Racer machine

[No.1]

Gentlemen,
 
I have just received a Trophy that is in need of a lot of restoring.  This Trophy was awarded to a British pilot for setting the world speed record of 406 mph in 1931 in a Supermarine S6.b.  The Trophy was a gift from Doug MacMillan, a former Schneider Cup competitor from Canada.
I also just ran across a website photo and story on flickr of the current restoration of the Full Scale Doolittle Curtiss by the Smithsonian.
 

 
What I would give to be on the team restoring that Curtiss.

Bob Martin

www.schneider-cup.com

[No.1]

The Trophy arrived on August 20, 2009. After uncrating it, I spent a lot of time inspecting it.  It has many dents and over the years others have attempted to repair this Trophy. Their efforts appear to be very amateurish and have done more harm than good.  It will be a long and arduous effort to bring this trophy back to its' rightful state. I do not know what the type of metal it is made of but it appears to be plated, perhaps with silver as it is tarnished. The missing float struts are probably going to have to be cast.
 
I have begun a section on my web-site where I have pictures, both thumbnail and larger that you are welcome to copy for your use. http://www.schneider-cup.com/SpeedRecordTrophy.html
 
I am hoping if you put out the word, that you may be able to locate information and documentation about this trophy. You can see on the site that I have found a print of a previous trophy presented in 1928. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
 
Thanks in advance,
 
Bob

[No.1]

Hi,
 
We have been inspecting it and it appears to be made of brass and silver plated. Every part of this sculpture is hollow except for the horizontal and vertical tail. This is a work of art and appears to be as accurate as its scale would allow.  All panel lines, radiator tubing, rigging and even the pitch on the propeller is accurate.
 
At some point in its' life, it has fallen and done a fair amount of damage to itself. The left wing has wrinkles top and bottom, the floats have a number of dents and have split open at the seams and the struts were broken with only one surviving.
 
We have removed the propeller and polished it.  The silver polished up wonderfully, but on the floats and wings, someone or many attempted to repair the Trophy with little or no knowledge of what they were doing and have further damaged the wing skins, warping them with heat and burned off some of the silver plating in places.  This will be a long slow process, but we intend to return the trophy to pristine condition.  When it is completely repaired, we will have to have it replated with silver, a process I fear will be expensive.  What the heck, this is a piece of aviation history, 400 plus mph for the first time ever.
 
I hope you found this interesting. If you wish to follow our progress, slow as it may be, and see what the trophy looks like now, please go to http://www.schneider-cup.com/SpeedRecordTrophy.html  .
 
Bob Martin