Bob Cleek

Well, the camera is rarely flattering to ship models and I expect your model looks considerably better in real life than it does in this photo which accentuates the "fuzz" on your rigging cordage. From all appearances, the line (thread) you've used (which I understand may have come with a kit) is of poor quality for the use intended. Not only does it appear "fuzzy," but it also seems to have a lot of "lumps" in the layup. Moreover, it is of the wrong color, both as to the hemp-colored running rigging and the (very dark brown to black) tarred standing rigging. No ship ever set sail with white deadeye lanyards and ratlines. That said, there are solutions. First, you have to wax your line before you use it to rig the ship. It's simply not practical to do it any other way. In fact, waxing line is modernly disfavored for a variety of reasons including that it gathers dust and may contribute to the deterioration of the line. You can "flame" the line to remove the "fuzz," although I've never flamed line of that quality because I would never have used it at all. Flaming, like waxing, is generally done before the thread is used. You can experiment with doing it in place by passing a candle or match flame beneath the thread and quickly moving it to "singe" the fuzz off of it. This can also serve to melt any wax on the thread and have the thread absorb the molten wax into the lay, which can improve the appearance. I would not suggest that you try to dye your line a proper color when it is in place. As you have waxed it to one degree or another, it can't be expected that any sort of dye will evenly color the waxed line because the wax will serve as a barrier to the dye. You may find success painting the line black or very, very, almost black, if the paint you use will adhere to the wax, but in all likelihood, that approach is liable to make a dog's breakfast of it all. This may not be a welcome suggestion, but considering that this is a section model with but one mast, and it looks like you've otherwise done a very nice job of it, I will suggest you seriously consider removing the present cordage and purchasing the correctly sized and colored cordage of a proper quality which does not have fuzz (or which can be easily "flamed" to remove what little it does.) You can also get yourself a Syren "Rope Rocket" or other rope laying machine and make your own, which is quite satisfying. Check out the forum sponsor, Ropes of Scale for their selection of ready-made ship model rigging cordage. (Ropes of Scale) If you take my advice to do it over again with proper scale rope, you might also want to check the length of your topsail yard foot ropes. I'm not sure of the scale, but if the scale of your main yard foot ropes and ratlines is accurate, the topsail yard foot ropes are too long to be of any use to anyone aloft at all. To answer your initial question, most all laid rope will tend to unravel to a certain degree and handling the ends will definitely exacerbate this problem. Properly "baked" synthetic scale cordage should unravel very little because it's' being exposed to heat "sets" the shape of the synthetic (plastic, so to speak) fibers permanently. The ends of all line, from full-size to model size, should be "whipped" with a "whipping" of thinner cordage wrapped around the end to prevent unraveling. This whipping is often not perceptible at smaller scale viewing distances and so is omitted. In any event, applying a bit of thinned clear shellac (2 pound cut -- Zinsser Bullseye Clear Shellac,) clear nail polish, or CA glue to the end of the line. I prefer shellac which soaks into the line easily and dries invisibly very quickly as the alcohol solvent evaporates. Shellac can also be used to cause a line to stiffen so it can be formed into a properly appearing catenary on a model, or to form properly appearing rope coils, and so on. I don't like nail polish because it takes longer to dry and until it dries is very sticky. Also, some find the acetone solvent has an unpleasant aroma. The same is true of CA adhesive which some swear by. I am of the opposite persuasion, considering it the devil's brew for any number of reasons. Some also use watered down PVA adhesive to "set" their cordage. I don't favor that because it takes much longer to dry and can get messy. Any method used to glue the end of a line should provide a stiff tip which will also be quite handy for threading the line through blocks and deadeyes. Many will soak a fairly long length of line, say 3/4" or so and let it get stiff, they use it as an integral "needle," cutting off most of the stiffened tip when it served that purpose. All in all, suggesting a "do over" is never a welcome suggestion, but I do think the quality of your other work, as well as the rigging you've done itself, but for the substandard (kit supplied?) rigging material, certainly deserves better than what's on it now. To give you an idea of what proper scale rigging cordage looks like, the below photo is from the Ropes of Scale website.

I urge you to take Roger's sage advice in the post above to heart. I completely agree with his observations. If the subject you are modeling doesn't enthuse you to one degree or another through to the end of the build, the end of the build is quite likely not going to happen. As Dirty Harry said, "A man's got to know his limitations."

