Car cleaning, museum style!

By Sarah

One of my favourite jobs  as a curator is cleaning objects! As we've blogged before, we regularly clean the collections on display at the Redoubt. We mostly clean mould and dirt from uniforms and weapons but sometimes we get to clean something much bigger!

Yesterday we cleaned General Von Armin's German Staff Car! Von Armin was a German colonel-general (Generaloberst) who served during World War II. His car was captured by the Royal Sussex Regiment in the North African desert in 1943.

The staff car is part of the Royal Sussex Regiment's collection and is the biggest object on display at The Redoubt

Due to the conditions in the Redoubt the car isn't in great condition, it is rusting and quite dirty and covered in white paint dust from the ceiling and walls!

We haven't been able to treat the rust on the car yet but before we open to the public on 21st March we needed to clean it and make some small adjustments. Victoria and one of our Heritage Volunteers Jason took part in the cleaning with me.



The cleaning begins

First off we donned our protective suits and gloves....rather fetching attire we think you'll agree! As you can see it is still pretty cold at the Redoubt and we are still wearing our winter hats!

We used micro-fibre clothes and soft hair brushes to remove the surface dirt and dust. 



I followed behind the dusters using the conservation vacuum to pick up the fallen debris, rust and paint.

We really needed to climb into the car and clean the floors, seats and insides of the doors...

The boot of the car is open and has been sitting underneath a leaky ceiling for far too long. In an attempt to protect the car we fixed some plastic sheeting over the boot to prevent the water from reaching it.

Plastic sheeting to protect the back of the car from further water damage

 

 

We don't have any 'after' pictures as although much cleaner and safer the car doesn't look much different, so you will have to come down to the Redoubt to see it for yourselves :)

Check out our website next week for a video of us cleaning the car!