One of the most straight forward and easy restorations, to Date.

This set of early C20th lathe collets, in their wooden box had seen better days

The box was bleached out,the hinges seized in the open position and the Collets very rusty.

The Cure:

Oxalic acid took the staining out of the box, the Collets blast cleaned and hot blacked in old engine oil and a liberal coating of Lanolin (Wool Oil)  on everything. 

Mike Dodd and Ian Bosket are creating a new museum display in the Museum coach at Toddington Station.

"Carrying the Goods" is a display recording the freight services of the Great Western Railway.

I purchased a lot of old local wooden crates and boxes in the past and they were taken in to improve their look and condition.

The Oxalic acid took a lot of the weathered grey away and each item received a lot of wood worm treatment.

This lovely old egg box was painted white at one end, which had to come off.

I painted the end with the latest No Nonsense water based paint stripper and waited three days for the coating to soften, which it didn't, so I scraped the paint of with a blunt Butter knife under a light flow of tap water.

The Paint Stripper, labelled as water based and environmentally friendly, it is anything but.

It may pass all the volatility tests, but it had to be manufactured, the bottle had to be made, it had to be transported and the people who made it had to drive from where they live to get to the factory.

If the user cannot strip the paint satisfactorily, the project could be aborted and discarded, the end game for reuse, no help to the environment, and adding to an ever increasing environmental threat. 

 " Greenwashing" is a term given to those that purport to care for the environment, but really they do not.

You can see it every where, it is annoying when insincerity is used to sell.