Who knows? Perhaps McDonald's or another of the fast-food restaurant chains could buy and restore her to operate burning used deep fat frying oil for fuel! (Don't laugh. I know several guys who are running live steam launches or railroad steam engines on used frying oil, waste restaurant grease, and/or strained used crankcase oil. United States set the Hales Trophy record of three days, ten hours and forty minutes, Southampton to New York. The QE2 is the only transatlantic passenger liner regularly operating at present. Given her top speed, she could cross in about five days, but her scheduled crossings presently take seven days which permits a leisurely crossing with sufficient time to adjust to time zone changes without noticing them, a feature of importance to some passengers. United States could easily cross on a seven-day schedule on a directional rotation schedule in the opposite direction to QE2. It's been a long time since my father worked for decades as an accountant for American President Lines, (and myself as well in summer jobs during high school and college,) which ran premier passenger liners on the Pacific runs, but while the advent of the jet airliner ultimately knocked the slats out of the seaborne passenger trade, I believe most in the industry were rather surprised to watch the recovery and regeneration of passenger service in the form of "cruise liners" which now likely carry far more passengers than the great transoceanic passenger liners did even in their heydays. Just as there was a market for the Concorde supersonic jet, the Orient Express, and now again in the United States, certain luxury passenger railroad trains, it may be economically feasible to restore and operate the United States in luxury passenger service once again. Such passenger service is, of course, not practical as a primary mode of transportation, particularly for business, but where folks might be interested in "getting there being half the fun," it might attract a certain niche clientele that might make it pay. Who might take that gamble is another matter entirely and, as mentioned above, the Jones Act, once designed to protect American merchant marine jobs, in the end has come to eliminate as many as it once was intended to preserve and may preclude the economic feasibility of such a scheme. Moreover, the vessel is probably well-beyond her "use by" date, although I can't say off the top of my head what that regulation may be these days. Due to her age, I highly suspect she'd require some sort of licensing waiver from MARAD to operate as a U.S. flagged vessel in any event. Lastly, of course, is the fact that she is at present, from all reports, entirely stripped of all equipment, furniture, furnishings and the like and is simply a shell that would have to be entirely rebuilt to present-day standards. So, no. The dream may be a pleasant one, but I really doubt it could pencil out. If it could, somebody would have done so. In the end, there is really nothing quite so expensive, even to do nothing with. as a large vessel built to sail the seas. A ship that isn't working is a ship that is losing her owners money and that fact often warrants getting rid of them as quickly as possible once they are no longer profitable.

See: Atlas 6-inch Lathe (lathes.co.uk) : "Styled to closely resemble its larger brother, the "10-inch", the Atlas 'Model 618' 6" x 18" (3.5" centre height) backgeared and screwcutting lathe was in production from 1936 until 1974 and then, in Mk. 2 form, until 1980. Enormously popular in America - it was affordable and with a specification that allowed it to undertake the majority of jobs likely to be encountered in a home workshop - its likely that the lathe made its first appearance not as an Atlas but badged for the mail-order company Sears, Roebuck under their Craftsman identification tab as the 101.07300. This initial Craftsman model, which carried an inadequate 3/4" x 16 t.p.i. spindle thread, a headstock that lacked backgearing and a countershaft unit and belt-tensioning arrangements of a very elementary, lightweight design, was sold at the very competitive price of $42. However, it was made for one year only before being replaced by the much better specified 101.07301--as listed in the post 1938 catalogs shown here : Craftsman 6-inch Lathe Catalog Extracts (lathes.co.uk) Note advertisement text in left-hand column: "Ground steel spindle runs in auto-lubricating bronze bearings that are adjustable." That may simply be a belt issue. I've heard several reports of surprisingly smoother and quieter running of the very similar Atlas/Craftsman 12" lathes when old standard drive belts were replaced with correctly-sized new Accu-link adjustable link "V" belts or the equivalent. The Accu-link belts are a boon for lathe owners because they permit belt changes without the need to disassemble the headstock and back-gearing assemblies to get a non-opening belt around the belt wheels. There's no problem at all turning wood on a metal lathe other than the need to keep the lathe clean. Wood chips and shavings and sawdust easily finds its was into motor armatures and gearing, quickly absorbs oil, and creates a nasty gunk that isn't particularly healthy for high-tolerance machine tools. Sheilding from sawdust and careful vacuuming up after wood working is required for proper maintenance. That said, if one has any great amount of wood turning to do, it's probably easier to buy a wood lathe, which are relatively inexpensive, especially on the used market, than to keep a machinist's lathe clean if it's being regularly used to turn wood.

