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A few months ago, I took delivery of the above-named model for restoration, after close examination of the model it would require some considerable work to bring her back to her former glory. As normal the first thing to do was to take a series of photos for future reference, with the photos taken I started by removing all the damaged rigging whilst saving as much of the original rigging as possible, this would allow easier access for the deep clean.
Once everything had been removed the deep clean could begin with the deck area taking care not to damage any of the fittings, as you can imagine the cleaning took quite a while to complete. The next stage would be to repair or replace any damaged fittings prior to re-sealing the deck area with a (Admiralty Matt varnish). With the deck area complete I could move onto the hull of the ship and its extensive decoration, this again would take quite a while to complete but in the end when re-sealed the end results speaks for itself.
Now all the hull cleaning was complete I could move onto sorting out the masts which would include some repairs and re-shipping as well as cleaning before re-sealing. After several weeks the model is now beginning to take shape and is now ready for the final stage of tackling the re-rigging, as you can imagine this is not an easy task. When it comes to the rigging I always check the shrouds and ratlines first before proceeding to the fore and aft shrouds as these are the most important part of any square-rigged ship. Once the first part had been completed I could move onto the rest of the rigging including yard lifts and braces taking great care not to damage any of the original rigging threads used, all the rigging threads used were Caldercraft rigging threads.
With the model now almost complete the final task was to replace the flags, for this I used Becc flags which were then extensively aged (at the customer’s request) to blend in with the finished model. With the restoration complete the final task was to house it in a bespoke display case made at Maritime-Models.
Overall this restoration proved to be very rewarding.
