hood and apron Wedgwood

Unfortunately the Wedgwood had been stored with the hood down and the apron not fastened, so there was no way they were going to go into place as they were. The fabric had stiffened with age and trying to put the hood up was tricky as it put the fabric in danger of splitting. The hood arms are very nice original ones but they wouldn't move either.

I tried to get the hood arms to move using WD40 but it did nothing, so someone recommended trying Dismantling fluid which is used in engineering and car maintenance. I bought some on E Bay and lo and behold it did the trick and the hood arms moved!

But the hood remained firmly stuck! On a sunny afternoon I wheeled the pram into the garden and soaked the hood and apron in warm soapy water, with lots of fabric conditioner in there too. I scrubbed the liquid over the hood and apron then rinsed it all off thoroughly with clean water, I actually used a hose pipe for this but you have to be careful no water gets into the interior of the pram. Says a lot for the old hoods and aprons, they are certainly waterproof because not a drop got inside the pram!

A friend helped me stretch the apron onto all its fasteners around the pram bed, this was hard work but we managed. We then struggled to put up the hood and managed that too. I then left the pram outside in the breeze to dry off and once that was done I was able to put the hood up and down with no problems.

However, unfortunately at the back of the hood some of the fabric has come away, but I am going to patch this up. More on this in my next post.