One of the benefits of having this website are the correspondence that one receives from time to time from people around the world who have stumbled across the site when doing searches.  It is nice to have ones efforts favourably commented upon and I felt that I would like to include extracts from some of them here:

Gentlemen,

I just thought I would let you know that I think the Elizabethan galleon and your restoration job you did on it are absolutely phenomenal!  I love it!  Since I was young and I saw my first image of the elizabeth jonas I have wanted to build it, but life has had a way of getting in the way. 

Had you ever been able to figure out who built that model in the first place?  or how old it was when you acquired it?  Interesting that it was never given a paint job in the typical multicolor zigzag pattern like the real ship has always been shown with in all the other images I have run across.  It’s good though because your model has some very interesting surface detail.  I hear tell that the reason they gave it such gaudy paint job was to make it resemble the merchant ships of the time and disguise its true firepower until it was too late for its hapless victims to do anything about it …element of surprise and all that rot…

Beautiful Job!

Cheers,

Tom Joslin, Shingletown, California, USA

Jeremy,

Just a note to say how much I enjoyed your article, and admire your skill in restoring Bat so beautifully.  I’m a great admirer of LBSC for his progressive contribution to model engineering. He left a great legacy in his writing and drawings.

Kind regards,

Allan Wallace (South Australia)

Dear Mr. Bull,

Thank you for your email regarding the unique Galleon model you have for sale. Although we do have a large model ship collection, our focus for any future collecting will be on ships directly connected to Littlehampton and the local boatyards.

I was very impressed with the attached document, which demonstrates your passion for the topic.

I wish you the best of luck with your search for a good home for your model.

Kind regards,

Juliet Nye, Curator, Littlehampton Museum.

Thank you for taking the trouble to write to me, it is appreciated.

Trying to match the colour for the Louis Marx Southern Pacific Crummy proved challenging.  I found a website that gave out the RGB number, but even this became difficult to match myself.

Salvation came in the form of our local art shop.  Browsing their range of paint tubes I came across Winsor & Newton’s Griffin Alkyd range.  Their Scarlet Lake (191 4603) was a spot on match.  There are a number of drawbacks; it dries matt, you can’t spray it and even with thinning it is the devil to minimise the brush marks.

That said it is possible to minimise the brush marks by taking the following steps;  Thinning with White Spirit, gently rub down between coats (after it has dried hard which I accelerate by putting in a very warm place) and when applying each subsequent coat brush on at 90° to the previous.

The detailing of the handrails etc is drawn on using a Faber – Castell Pitt artist pen.  These have a fibre tip and so don’t dig into the paint, don’t bleed into the paint and when dry are permanent.

To combat the matt finish I then varnished it with a clear gloss varnish.

Given that the monetary worth of the car is not great I feel that the above is a cost effective solution.  Although not a perfect replication of the original I think the result is very acceptable and better than a missing or blank end.

First attempt, not so good!

Replacement end