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The Lower Saloon after completion of the restoration of the side panels, woodwork and seating.
The finished result was very pleasing, restored but still retaining the old look of the vehicle.

The leathercloth on the side panels had aged so badly it was crumbling off the plywood, which in turn was rotting away. New plywood panels were cut and covered in new leathercloth. The match to the original was a good one, although we had to guess how much lighter it had been originally. Scrubbing a piece of the old dark material had revealed a much lighter shade, so this was selected for the restoration.

The wood trim was stripped and re-varnished, before being refitted with new screws.

The seat frames had a repaint and chrome clean, but the material had to be content with vigorous cleaning, and re-stitching where necessary, although the squab moquette was in remarkably good condition considering that it was 45 years old and had been in intensive service in Huddersfield for 11 years. New patches of material would have looked wrong, and to re-cover ALL the seats would have been prohibitively expensive. We estimated that each seat back or squab would have cost nearly £100 each, and there are effectively 36 backs and 36 squabs on the two decks, so complete re-upholstering would have cost over £7,000!

 

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