Another tip for you and anybody else who hasn't discovered it as yet: There is a wealth of fine detail brushes available at a fraction of the cost charged by modeling and artists' supply stores, in fact, at almost "disposable brush" prices, to be found listed for sale to manicurists. It seems there's a lot of fine detail painting now fashionable in the manicure business. Check out the manicurists' "nail art" sites for ultra-fine brushes of all types, particularly lining brushes. See: Amazon.com : nail art brushes and Nail Art Brushes for sale | eBay For example: Nail Art Brushes Nail Liner Brush Liner for Nails Easy Hold Thin Nail Art Design | eBay, $7.91 w/ free shipping:

Indeed it is! I should have looked more closely at the photos. They appear quite a bit alike. The 6" is a sweet small modeling lathe, but they don't seem as available on the used market as the 12"-ers.

And still are available on eBay or from after-market manufacturers... for a price. Check out "Mr Pete 222" or "Tubal Cain" (same guy) on YouTube. He's a retired shop teacher with great instructional videos on the Atlas/Craftsman 12' lathes. Everything you even wanted to know. I believe you can look up the age of yours with the serial number on lathes.co.uk under the Craftsman entries. There were a number of refinements over the several decades that this lathe was manufactured. There are many of them floating around and so parts are readily available. They are somewhat of a cult thing now. They aren't state of the art anymore with CNC and DRO features, but they'll do anything you could possibly need to do (including milling with the milling attachment) on a medium to light duty 12" manual lathe. If you have one that hasn't been "destroyed" along the way by misuse, they are certainly worth restoring. They're worth money even if they are trashed because of the continuing market demand for parts. (Threading gear sets are still available if you are missing any. Be careful not to "crash" the gears and damage the gear teeth. The gears are made of Zamac, a relatively weak alloy and it's not difficult to break teeth if you don't know what you are doing operating the lathe. Not to scare you off, but lathes are not a machine you ever want to learn how to use by just "fiddling" with them and they can be very dangerous in the hands of an untrained operator. All the operating manuals for these lathes are available for free online. Google them up. I love mine. I picked it up along with just about every possible attachment (except a taper jig, darn it... but those are still made by an aftermarket manufacturer) from a retired old school machinist's widow for a very reasonable price.

That's an excellent explanation of how to make a Ballentine coil. There are a number of ways to coil falls for the same purpose as a Ballentine coil. Other's make use of "figure-eight" faking, and so on. The original question, if I understand it correctly, addressed a "Flemished" line coil where the line lays in a tight flat coil on the deck without any overlapping turns.

Yes, you have stated it correctly. I got it bass-ackwards. Sometimes it's a lot easier to do something relying on "muscle memory," than it is to write an instruction on how to do it! The photo above is indeed correct. What I should have said was that the coil begins with the bitter end in the center and is rotated until the line is fully coiled with the working end of the line running off of the outside of the coil. Obviously. it one tried to rotate the coil on the flat of the deck with the working (belayed) end in the center, the line would twist up between the center of the coil and the belaying point and get all kinky! Thanks for spotting the error! BOB

Or a lot of razor blades, as the saying goes!

It's just a short drive from Mystic Seaport in the town of New Bedford a couple of blocks from the waterfront. It's not in a real "touristy" area, or wasn't when I was last there years ago. New Bedford is, or was, still a working waterfront back then. If whaling is your thing and you're in the area, take the ferry from Hyannis to Nantucket and check out the whaling museum there. It's a very good one as well.

Hard to say the date on the New Bedford Flags poster. I tried to enlarge it, but I couldn't get a legible look at the date, if any. It's from a Pinterest post that credits it to the New Bedford Whaling Museum's collection. (Home - New Bedford Whaling Museum) You could probably call them and ask. You might get lucky and connect with somebody who could check for you. The "poster" does contain the identity of the printer, although I can't read it, and it probably has a copyright date on it somewhere. It looks to have been a printer's advertising "give-away." The New Bedford Whaling Museum isn't a large museum and so staff may be accessible by phone or email, unlike much larger institutions. It's a great museum nonetheless and definitely worth a visit. (Also the home of the largest whaling ship model in the world, Lagoda at 1:2 scale. Lagoda - Wikipedia )

Happy to oblige, Allan! If it weren't for opportunities to share this trivia, I'd have no excuse for storing all of it in my cranial hard drive!

