Restoration of HMS Warrior’s Mouldings

Matching decorative mouldings for HMS Warrior, a historic warship

Variety is the spice of life, or so they say, and we certainly get variety in our job!

We have worked with the Royal Naval Dockyard Portsmouth for decades on HMS Victory and other projects. More recently, the responsibility for historic warships in the UK has passed to National Museum of the Royal Navy.

During early 2019, we were asked by the museum team if we could replace some of the decorative mouldings on the stern of HMS Warrior. We obtained samples of the profiles required, and the ones requiring replacing were made in softwood and laminated horizontally. They were in a bad state of repair, pretty much being held together by the paint surrounding it.

We took a different approach, and suggested to the museum team that laminating the mouldings vertically would be a better solution. Each layer of the lamination had its own profile to make up the total shape of the moulding. Each moulding had its own template and tooling made, and was machined using our Weinig moulder. The lamination itself was done on site in the dockyard, with each moulding being glued on to the stern of HMS Warrior individually.

The project was very successful, as you can see from the photos!

This ship was the Royal Navy's very first iron warship, but it never saw any conflicts. Powered by steam and wind, the ship is impressive and well worth a trip to Portsmouth Historic Dockyard for a visit.