Joseph Abela - Master Ship Model Maker and Restorer
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Ship models are smaller representations of full scale ships. Some models are very tiny but there are others which can hold people in them. Ship model building is as old as the craft of ship building itself. There exist wooden ship models, plastic models, metal models and also paper models.
There are many amateur ship model builders who buy normal kits to assemble them at their leisure. However, others decide to make ship model building as a profession and also part of their job. I had the opportunity to develop my skills in ship model building from when I was just a kid. This passion for small models grew up with me and while I experimented on various materials and various scales, I learnt more and more. I then was given the opportunity to develop my skills by restoring and building museum models for the Malta Maritime Museum, (Europe, South of Italy) with high precision and accuracy.
The task of restoring a museum or a private ship model is not easy at all. Often a great amount of research has to be done in books, documents and also by interviewing the owners of the ship model to determine the period in which it was built, its name and even perhaps the intention of the original model builder. Lacking this background information may create more difficulties for the restorer to make sure that nothing in the restoration is done to reduce the model's authenticity.
This website is aimed at those who wish to understand a bit more about model ship building and restoration, while at the same time I give an account of the models I did, courses I gave and publications I published until now.
Hope you'll enjoy it and please contact me for any information you require, problems you need to solve or if you need my help for restoring an old model or building a new one. I'm always glad to grind my teeth into something new and exciting!