TRIM
    The major activity today was preparing the trim pieces for buffing. Ron continued to work on the long pieces on the main buffer. Bud brought his buffer that was fixed to a floor mounted motor with a long flexible shaft. Clamping down the long 16' pieces Fred, Bud, Wally and Ron buffed these pieces. By the end of the day all the pieces that we had here were completed including Wally applying a coat of wax. There are two pieces at another location for repair by a person that will weld them with a MIG welder.
    Next, Ryan started us on the process of preparing the letters "GENERAL MOTORS", and "PARADE OF PROGRESS". As mentioned previously there are 45 castings that make up these letters. These are raw aluminum castings and very rough surface. Using belt sanders he had Del using 36 grit on the sander he was using. The next operation went to Don using a 50-grit belt sander. Following that Dick using a DA started with 150 grit, followed by 220 grit and then finishing with 320 grit. Ryan and Fred also did the fine filing and sanding in the small corners of the letters. Mike also was helping in the process of preparing the letters for final buffing. By the end of the day about 1/2 of the letters were through the operations up to the final 320 grit sanding. None had been through the buffing operation yet.
TRIM FASTENERS
    Ryan had Sparta Sheet Metal cut us 500 pieces of steel that were 1-1/16" square so that we could make fasteners for the trim. Ed, Ryan, Connie, Art, and Marty set up a mini manufacturing operation of making all the necessary fasteners. First a jig was built to drill all the holes in each piece of steel. Next the threaded rod was cut. Following that the rod was welded in the hole and the weld was ground flush with a grinder. At the end of the day all the fasteners were completed. Next week they will be painted.