a fairground life

The 4 week period has come and gone with no end to the skydiver maintenance in sight. All the lighting has been repaired -broken wires, over 100 defective bulbs and 30 burnt out holders.It took me two days on these alone as the ride has over 1600 running lights on it. Then I decided to lift the truck treadplate flooring to check the wooden floorboards underneath. OhNo! I expected to see a few rotten planks and replace them. What I found was every plank rotten and wet. So we pulled them all up.They were so bad that they crumbled in our hands. Even worse the chassis members underneath were badly corroded.So we began to chip off the rust. A few minutes later and we had knocked several holes in the chassis!!! So a phone call to the steel stockholder and I ordered up material for 3 new chassis crossbeams and two large plates to repair the holes. Using oxygen and gas we cut out the rotten material oversize to weld the new plates in position. Its not finished yet, but will be this time tomorrow night. When we re-lay the tread plate it will be onto a new steel frame,no wooden planks this time. The wood seemed to hold the water which caused all the rot.The shot blaster came today to see the job.He will blast the chassis back to clean steel, removing every trace of rust, then apply several coats of primer. So the job will take another week or so. I'm not bothered as it will be a good job done.When the gloss coat is applied the chassis will be back to good as new. Anything less would be sending the ride out with fur coat and no knickers.