Pennants used to identify individual vessels, be they naval, merchant, or pleasure craft, were commonly carried prior to the wider use of code signals (flags) to indicate the code (usually "five level" - five letters and or numbers) assigned to the vessel by navies, marine insurance companies, and national documentation agencies. Pennants were rarely opaque with lettering on both sides. Actually, in practice, it was much easier at a distance to identify a signal that wasn't opaque because the sun would shine both on it or behind and through it. If a pennant or signal were opaque, its "shaded side" would appear black at a distance. Additionally, there are advantages to a pennant or signal being made of light cloth which will readily "fly," in light air. In fact, when a square-rigged vessel is running downwind, her signals, ensigns, and pennants on the ship moving at close to the speed of the wind itself, would cause the signals, pennants, and ensigns to "hang limp" and be difficult to see at any distance. Even today, when racing sailboats routinely show "sail numbers" on their sails to identify themselves, the numbers must appear reversed on the "back side" and no attempt is made to overcome this. The international racing rules require that sail number and class logo, if appropriate, must be shown on both sides of the mainsail in that case each side of the sail will have the number shown "in the right direction." There are very specific universal regulations for the placement of sail numbers on racing yachts which specifically dictate how the obverse and reverse lettering must be applied to a vessel's sails. (See: TRRS | Identification on sails (racingrulesofsailing.org) Today, adhesive-backed numbers and letters are applied to synthetic fabric sails. In earlier times, the letters and numbers were cut out and appliqued to the sail. In earlier times, several systems, other than identification code signals, were in common use and these are what we commonly see on contemporary paintings. The two primary signals used were a large flag or pennant with the vessel's name on it, or the owner's name, or company name, on it, or a logo of some sort. The latter were usually called "house flags" which designated the identity of the owner of the vessel. When steam power came on the scene, these owner's "house flags" were supplemented by painting the funnels of the steam ships with the colors and logos of the owners' house flags as well. House flag chart from the 1930's or so: The house flags and ship name pennants we see in the contemporary paintings serve to identify the vessel in the painting, but in order to fully appreciate the purpose of "naming pennants" and house flags, it has to be understood that until radio communications came into being (first Marconi transmission at sea by RMS Lucania in 1901 and first continuous radio communication with land during an Atlantic crossing ... RMS Lucania in 1903.) there was no way for a ship owner to know much of anything about their vessel until it returned home which, in the case of whaling vessels could be two or three years. Shipping companies, marine insurers, and maritime shipping companies, among others, had a desperate need for news about their ships, but they could only know the fate of their ships, crew, and cargo (though not necessarily in that order!) when the ship showed up. Ships at sea would hail each other when they ran into one another at sea: "What ship? What port?" and sometimes get word back to owners that their ship was seen, on the Pacific whaling grounds, for instance, months or even years earlier, but there was no way to know what was going on with a ship until she returned to her home port. Businesses ashore were desperate to know the fate of ships and shipments and being the first to learn of a particular ship's arrival in port gave a businessman a particular advantage in making investments, commodities trades, purchases, and sales. This was especially true in the United States before the construction of the transcontinental telegraph system owing to the immense size of the nation "from sea to shining sea." For example, in San Francisco, which was for a time shortly after the discovery of gold, isolated from communications with the East Coast, things as simple as newspapers would arrive only by ship and when they did, the race was on to get in line to read the "news of the world." An organization called the "Merchants' Exchange" was created to operate a semaphore telegraph system from Point Lobos at the farthest west point of the San Francisco Península to what came to be called "Telegraph Hill" to communicate the identity of ships arriving off the Golden Gate often many hours before they actually docked and to make East Coast newspapers and other information sources available to local subscribers. On the East Coast, seaport homes had their famous "widows' walks" where the ship captain's wives would look for their husband's ship in the offing to know whether he'd ever return, and they'd know by the house flag which ship was which. Yes. That's a good description of the device used to set pennants and house flags "flying." The device is called a "pig stick" as it is a short stick similar to what a pig farmer would use to herd his pigs. A pig stick has a wire or wooden "auxiliary stick" from which the flag or pennant is flown independent of the main stick. This device, pictured below, prevents the signal or pennant from wrapping around the "pig stick" and fouling on the pole or otherwise becoming unreadable. The middle two paintings of ships posted above show those two ships simultaneously flying a "name pennant" from the maintop, a "house flag" from the foremast top, and a "five level code" (likely assigned by Lloyds Insurers.) identifying the vessel in a commonly redundant fashion at that time.

Well, that would depend upon whether you wanted to color them differently from the natural color of whatever you made them from, no? The color of blocks will depend largely upon the period of the ship one is modeling. Some blocks were oiled bare wood. Later, blocks were painted, usually white or black.