Testimonials

We were overwhelmed with the quality of the job you had undertaken on the Chinese junk. It far surpassed our expectations and we will be recommending you to friends. My wife’s mother and brother came today for my mother in laws birthday. Both of them remember the junk in its previous distressed state and were impressed with the restoration.

The back story to the junk was that my wife’s grandfather was an army chaplain. In the late 1920’s he was posted to China. He purchased the junk whilst in China and brought it back to the UK in 1928. The boat had quite a stormy life including being sailed on the sea in Egypt by my wife’s grandmother when she was in Egypt with her husband and my mother in law during the second world war.

I first remember the boat in the 1970s on the front room mantle shelf of my in law’s house. At this point it was starting to show its age. We rediscovered the junk, when we came to sell my mother in law’s house 3 years ago. At this point it was very distressed and languishing in a dusty box in the attic. I was tempted to take it to a charity shop but given its history and sentimental value we brought it home.

I am so glad we did especially as in its newly restored state it is now sitting very proudly on the window sill of our landing.

Once again thank you for all the work you undertook and the forensic analysis to discover where the missing bit went.

Thanks to Steve I now have a fully restored and beautifully clean model fishing boat displayed in pride of place in our front room.

The model was originally made by my Grandfather nearly 40 years ago. After many years of being treated like a toy by my younger self it was in a bit of a sorry state. Many years of dust and grime also exacerbated its run down appearance.

Steve did an absolutely stunning job of cleaning the all parts while maintaining all the boats original looks and character. He also made a couple of recommendations for replacement parts on grounds of scale & cosmetic finish due to the limited choice of materials my Grandfather would have had originally at the time of construction.

All in all, a beautiful restoration complete with a very happy customer.

Jamie Gray
Fernhill Heath
Worcestershire

Thank you very much for the magnificent restoration of my Pinta antique boat. Pinta has been in my family for nearly 80 years (it was a 5th birthday gift to my Father) and your restoration is it’s first visit to ‘dry dock’!

Your attention to detail on the restoration has been nothing short of miraculous- 80 years of dirt and dust have been removed to reveal the original gold paint trims and hull detail. The rigging has been re-strung and the fragile sails have been lightly brushed to reveal details that have been lost for years.

Thanks to your care, love and attention to detail the Pinta is in a great state to sit in pride of place in my study for at least the next two generations.

Good luck for the future
Best wishes
Daniel

I’m very impressed with the pond yacht and you have done a wonderful job. Thank you very much.

Regards Nadine

The restored ship is absolutely fabulous – you have done an amazing job! It looks as good as it did when my father first made it 50 years ago! The cabinet you made for it will keep it looking great for years to come. A treasured family heirloom lovingly restored.

My heartfelt thanks for a truly brilliant restoration.

During the winter of 2014/15, Steve carried out extremely sensitive restoration and repairs on an accurate five foot scale model of the Queen Mary built by my father in the late 1930s. That was around the time that the real thing was under construction. Somehow he obtained the plans. The model had suffered from a number of house moves and clumsy interference. Steve’s great achievement was to restore elements of the superstructure, masts and rigging taking care to maintain colour matching consistent with the age of the model, and so as to avoid a shiny ‘new’ appearance. Altogether a fantastic job!

With gratitude, Ernie Oliver

Looking for someone to construct a Trumpeter 1:350 model of a WW-2 German destroyer I located Steve’s website and after contacting him with my requirements he was happy to agree to take the project on. While the model had all its parts I asked if he would be able to place it in a seascape and to use some aftermarket products which included changing all the plastic gun barrels for brass ones – items that are ridiculously fiddly especially when they are 1:350 scale of a 20mm barrel! But Steve proved he was up to the challenge and last week I picked up the finished project and was thrilled with the result.

All the aftermarket items (barrels, wooden bridge deck & anchor cables) were there, with the anchor cables being a definite improvement over the rather flat looking moulded ones that the model originally had. The seascape has the look of a rough sailing in northern waters which is where Z-30 operated in WW-2 and the whole lot was presented on a nicely varnished wooden surround which looks great when it is sitting in its display case along with photos of the actual ship and its officers providing a backdrop.

Steve has done an outstanding job on the whole project, using his skill and time to produce a fantastically crafted model. A great job well done.

Kevin

The work carried out on my Pond Yacht was of a very high standard with the Hull finish was fantastic. The remanufacture of the Mast fittings and renewal of missing parts completely transforms the look of the model . The finished product has pride of place in my house and will be admired for a very long time.

Ian