A short while ago I took delivery of the model Swift for restoration, it has to be said this was a very nice looking ship as can be seen in the photos. The first task was to assess the work required to bring her back to her former glory, firstly the model would need to be deep cleaned and then all the repairs would have to be completed. So once I have had a good look at the model the first job on the list was to carry out the deep clean, this as you would expect proved to be very fiddly taking great care not to damage the rigging and the very nice sails. The whole process took several days to complete and when finished was then lightly varnished to enhance the overall finish. With the cleaning now completed I could repair a few of the fittings inc capstan, and replace the missing guns as well as a few other items before re-painting them to blend in with the other fittings.
Once the cleaning etc had been completed I could move onto the main job with this restoration which was to repaint the entire hull, this as you can imagine certainly had to be very carefully planned. So once the model had been carefully removed from its stand I decided to work on one side of the hull at a time carefully preparing each side before applying the wood filler to repair the hull cracks. This process proved to be very successful so once the hull had been smoothed down after filling the hull could be re-painted with 3/4 coats of paint specially mixed to match the original colour as requested by the customer.
With the re-paint now completed I could repair the stand and remount the model in the correct upright position thus completing the restoration of this very eye catching model. One final task was to make the bespoke display case coloured to the required finish as requested by the customer and then mount the restored model into place to be enjoyed for years to come.
Overall this restoration proved to be very rewarding.
