Morris Minor Owners Club

Whats the story with the treatment of the wood then?
Paula's one will be a Lilac so we have to decide on the staining of the new wood but I want to know how many coats of varnish and which varnish to use.

There's a very good write up on finishing and re-finishing woodwork here.

I am pretty sure C. Ware only recommend danish oil. He recons varnish is the cause of most black joints and decay.

What a lovely fit those back doors are!

Only those who have tried will appreciate what a good jodb that is!

Thanks for the link Welung666.
Duly bookmarked for the very near future...

i got my traveller from cw it was a rolling restoration.i got it resprayed had new wings fitted new door pannels filled had the doors restored new chrome and she looks very smart.i stripped the wood my self,before i had it resprayed.i used 3 coats of clear cuprinal then 2 coats of danish oil.i jusr put a coat of danish oil on every year.i think they have done a good job and will use them again when something major needs replacing.

I spoke to Charles on friday and he confirmed their policy is to treat with a number of coats of clear cuprinol then a minimum or 10 coats of danish oil. There is a local car that was totally restored by C. Ware about a year ago and it lives outside, it had new wood but it looks really bad now. will try to get a pic. Had it been varnished, it would be ok, I think Danish oil is for folk like me that will garage and treat the woodwork all the time.

found it

ptitterington wrote:found it

Is that the car with 1 year old wood and Danish Oil? If so, definately not for use on a car that is not garaged.

That is correct. The guy gets the car fixed up about every 10 years then just neglects it. He runs a tourist attraction, the Shell Garden where lots of stuff has been done with sea shells. More folk admire the car than the garden!! I am just pleased to see that there is not a spot of rust anywhere. and I look at the door bottoms every time I pass!!

I got my car from CW, and they advised Danish Oil applied regularly- I think monthly. (Yearly would be no good as it dries out quite quickly). I tried this for a while, and it did keep the wood looking good, but I found that it was a bit of a pain to apply and then clean off the paintwork. Having stripped down the wood on the doors and one side and cuprinolled it, I have now applied Burgess woodstain, and Gloss. Looks great, and much less maintainence than the Danish.

I love the Burgess Wood Sealer and Topgloss, tough stuff, last for ages, four years on since last wood treatment, still looks great.

Starting to get quite excited now. Nice shiny paintwork.

Definately the best colour for a Minor

Wish mine was as shiney!

i gather that steve foreman is a good man for advice about how to maintain Traveller wood (his company is called Woodies and advertises in the Club magazine). I have no personal experience of his work, though.

I'm rather dismayed if my previous comments have upset anyone, but I stand by my hard-won opinion that if you are paying someone to do part or all of a restoration for you then you should make arrangements to supervise as much as possible - and get expert advice, eg from a local branch member, on how the resto is going. Things can look ever so glossy at first but not last all that long. Bitter experience speaking - though all well, in my case (hopefully), thanks to good remedial work over the last couple of years

There are certainly Minor specialists I would trust. And others I wouldn't. I gather, from reading posts on this forum and from chatting to members at rallies, that this is quite a common opinion.

I really don't think anyone should be surprised at this attitude - in any walk of life there will be good, honest people trying to do their best, and other, less skilled and/or less committed people who are trying to cut corners and make a fast buck. There's nothing specially out of order about Minor garages! Keeping an eye on things is only common sense, isn't it?

wibble xx

Steve Foreman provides the wood for Charles Ware.

That looks amazing.

I know its rude to ask but are you willing to disclose your budget on here?
Seems like a hell of a lot of decent work has gone into that.

I bet they love their jobs though, imagine getting to 'play' with Minors all day long AND gettting paid for it.

I wonder if the fun wears off when you do it for a living?

Well as they advertise the price on the site, it would be fairly easy to guess, but apart from a few pennies and without VAT as is coming to Jersey is £13k. Bargain!

Peter I know its horses for courses when it comes to woodwork and as the wood has come from Steve Foreman who`s timberwork is 1st class as he is a timber specialist (there are a couple of others as well) I would have thought his reccomendations as regards Timber Treatment should not be disregarded without consideration and as a couple of posters on here have mentioned how good they have found the Burgess treatments to be have a look at his website and have a chat to him, he is a very helpful guy and it wont do any harm to have a second opinion, but in the end the choice is yours.

I thank you for your thoughts, for the forseable future, the car will be pampered and be lucky to live in a heated garage. In time I will certainly look at the burgess treatment as I have a lot of experience in current building trends where we have clad buildings with cedar knowing damm well what happens when it does not get danish oil every few weeks.

Come to Jersey and see the buildings covered in black cedar.!!