Woe, Woe and Thrice Woe

Thu, Aug 23 2012 02:45 | alvis, varnish, windows, woodwork


If you’re old enough to have a bus pass then you will probably remember Frankie Howerd (Lurcio) speaking these lines on television in “Up Pompeii” through the early ‘70s. I have a certain empathy with that but in my case “Woe” is also known “As if it ain’t broke...parts 1, 2, 3 or 4” so without further ado...

Woe 1

You left me last month with a new hood bag but a soaking wet car having driven over the South Downs through the clouds and the sort of rain us Southerners thought only happened north of Watford. 

Two days later with the help of the dehumidifier, the car was dry but....the woodwork had taken a real hammering. Being a sort of upmarket convertible it has copious bits of wood trim. I'd previousl repolished about ten pieces around the windscreen where the rubber had disintegrated but this job was much more comprehensive; in all there were 24 pieces which I took out and a nice touch was that most of them had the body number from Carbodies who made the bodywork, written on the back in pencil. 

Repolishing them was a production line event.
Each piece needed three coats of stripper to get the old polish off; the drive over the Downs hadn't quite stripped them!

Then I cleaned them with White Spirit.

The next step was to varnish them using a pad which comprised the best soft linen or cotton I could get and in the centre of this I put either cotton wool or some other absorbent material to act as a reservoir for the polish. This ensured that there were no brush strokes.

The varnish I used was an exterior satin finish yacht varnish. 

However it was a bit trial and error as, to begin with I used a cheaper cotton cloth which just left bits of fluff behind so they all had to be redone.
Each of the four coats of varnish was left to dry for 24 hours and then rubbed down using 0000 grade wire wool and again cleaned with White Spirit. 

This was followed up with four coats of Liberon Black Bison wax. This was applied with 0000 wire wool, left for about an hour and then polished with a good quality polishing cloth. 

So with seven or eight coats of varnish and wax this now has a nice honey coloured look in addition to the mahogany itself.

It's tempting to see what happens to it if it gets wet...but I won't!

However that was not the end of it as the windows are all of the wind up variety but they work on the same principal as a roller blind but obviously with a much MUCH stronger spring....see Woe 2

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What do these two have in common?

Sat, Jul 21 2012 02:47 | alvis, double-duck, hood, mohair

Well, this one has mohair on its back...



And this one has mohair at the back...





















But that's where the similarities end, as goats don't get to be 85 years old, Alvises can't climb trees and anyway from what I can see there’s no reason why a Mohair hood should be made from mohair - after all, a Duck hood isn’t made from ducks***.
"Alice" the Alvis is being prepped for a trip to Angouleme in September but being a firm believer in...If it ain't broke, don't fix it, the only thing I could do apart from completely rebuilding the car was to have a hood bag made for the car.

So where to start? 

We do have an RMM list of suppliers which used to feature Polyfacto before they closed their doors for good so I listened to what other RMM petrol-heads had to say. James Mann had recommended Diane an ex-Polyfacto employee based near Pevensey and Tim Wilson had good words to say about JSM Trimming. I spoke to Diane and she suggested that I try JSM - I got the impression that my wish list was perhaps a little too challenging and JSM are almost on my home territory.

JSM comprises three partners - Jay, the owner of Chariots, Scott, an ex-Polyfacto employee and Maria who started at Polyfacto when she was sixteen, since when a few years have passed...

Jay owns quite a sizeable chunk of ground on the Uckfield Road which houses not only Chariots (a Wedding and Limousine hire company) but also a motor engineers and numerous delectable old cars which are used for his hire and chauffeuring business. 



To name a few - Model T charabanc, Lagonda, Rolls Royce, Daimlers - many of which have received the JSM treatment.




The day I went along Scott and Maria were working on an Aston Martin DB7; we discussed the various types of hooding material from Double Duck through Vinyl to Mohair. Originally the hood on the Alvis was leather with no hood bag; double duck would have been a less expensive alternative and strictly speaking that's what I should have employed for the hood bag. However double duck does fade quite quickly whereas mohair does not and I didn't want instant patina.



A friend of mine has a similar Alvis to mine and the hood bag on his car is attached by Lift-The-Dot fasteners.

Scott reckons that this is not really in keeping with the age of the car so I opted for turnbuckles with mohair material. 


Four weeks later I took the Alvis back to them and three days later it was finished! 

Scott had also tidied up the leather door panels and Maria had done a little repair to the AC tonneau where it wears as one takes it on and off over the rollover bar behind the driver (a little bit of cost cutting by AC I think).

When Scott picked me up from Lewes station I asked him how Maria made the hood bag...apparently all by eye with no patterns at all!

Of course when I left JSM it wasn't raining but as I drove over the Downs and through the clouds, it poured and poured...so now the Alvis is back in the garage with the de-humidifier sucking all the water back out again - I hope.

(Unfortunately my hope was misplaced - see Part 2 and maybe even Part 3 for the resolution)

More on Chariots

“Chariots based in the heart of East Sussex specialise in Wedding Car Hire as well as Executive car hire and Chauffeur driven tours.”


More on J.S.M. Trimming

“J.S.M. Trimming is a company with over 35 years experience in the car trimming industry with ex "polyfacto" staff. We can trim a wide range of vehicles from vintage to modern day. We also offer a full Boat and Caravan trimming service, as well as house hold upholstery and repairs for both Trade and Retail customers. We also offer a leather redressing (connolising) service that revives your tired leather back to it former glory.”


***Double Duck, or should that be Double Dutch?... as the word Duck is derived from the Dutch word “doek” meaning canvas



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