Disk Grinders
Beagle, It was not only the Algerians in France who used disc grinders. the team at NMSU damaged a Nimrod with the same techniques in around 1994/5. At the time COSHH was flavour of the month with the need to reduce exposure to some of the nasty chemicals. (A good thing you must agree having seen SOSL post) Several skins required replacing by the BAe CWP.
On the whole I found these guys and gals a great bunch. yes they would work nights so the paint was dry in the morning. Some would even do fabric work when we needed a satchel to store stuff safely on the back of a crew seat.
Did some experiments using dry ice and plastic media to remove paint from dialectric panels having seen a feature on Tomorrows World post Raymond Baxter - Disastrous. But put a AEW Nimrod radome to good use rather than risk destroying the ones we had for the R in short supply.
I would imagine the Babcock crew were all Ex RAF painters. Who is going to train the future ones? I think this is true of most trades these days. can people form metal into complex shapes? I don't think they can these days. What we finish up with is box changers rather than repairers. But aircraft tend to be designed to be repaired thus.
GGR mentions Blacksmith Welders - Well I came across a few in the 80s. We even had to get one out of retirement to do a job on a Chinook. His Q for aircraft welding was still in date. Finding the means to pay him was difficult but he probably did the job for love like some of us would and still do.