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A short while ago I took delivery of the above model which certainly had seen better days and would require some intense TLC. The first job was to carry out some research as I had never come across this type of model before, this proved to be very interesting discovering the history behind the model and the company. As per normal the first job was to take a series of photos for future reference during the restoration, with the photos taken I could start to remove the forward cover and then the remains of the rudder stem prior to starting the hull prep.
Before the hull prep could start, I took some photos of the detailed decals on the stern and both sides of the bow after very carefully removing the paint etc from the latter. With this part of the job done I contacted Becc accessories who very kindly made me some superb replicas of the Bowman logo and boats name plates. Now with the logos taken care of I could move onto rubbing down the hull, as per normal this was done very carefully until the original hull showed through. Once the initial rubbing down had been completed, I discovered a couple of areas that were pretty bad so needed to be filled and rubbed down to blend in with the rest of the hull, once this had been done I could then start the painting process. The first stage was to prime the hull using high build primer, rubbing down each coat as required until 3 coats had been applied before a final wet n dry rub down to give a very smooth finish. Now the primer was finished I moved onto the main paint colours these were applied in the usual way rubbing down each coat until 3 coats had been applied, the final stage once fully dried was to wet n dry the final coat prior to adding the custom Becc decals before lacquering to enhance the final finish. With the hull now finished the final task was to make a new rear cowl out of sheet aluminium using a home made former prior to polishing and fitting, this proved quite fiddly as it had to be perfect as it has to be removeable the same as the forward deck cover.
With the paint job now finished and thoroughly dried I moved onto re-painting the inside detail of the hull and making a new rudder and fixings for the rudder, once this had been completed the final job was to make sure everything worked ok before giving the model a final wipe over prior to handing back to the customer.
Overall this restoration proved to be both challenging and very rewarding, looking forward to the next one.
