Restoration of a 1:24 Static Model for the United States Naval Academy Museum

St Lawrence model ~ image c.1926

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This is a static model of a 44 gun frigate given to the US Naval Academy early in the 20th century. Above is the only known image of it before I first saw it in mid 2009, and by that time it was a wreck. The model had been displayed in various places, and apparently in the open air at some point considering a bird skull and a snake skin were found inside it. The entire model was dried out, the rigging rotten, and encrusted with decades of grime, (visit the Photos page to see more).

I volunteer about 5 hours one day a week in the museum model shop in Preble Hall. Sometimes life gets in the way and I miss going in a week here or a week there. While this project appears to be taking a long time, the actual hours spent on it aren't so great. Please bear that in mind as you follow it's progress.

It's never been determined who built the model, or when it was built. It came to the Naval Academy from Massachusetts. Looking at it the hull is very simplistic and under detailed, but the spars and rigging were much more detailed and correct. The opinion is, generally, that it was probably built by someone, or a couple of someones, that served on the ship and worked in the rig giving it more attention than the hull.

The first order of business was clearing away all the wreckage. Then the bulwarks and spar deck were removed and all the removed parts were boxed or bagged. In the mean time, it had to be decided how to proceed, or just what to do with this thing. It was decided that it was not a "builder's model" or a training-tool as once thought, but just a sailor's model. It was in poor condition and not really of any particular import, so it was decided to restore it to a displayable state - rather than trying to conserve it as an artifact. Initially it was thought to cut out all the gun ports and put guns on her instead of the "Quaker guns" she had - but that idea was dropped. The original builder seemed to have the same idea initially, but after cutting out one gun port, covered it up and installed dummy gun barrels.

In August of 2009 the lines were taken off the model and compared to the plans of the Brandywine class frigates acquired from the National Archives. The model compared pretty close to the plans except where the hull hollowed out fore-and-aft. The builder didn't put so much effort into fining her lines and left the model a bit fuller in those areas.

The big job soon became stripping the spar deck of all it's crackled and grimy shellac. This was started with scrapers and steel-wool which did nothing, and advanced to solvent strippers. Eventually the big slab of wood appeared with it's burned in deck seams. The process then moved on to the gun deck, but it was partially painted with something so tough the stripper only cleaned it, and barely removed any of it - which is presumed to be "milk-paint." One item of note found on the gun deck were the words "Spirit Room Hatch" hand written in a box scribed into the deck. This discovery lead to a renewed effort to clear the paint from other scribed hatches on the deck to find more such markings, or something that might identify the builder or when it was built. Nothing was found and it was decided to leave the deck in it's "cleaned" state and not try to completely remove the paint.

Initially we wanted to restore the model without removing or disassembling anything we didn't have to. That didn't work out. So many parts were broken, missing, or just to fragile to leave in place that, short of taking the hull's lifts apart, we disassembled most everything. Even the keel and the stem were removed and later reattached.

While another club member scraped and cleaned the spars and mast parts - I set about filling all the gaping openings between lifts. There was no attempt to really smooth the hull or make it appear planked, in fact, some seams have opened and closed since all the filling started. We're essentially retaining the model's "rustic flavor." The spar deck once removed and relieved of the stabilization of the hull, promptly cracked from the bow to the main hatch and looked like it would break in half all on it's own. We glued it, but that didn't hold, so getting the hull to a point that we could reattach the spar deck to it became an immediate goal.

The spar deck lift was reattached to the hull in late October 2010, as the filling and sanding of the hull continued. Grime, and loose and crackling paint was cleaned from other parts such as the bulwarks, pin rails, etc. The lower masts, tops, cross-trees, insides of the bulwarks, and some other parts were given a coat of primer.

The bulwarks were reattached to the hull in May of 2011 which prompted more filling and sanding of this new seam. In June the hull below the waterline was painted with a brick-red primer, and then a first coat of black on her topsides. This paint was old and didn't flatten as it should have.

More sanding and filling along with making of missing parts and repairing of broken parts. Another member applied a finished to the spar deck and began making the stern decorations and waterways. Parts for a new display stand strong enough to hold this beast were acquired and a metallic copper paint applied to the bottom. The tops of the quarter galleries were repaired.

In September a fresh flat-black paint was applied and the gun stripe painted. The proper waterline was struck based on measurements from the plans and with the hull masked off, the copper paint applied to the new line. The new paint made a big difference in the model appearance - she's getting to look like what she's supposed to be.

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