Top ends of shrouds - what are they tied off to? OcCre Dos Amigos

[RPaul]

Hi All, 

I'm plodding through OcCre's Dos Amigos, all's well generally, but now I'm about to start on the spars and rigging, and plans are a bit unclear. Lots of time goes into deciphering what's what, but in particular, I'm at a loss as to where the top ends of the shrouds are supposed to be tied off to.

Apologies for the landlover's terminology, but... Say, the foremast. Three sections; six shrouds start at the bottom, and  the aft two go all the way to the very top, no ratlines, and it's all straightforward. The fore four, however, the ones with ratlines, are supposed to lead somewhere to the end of the foremast's bottom section, and to be tied off to something under what the plan refers to as a 'top' - the flat, horizontal platform at the top of the bottom section. What, though? It can't be the mast - there are 'cheeks' (again, that's what the plan calls them) under the 'top', they will get in the way. There are no holes or anything else like that on the plan. I can, of course, adlib, and just drill four holes in the cheeks, and that'll solve it, but is there a right way? 

 

Any advice will be much appreciated. 

 

Many thanks in advance, 

Pavel

Edited December 17, 2017 by RPaul

[amateur]

No, that is not how it was done on the original ship.

the shroud isn't tied off, it is taken round the mast, and than down again.

so, coming from below, through a hole inthe top, around the mast, and down again, the shroud has a small line tied arou d it, so that it forms a loop around the mast.

Seee the pic below: 2 and 3 are your shrouds, your top is at the level of the square piece of wood below. Number 1 is the solution for an uneven number of shroulds: not tied of at the last,but around the mast, and down at the other side.

(i took the picfromthe internet, I think it originates for a book by Frank Mastini, ship Modelling made easy.)

jan

Edited December 17, 2017 by amateur

[amateur]

And this one (fromthe internet, but originating froma bookby Underhill)

showing how the shrouds go through thetop, over thecheeks.

 

[RPaul]

Excellent, thanks a lot - that's exactly what I needed!

 

Pavel

[hornet]

Adding to what Amateur has explained, the shrouds were also wrapped or ‘served’ in a smaller diameter tarred rope where they looped around the mast and for some distance below the cross tree. The forward shroud was actually served for its entire length. This was done to prevent wearing or chafing of the shrouds against each other or against other components of the rigging. You can buy a serving machine from the Syren Model Ship Company (manually operated) or from Domanoff Workshop (motorised) both are listed in the SPONSORS tabs on the right of the MSW Home page. I have the Domanoff version which works well. For this aspect of rigging and many others that are often not well explained in model ship instructions, I can thoroughly recommend the book Rigging Period Ship Models by Lennarth Petersson. It has many great illustrations and I refer to it constantly. See below the rather dusty pic of ‘served’ shrouds from one of my models. 

 

Cheers Steve