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Good morning

I'd be very grateful of any advice around cleaning/polishing original paintwork.

I have recently acquired a Mills Extraordinary that appears to have been stored in a garage for decades. There is no rust but it is just covered in years of grime and dust. The paintwork has to a large extent survived; there is some flaking but on the whole I'm pretty happy with it as is. I've seen the videos posted recently on another thread of the full restoration but that's not really for me. I would much rather try to clean up what I've got than repaint the whole thing.

I've removed what dust I can with a soft paintbrush but am now left with the more ingrained dirt. What I wanted to know before I wade in with fairy liquid, is what anyone would recommend to clean it up. There is an indent down each side of the front that was originally painted white which is particularly grubby as you can see from the photos.

Lovely machine mate, almost had a go myself and thought it was a very original unmolested machine, so pleased you are keeping the finish as it looks great. Also think you got a bargain at £650 and I would much rather this machine than the over restored video version.

The paint is old hammered paint, so I would use standard paint cleaning products, maybe a light use of t-cut, also car polish does have a mild cutting outcome. The white pin-striping again use these products, but there is a risk it may flake away as old, brittle and applied on top of the hammered finish. I use a product called “simple green”, American product but available here, which is good for cleaning grime and dirt and not leaving a residue, often an issue on wrinkle paint finishes.

It was nice to see all the original Shefras labels, awards etc. I have an extraordinary from Shefras, unfortunately the original paint finish had gone. It also has the Shefras escalator which some may dislike, but it part of the history being supplied by them

Thanks very much for the comprehensive reply Treefrog. I'll get some of that Simple Green.

The main reason I went for it was that it was original unmolested as you say. You do take a bit of a chance with these auctions at the moment where you can't view but maybe that helped to keep the price down as well and I've wanted one of these for ages.

I have used Swarfega and a toothbrush for wrinkle / texture finishes with good results.