Clipper Restoration

A few months ago, I was contacted by DSB Offshore with an enquiry to restore a model clipper ship, so once I had had a chance to look over the photos they’d sent over and discuss the remit for the job things could begin. As per normal the first thing to do was to take a series of photos for future reference prior to removing everything off the model apart from masts, the first job was to prep the hull etc for re-painting and detailing using colours that matched the original. Once the re-paint had been completed I moved onto the hull detailing and touching up the display stand.

The restoration could now move onto replacing all the hand rails and stanchions both fore and aft these were to be left as brass to enhance the effect, next I moved onto making some new cannons to replace a few that were missing as well as carrying out all the repairs to the deck area and fittings prior to re-varnishing the deck to seal. One of the requests of DSB Offshore was to replace all the sails with new ones and their respective yards so with that in mind I proceeded to make the new yards taking care to match the paint detail etc, this was followed by making all the new sails prior to fitting. Now all the new sails were ready they could be re-attached to their respective yards and re-attached to the masts.

The final task was then to fully re-rig the model using the photos taken earlier as a reference as well as adding additional rigging details to enhance the over all finish, with all the work now complete the final job was to carefully check over the model prior to handing it back to the customer DSB Offshore to be enjoyed for years to come.

Overall this restoration did offer some interesting challenges but in the end the result was very satisfying.