some and don;t want to make them yourself, contact me and we can discuss dimesions and fit.