Hi everyone. My project, railway carriage restoration.

Evening all,

Here is my project that I've just started, a 135 year old railway carriage!

She's looks like age, and I intend (so far as I can) to take her back to gleaming like she would have been in the days of our great Queen Empress Victoria!

Needless to say, it'll take a while....new skills need to be learned, some advice given from you guys, a few swollen thumbs, temper tantrums, a few quid (a couple should I say) and some long hours!

My first day at it was yesterday, and all of the the time I spent (was meant to spend) planning was spent drinking, so here I am on the forum looking for some advice as I go along this (steam) journey.

I started off yesterday as you will see from the album removing obvious rotten wood from one side. A lot of the timber is still quite sound around the windows, which is mainly teak.

I'd be write in thinking that where rot is occurring to a small degree, I should go back to reasonably solid wood, then apply hardener, then apply filler - correct???

i have uploaded a couple of pictures into an album in my profile to show the scale of what I'm doing.

Cheers for now!

Mark

Sussex, England

Here are the pic.



You have your work cut out here!
I think your beyond filler, this needs panels replacing - perhaps even the support struts.

What are you hoping to get from this once it's done?
AFAIK Railway enthusiasts do this sort of thing in groups and it takes them years.

Mattylad,

Thanks for your positive reply...

No it doesn't need whole sections replacing. As I stated the wood is teak and is extremely sound. What do I hope to get out of it??? Absolutely nothing but the pleasure of saving a bit of history. I'm not looking for it to be like it would have been rolling out of a factory in 1880, just to replace the worst and to make it warm, dry and secure so that when family visit they can crash in it.

Any optimists welcome to reply!