diff --git a/spacy/pipeline.pyx b/spacy/pipeline.pyx
index 675bfa52e..238e5670e 100644
--- a/spacy/pipeline.pyx
+++ b/spacy/pipeline.pyx
@@ -128,15 +128,20 @@ class BaseThincComponent(object):
 
     def to_bytes(self, **exclude):
         serialize = OrderedDict((
+            ('cfg', lambda: json_dumps(self.cfg)),
             ('model', lambda: self.model.to_bytes()),
             ('vocab', lambda: self.vocab.to_bytes())
         ))
         return util.to_bytes(serialize, exclude)
 
     def from_bytes(self, bytes_data, **exclude):
-        if self.model is True:
-            self.model = self.Model()
+        def load_model(b):
+            if self.model is True:
+                self.model = self.Model(**self.cfg)
+            self.model.from_bytes(b)
+
         deserialize = OrderedDict((
+            ('cfg', lambda b: self.cfg.update(ujson.loads(b))),
             ('model', lambda b: self.model.from_bytes(b)),
             ('vocab', lambda b: self.vocab.from_bytes(b))
         ))
@@ -145,19 +150,22 @@ class BaseThincComponent(object):
 
     def to_disk(self, path, **exclude):
         serialize = OrderedDict((
+            ('cfg', lambda p: p.open('w').write(json_dumps(self.cfg))),
             ('model', lambda p: p.open('wb').write(self.model.to_bytes())),
-            ('vocab', lambda p: self.vocab.to_disk(p)),
-            ('cfg', lambda p: p.open('w').write(json_dumps(self.cfg)))
+            ('vocab', lambda p: self.vocab.to_disk(p))
         ))
         util.to_disk(path, serialize, exclude)
 
     def from_disk(self, path, **exclude):
-        if self.model is True:
-            self.model = self.Model()
+        def load_model(p):
+            if self.model is True:
+                self.model = self.Model(**self.cfg)
+            self.model.from_bytes(p.open('rb').read())
+
         deserialize = OrderedDict((
-            ('model', lambda p: self.model.from_bytes(p.open('rb').read())),
+            ('cfg', lambda p: self.cfg.update(_load_cfg(p))),
+            ('model', load_model),
             ('vocab', lambda p: self.vocab.from_disk(p)),
-            ('cfg', lambda p: self.cfg.update(_load_cfg(p)))
         ))
         util.from_disk(path, deserialize, exclude)
         return self