Friday 1 July 2016

Progress - just NOT on the boat :-(

It's getting busy again now at work.  You may remember a while back we began restoring 2 rides at the same time.   The Chair-o-planes and the racing track/cars.

We finished the chairs and they're now up and running down in dreamland.  The racing track - 1930s Brooklands Speedway to be precise, is well under way

Sorry for the photo stream but it's the easiest way to share what's been going on - I'm not quite worn out (again) yet but it won't be long.  For example, here is car number 7 before I began working on it

(it's the one on the right)

It was formerly green and yellow... BUT it's now Cream and Green - CLIFF green to be precise - the colour (with the same name as my dad) was the same as the Audi 80 GT I drove around in when I first passed my driving test many moons ago...  a lovely old car even then.






 The chrome has been a nightmare - to be honest, if we'd had time and more money, we'd have had it all re done...  alas the quotes I had were for between 410 - 500 quid per car... suffice to say, a lot of cleaning and polishing has taken place ...I'm quite pleased with how it's turned out actually - by NOT re-plating them, it does add to the historical aspect with the  patina don't you think?


I've had to ditch a few bits that were beyond recovery.



Seat wise, I've had a crash (no pun) course in re-upholstering using black leatherette.  The old ones were totally worn out.




They're a pain given the shaping but with a bit of stretching and hot glue sticks, I think they'll do.  

The seats all needed re-making:


followed by some new foam and more leatherette - this time using a staple gun ... MUCH easier.




I've put the cars to one sidde for now as we need to concentrate on the track  -  you would not believe how much wood we've got piled up.

The next couple of weeks are going to be busy - alas, NOT working on the track.... we've got some annual maintenance to do on a ride we've got hired out so I'm off to Margate 4am Monday morning for the week with Rog and Gav - you'll note NEITHER of those are Estonian OR an apprentice lol.

Sorry this is not boating related... it's just the way life is rolling at the moment - work has taken over again for a while:-(

Until next time...


2 comments:

nb Chance said...

wow! Fascinating!

Quaysider said...

hmmm... assuming you're not being sarcastic, cheers. Heavy lifting a side, it IS quite fun - It's quite rewarding mending/re-making things ... certainly better than the old days of IT consultancy.