A few weeks ago I was contacted the owner of a model of the Golden Hind which sadly had fallen into disrepair and was in need of restoration. Once the model ship had been delivered I carefully studied it to see exactly what was needed to bring it back to life.
The first task was to remove any damaged or broken rigging along with two of the original sails which had through the passage of time become badly decayed. Once the model had been stripped down one of the first tasks to be carried out was to revamp parts of the hull along with repairing the ends of the Bow sprit and Spritsail yard, this job was completed using various types of stains and filler. The remit was to try and keep everything as original as possible so with this in mind the next job was to replace the rigging which proved to be quite a challenge making sure everything matched as best as possible. Part of this process included making several of the blocks to replace those that had been lost or damaged over the years, with the rigging complete the next job was to replace the two damaged sails this in itself proved to be a quite difficult task trying to make them match with the existing sails on the ship. The main difficulty was matching the colouring this was finally achieved after several attempts using several types of stains plus coffee etc, once stained the next job was to refit the sails to their yards.
I discovered that on the original sails that they had wire running down the sides to assist in the shaping of them, so once the new sails had been cut out and stained these wires were replaced so when they are reattached to the yards the correct shape can be achieved. With the sails now refitted and shaped the final parts of the rigging were put in place to finish them off this was followed by the final job on this restoration which was to replace the Mizzen mast flag. This job although small proved to be quite a challenge mainly getting the colour and design to match that of the original mast flag but in the end the end result was very good.
Overall this restoration proved to be quite challenging but well worth it in order to save this quite unique model which is now back with its owner to be admired for years to come.
