The Cicely Restoration

When this latest model for restoration arrived it could only be describe as pretty impressive but sadly in need of TLC, the model itself was well constructed and had quite extensive detail but time had taken its toll. So the first thing was to assess exactly the work required to bring her back to her former glory, this took a little while to sort out as well as including the extras required by the customer. Once I had carried out the assessment work could start so having taken several photos of all the relative areas de-construction could begin, I decided to start with the cleaning process of the deck which as you can imagine took some time to complete. With the deck area now clean I could now start the process of re-making and replacing several deck fittings as well as making some new ships boats to enhance the end result. The next step was to tidy up the outer hull of the ship along with replacement of the ships anchors and the rudder which certainly proved challenging when it came to matching the paint whilst maintaining the aged look.

Now that all the deck and the hull of the ship were finished the next task was to re-do the rigging, this as per normal is a very slow process to complete and very often involves removing a lot more than just the rope that needs replacing in order to maintain the correct placement of the rigging. The first job was to check all the ropes for strength and replace any that broke during this process as well as replace those already broken or missing. I decided in this case to start with the shrouds and ratlines followed by the forward and back stays, doing it this way helped to maintain the correct mast positions, this was then followed by refitting the yards and then replacing the running rigging etc where required this would also include replacing and making several new rigging blocks in order to complete the task.

Once the main rigging job was completed the final job was to replace the Gaff boom this was straight forward enough. This completed the re-rigging of the Cicely so the only job left to do was to give her a final check to make sure everything was ship shape before making the bespoke display case in which she could be admired for many years to come.

Overall the Cicely proved to be a very rewarding project.