Florence Renovation

Well we started work a couple of weeks ago on the interior of Florence. The side trims were getting a little bit tatty and as she's the most popular of the buses for hire I thought she was due for a bit of TLC. The plan is to renew the side trimming panels, the back quarter roof lining material, some of the leathercloth on the roof and parcel shelves and finally replace the floor lino. Firstly we too out all the seats and stored them in Rosie. We have started at the back end and renewed the wood around the window frames. Getting new window rubbers has been a bit tricky but I was directed to a company called Baines and they had 2000 profiles to choose from so the rubber arrived today and I plan on putting the back windows in again tomorrow. Next we have replaced whatever wood framing necessary down the passenger side. The new trimming material will arrive on Thursday, it's not ideal but getting hold of appropriate green moquette has been a bit of a trial, the best suppliers so far have been AS Cummings of Gateshead. So I hope to have at least 3 panels back on by Friday. In the meantime Anthony has been repairing, repainting and generally making better the bodywork on Rosie. So far he's repainted the wheels, wheelarches and radiator. He started on the window frames today. It sounds simple but it all involves lots of gouging out, rubbing down, fiberglassing and a steady hand with the old coachpaints. So anyone looking out for her next season best tell Ant what a good job he's done.... just so he'll carry on and do another! Oh and we've nearly got the new doors on the bus shed! Will post pics soon Anthony has taken some photos so far of progress so I'll try to upload them soon.