Restoring the Nostromo

The original Nostromo Model sees a second chance at life!

"The Prop Store of London acquired the Nostromo in 2007, with a plan to stabilize the model and give it a light cosmetic restoration, in order to bring the model back to its former glory. The majority of the structure was intact, and with the model were bags of pieces that had fallen or broken off over the years.

In April 2009 the Nostromo was moved again, this time to Grant McCune Design, where the restoration is currently taking place. Grant McCune has been in the same facility since 1976, when he led the model team through the groundbreaking effects on Star Wars. The facility later housed Apogee Effects, well-known for projects like Battlestar Galactica. When Apogee disbanded, McCune started GMD out of the same space.

The team restoring the Nostromo is being lead by Monty Shook and Jack Ejourian, who have both been with the company for over a decade, and designed and built miniatures for dozens of major Hollywood films. Avid film fans themselves, Monty and Jack are excited to be working on restoring this historic model miniature.

The restoration will involve cleaning the model, stabilizing and repairing damage to the structure and surface, identifying and re-attaching broken components (a significant puzzle), replacing missing surface panels, and re-creating missing components and detailing. Every effort is being taken to restore the model as faithfully as possible to the original. In many cases, detailing pieces repeat themselves throughout the ship’s surface. In most cases there is at least one example of the detail part present, so that piece can be cast to create exact copies of the original detailing. In cases where there is no example to cast, the piece will be created from scratch using the best reference material available."

For more info, and to see future/on-going updates to the project you can click here.