Pinta Ship Restoration

A short while ago I received a restoration job from a private customer to restore the above named model, the model itself was of some considerable age and in need of some TLC. Once the model had arrived at the work shop I could get a really good look at it and discovered that quite a bit of the rigging would have to be replaced as well as some of the yards. However the first job was to take some photos of the before stage and as a record of the rigging placement before starting to remove the damaged rigging thread this was done in such a way as to preserve as much of the original rigging thread as possible. With all the damaged rigging thread removed I then decided to do the deep cleaning of the deck areas, this was to prove very time consuming and fiddly but when resealed with a Matt varnish certainly enhanced the overall finish. Once the deck areas were finished I moved onto the hull itself, this again although fiddly revealed the original paint scheme which considering its age was in pretty good condition, once the cleaning of the hull was completed this too was sealed with a Matt varnish to protect it for years to come.

The next stage of the restoration was to replace the broken yards this was done using a couple of different methods depending on the type of break in the material but using the original yards to ensure a perfect match. Once the yards were complete the re-rigging could start, referring back to the photos taken earlier and using several sizes of rigging thread all stained to match the original ones they could be re-attached. With the rigging now completed the last job and the most delicate job was to clean the sails, this as you can imagine proved to be very fiddly but well worth it as it revealed the original art designs on the sails and certainly enhanced the end result. This completed the restoration so the only thing left to do was to check over the entire model very carefully to make sure everything was correct before the return journey to its home port.

Overall this restoration proved to be a challenging one but in the end very rewarding.