Towards the end of last year I was contacted by a company to restore a model of the VENO III Push Tug. The model arrived having suffered some considerable damage on its previous journey, the superstructure was completely separated from the deck area of the ship and nearly all of the hand rails and stanchions were damaged some beyond repair. Luckily the hull was pretty much untouched apart from the rudders and one of the kort nozzles which had become separated causing only slight damage to the hulls surface.
Once I had worked out exactly the work required I could get started the first task was to remove the hull from its display base and carry out the necessary repairs required. The next job was to repair the hand rails and stanchions some which of were beyond repair so some new ones were made and refitted and then all repainted to match the original. With the hand rails etc now finished I moved onto sorting out the ladders, steps and bollards etc, where possible these were reattached using the Pin & Glue method in order to maximise strength.
The final job was to sort out the mast area of the superstructure, this involved refitting the lights and repairing the mast itself again using the Pin & Glue method to maximise the strength of the repairs. Once all the repairs were completed the last job was to reattach the main superstructure to the deck and carry out any final touching up jobs to complete the restoration.
Overall this proved to be an interesting challenge involving quite an unusual type of craft but well worthwhile to see the end result on show in its display case.
