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Just before the end of last year I took delivery of the ship called “EMMA” which was in need of restoration, once I had discussed with its owner which included leaving the hulls paint work all original I could get stuck in. The first task was to remove all the damaged rigging thread and gently test the remaining rigging thread to make sure it could stay in place, with all the damaged rigging thread removed and having taken detailed notes as to where it had come from I could then move onto sorting out the masts and yards. The main issue with these was that two of the Topgallant masts had been damaged where they were joined to the Topmasts, this problem was resolved by realigning them and very carefully drilling them and inserting a brass pin at an angle and glue to inforce the joint which was then sealed over to hide the join.
With the masts now sorted I could move onto the yards, this would prove to be a bit more of a challenge due to the small areas in which this had to take place as well as using the same style of fixing originally used on the model. Once the masts and yards had been completed I could move onto the bow area which needed to have the Dolphin striker repaired this was straight forward enough although a bit fiddly this was followed by re-stained the repaired areas to match the existing colour and lightly varnishing to seal.
With all the structural repairs complete the rigging could now be replaced, this included forward stays and yard braces plus yard lifts and much more in order to complete the re-rigging of this ship. The re -rigging as you can imagine took some considerable time to complete taking great care not to damage any of the original rigging thread left in place but in the end was well worth it. Now that all the major work was finished one of the remaining jobs was to replace one of the anchors before moving onto the final task of cleaning the entire ship which would take quite a long time to complete using several types of different tools before applying a coat of varnish to seal and enhance the end result.
Overall this restoration did offer some challenges but as with all other models it proved very worthwhile so it can be enjoyed for years to come.
