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Sometime ago I received the chance to restore this model, so having had a good look at the photos supplied by the owners the job to restore it back to its former glory could begin. The remit for this job was for a full sympathetic restoration that included adding new furled sails as well as keeping a couple of the original ones at the customers request. So as with all restoration I firstly took a series of photos for future reference prior to any work taking place. The first task was to start work on the hull re-paint, so the prep work and hull repairs were carried out and then the hull was carefully masked off prior to painting, this needed several coats to achieve the correct finish.
Work could now begin on the deck area, so the first task was to repair the large cracks in the deck on both sides before colour matching with stain and varnish, I then moved onto carrying out the repairs on the deck fittings plus replacing any missing parts. With the hull and deck now restored I could move onto the masts, these needed some extensive TLC as well as the yards so great care was taken during this process making sure everything went back into its correct position. Now the masts and yards had been sorted the next job was to make a set of new sails that although were going to be set in the furled position they had to be made to the correct individual sizes to create the correct effect when furled. The job of making the sails as per normal was carried out by my wife because the sails had some fine detailing on them that was necessary to enhance the end result.
Once all the sails had been completed they could be re-attached very carefully in the furled position to their respective yards prior to carrying out the re-rig which as you can imagine proved to be quite fiddly but who says persistence doesn’t pay off. The final job with the restoration now complete was to go over the entire model checking everything and carrying out any touch ups required. Once all the checks were done the last task was to revamp the stand prior to handing back to the customer.
Overall this restoration offered up some nice challenges that in the end certainly made it all worth while so the model can be enjoyed for years to come.
