HALIFAX – There was no blueprint to build the Titanic, so imagine trying to rebuild the most finest of the ship’s details without having an original plan to guide you.
John Green and Gerry Wright have put in more than 2,600 hours work on a 1/196 scale model of the Titanic to go on display at Halifax’s Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, ahead of the 100th anniversary of the ship’s sinking.
The White Star Line used the plans for its RMS Olympic as a guide for “the biggest ship ever built” at that time and Green, who has been building models as a hobby for 65 years, says the pair had to send to Germany for the drawings to construct the model.
“We were so pleased to see the drawings,” 73-year-old Green explains, “They’re so perfect.”
The pair of model makers began meticulously assembling the replica two years ago, in the museum’s Franconia workshop. They’re a part of a collective of sorts known as the Maritime Modellers who refurbish and reconstruct scale versions of historic liners for the museum’s showcases.
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The group has worked on 535 models in the last ten years, some of which took up to 3,000 hours to complete.
Although modelling has been a life-long passion for both Green and Wright, this project has truly become a labour of love.
“We’re doing it for the love of what we do and no other reason,” Green says, “and as, really, our part of commemorating this tragedy.”
And in constructing this replica, they’ve grown to appreciate all of the labour that went into building possibly the most famous ship in history after Noah’s arc.
Green says, “It’s mind-boggling to see what they did.” He says he can only imagine what the workers – the engineers and the artisans that built the amazing woodwork interiors – must have felt knowing their accomplishments went down just days into the ship’s maiden voyage.
“All of their hard-earned skills they put into that,” he says, “they put their hearts into what they were building and to see it all go down, literally the second or third day… terrible.”
There was even one worker who is said to have committed suicide because of the loss.
Aside from lacking any original plan, the scale they’re using isn’t typical either.
They had to use the 1/196 scale in order to fit in to the Maritime Museum’s display case, which currently houses a model that is on loan.
85-year-old Wright, who was a professional model maker at the Halifax Shipyards before he retired, made the basswood hull of the ship at his home. Then, he and Green worked together on all of the fine details such as curling tiny pieces of rod iron to make the benches on the deck, putting brass trim on miniature life boats, painting the cross bars on windows about the size of a fingernail and carving out each of the ships four funnels.
“When we started to stack the three top decks, put the cabins on and do the windows and doors, I loved it… All of a sudden we started to see it come together,” Green says.
Once they’ve completed final details, the last of which will be hanging 20 hand-made lifeboats, they’ll move on to the next model, whenever the museum puts them to work on one.
As for wrapping up a job well done, Green says “I’m not going to celebrate finishing it. I’m just going to walk away with a sense of satisfaction.”
“In one way it’s good to see it coming to an end,” Wright says, “But in another way it’s a sad thing to see it coming to an end.”
The model will be put on display at the entrance to the Titanic exhibit at the museum. A date for that has yet to be determined, but there are two Titanic toy model workshops for children who would like to make their own models of the ship, scheduled for Apr. 8 and Apr. 15.
The replica currently on display will be returned to its owner, model-maker MarK Boudreau of Port Hawkesbury, N.S.
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