The Heritage Lottery Funded restoration of the Wickham unit is nearing an end. While the MRC C&W staff battle on with the interior, I have been hired to do the exterior painting.

Previously both vehicles had been cleaned back to bare metal, the power car using paint stripper, and the trailer by shotblasting. Unfortunately the wrong kind of shot had been used, severely pitting the aluminium skin, and denting panels, in places actually bending it around the steel framing.

This steel superstructure is a further problem. There is extensive corrosion between the aluminium and the steel, bulging the body panels out a considerable distance in places.

These two problems mean that a flat bodyside could not be achieved.

Both vehicles are in the C&W shed at Butterley, the power car still up on jacks. So at the moment only the trailer car can be worked on, and only on one side due to clearances on the other side.

This photograph, taking on a test run some weeks previously, shows the condition of the side before starting. The cab and doors have been etched primed. The roof has been glossed, the gutter is a different etch primer. The bodyside is bare aluminium, with some previous attempts at filling.

Day One - Friday 2nd May

This view shows the body in more detail, and the limited space because of the jacks! Note the missing rivets between the door handle location and the bottom of the first sidelight frame, and up the centre of that panel.

The body was gone over with 120 grit discs on a random orbital sander, to take of the roughness of the pitted aluminium and flatten some of the filler. Then the portion of the window frames that should be polished were masked off.

The side was then painted with an etch primer. This I think is Butanol based, and extremely fast drying. As such it is almost impossible to eliminate brush marks. I prefer Williamsons two-paint pink etch primer, which is very watery but dries nice.

There are two reasons for putting on this primer first. First filler is very porous and acts like a sponge. Painting before filling gives a barrier. Secondly, having a the body all one colour shows where filling is required much better! It was very hard to take a photograph that showed some of the body problems, but hopefully this gives an idea.

Then filling began. People have there own favourite fillers, and this is what the C&W dept uses.