Santa Maria restoration

[OlivierF]

I have a friend that would like me to “restore” this model of the Santa Maria built by his grandfather. I have no idea if it was a kit build or scratch.
I does not appear to have any major structural damage just need to redo the rigging and dust/clean the sails. The sails appear to leather and I certainly don’t want to damage the sail decals.
I’m not sure about repainting the hull and will determine that once I have the model in hand.
Any words of wisdom from those more knowledgeable than me?

 

[AndyA]

Olivier:
These hardly rate as words of wisdom but here is my two-cents worth. This is an lovely, stylized model of a carrack (1st picture) but it does not pretend to be an accurate scale model. It is in the style of old votive models (2nd picture). I think your proper task is to gently clean and restore parts that can be without damage or change. Do not improve anything as that would change the character of the model. It's possible that it has some value and any "improvements" would decrease the value. Repainting would probably be a bad idea; as they say with antique furniture, leave the patina.

There are two aspects of your project that will likely require some research: restoring the leather sails and typical rigging for a carrack. While the mainsail and topsail look okay, the foresail and lateen mizzensail appear a bit crumpled. There should be quite a bit of information online about reshaping leather but proceed with caution. I would think that you would have to remove the sails from the spars to work on them. With rigging, I would try to stay with the existing as much as possible and where you have to guess at missing bits, check online sources for information on period rigging, but don't get into more detail than reflected in the existing. Try to find cordage that duplicates the size, color, and texture of the existing rigging.

Please keep us informed of your progress.
Fair winds!

 

[OlivierF]

Thanks Andy. Once I get the model into my shipyard and in dry dock I’ll take a very close look and photo/video everything before I start. It’ll be awhile as first we have figure how best to get it to me.

 

[seadeep]

You're a braver man than I to tackle that.

With regards to the leather sails, I think I've seen products by Tandy that can be used to soften and recondition leather. The challenge you face (well, you face numerous challenges with this one)... is that the leather is going to be extremely brittle, and in the softening and cleaning process, I'm wondering how well the images that are painted on it are going to hold up.

I might suggest a Google search using the following string "museum techniques for dry leather restoration". Using that, i found large amount of useful hits that provide video and textual information on how curators and restorers approach this type of work. Best wishes for success with your endeavour.

 

[OlivierF]

I finally have the model in the shipyard. I also learned a bit more about its provenance. It was apparently built by my friend’s grandfather for a silent film about Christopher Columbus in the early 1920’s. I believe the film company was German and was one of the last silent film released before “Talkies”.


After taking a few hundred reference photos and videos I stripped the running rigging and then the standing rigging. As seen in the before photo most of all the lines were rotted away. Seems like every time I touched a line it crumbled in my hand. I’ve set aside the sales and masts for later cleaning and restoration.




Once I had a relatively clear deck and hull I vacuumed and dusted about 100 years worth of detritus.


I then cleaned the surfaces using denatured alcohol, cotton swabs and some soft cloth



Who knew! There was color remaining under the accumulated dust and 100 years of cigarette smoke.
I wondered if I should attempt the refresh the paint but have decided to leave it as is.

Now I’ll complete the rigging removal from the masts and figure out how much rope I need to make and what sizes. I’m thinking of using poly thread but will also see if I can dye cotton thread appropriately.

Last will be to refurbish the sales as best I can. I was told they were leather and agreed based on the original photos but on closer examination they seem to be canvas that has been shellaced or varnished.

More to come…

 

[OlivierF]

I’ve been playing with making the appropriate sized ropes for this restoration. The shrouds are ~3.0mm in diameter and using Gutermann Scala-240, l
simply couldn’t make rope thick enough.

I went all the way up to 40 strands on each “leg” and got about 1.25mm diameter.


I ordered some Gutermann E-382 from Ropes of Scale (Thanks @BenD ) and using 28 strands per leg I was able to get pretty much exactly 3.0mm diameter. Yeah! Here’s a short video of the rope walk in action YouTube Ropewalk in action




Now I’ll start on restoring the standing rigging. With some luck it should turn out and I’ll post some progress pictures but for now, it time for a beer!

 

[dockattner]

Well, I’m impressed. 3.0 mm rope is no joke! I suppose that size is more stylistic than actual but this is a restoration job so I’m confident the client would want things left pretty much the same.

 

[OlivierF]

Thanks Paul, I am trying to stay true to the original build. That said, I refuse to simply tie an overhand knot to attach the shrouds to the deadeyes. I plan to seize the lines and tie clove hitches for the rat lines. I’m such a rebel!

 

[dockattner]

Hmm. How will you rig the single hole deadeyes?

 

[OlivierF]

Lucky for me, Olha Batchvarov completed a YouTube series on restoring a very similar model of the Santa Maria. I will take inspiration and guidance from her. To answer your question, the single hole dead eyes are rigged just like three hole dead eyes.

 

[AndyA]

Cap'n Olivier:
Nice work! You're giving this piece some real loving care.
Fair winds!