Jump to content

popeye2sea

NRG Member
  • Posts

    1,933
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by popeye2sea

  1. 2 hours ago, Hubac's Historian said:

    For the fore and main braces, though, I will employ the block/cleat configuration to each side of the gratings.

    That will work for the fore braces, but the main brace standing end starts right aft on an eyebolt on the exterior bulkhead aft of the mizzen channels. The plan has the working end made fast to the flagstaff. Obviously that is incorrect, but I have not yet worked out where to belay it. Perhaps to one of the kevels in front of the half poop deck.

     

    Regards,

  2. 1 hour ago, bigcreekdad said:

    I looked on Syren. These are not blocks. They look like donut with an outside indentation for the rope to around. I will try Vanguard. Just hate to wait for the overseas shipping. Thanks.

    I don't agree at all. Syren makes some of the most accurate and well formed blocks on the market!  Possibly the only thing better would be an actual working block. Which would be next to impossible for a 2mm block.

     

    Regards,

    Henry

  3. That is correct.  Although there may have been more than one linstock per barrel. Perhaps one tub per two guns would have worked? Or maybe one tub per division of guns?

    I have also read of something called a halliard tub that would be placed to corral the length of the halliard after raising the yard. But, I do not know why, or how they might have been employed. Wouldn't you just coil the halliard on the belay point just like any other line?

     

    Regards,

    Henry

  4. 7 hours ago, t_corret said:

    Based on absolutely no knowledge, I think slow match was stored in the barrel with the linstock upside down. During action, the linstock was pulled out, reversed, and the length of slow match was lit. I seriously doubt the butt of the linstock with lit match affixed was slid back into the barrel. When empty, it may have been filled with water for the sponge. Don't quote me on this!

    Like all of the cannon implements, the linstocks were normally kept stowed away when not in action.  The tub is there to hold the lighted slow match, held in the linstock, from falling over and igniting anything inadvertently. The slow match is lit and remains smoldering throughout the battle.  That is why you so often read about the gunner blowing on the slow match to cause the match to flare prior to applying it to the touch hole. So, no, the linstock is not stored in the tub upside-down.

    There is a separate tub provided for the sponge water.

     

    Regards,

    Henry

  5. The instructions call those slow match tubs. The other tubs (part no. 160, two halves) are supposed to be a sponge tub.

    In my opinion the slow match holder (linstock) is a very poor representation. There should be sort of a, curved, tee-shaped, iron bracket at the top to hold the slow match. What they have there looks like it comes straight out of Disney's "sorcerers apprentice."

     

    Regards,

    Henry

  6. A becket is the loop (eye) of rope on one end of the block. It typically takes the standing end of the tackle fall. The fall is the rope that reeves through the sheaves of the blocks. The standing end is the end of the rope that is fixed (does not move), with the other end of the rope being known as the running or hauling part.

     

    Sometimes the becket is part of the block strop. In other applications the becket is a separate loop of rope attached to the strop.  The standing end of the tackle fall is fastened to the becket using a becket bend (I know, creative naming).

     

    Regards,

     

    Henry

  7. Robin,

    I am assuming that the block in the last pic is the one you are using, and that the eye bolt is already installed on the gaff.

     

    Take that strop (the rope loop around the block) off of the block and remake another one so that there is a loop (eye) on both ends.  One way to do that is to make a loop with rope that will be large enough to go around the block with extra on both sides to form the eyes. Then you finish making the eyes by wrapping a few turns of thread and tying off so that the wraps (seizing) are tight against the block,  just above and just below the block.  You should end up with a block that is stropped like the one in the plans.

     

    Now you can simply tie the lower eye to the ring bolt on the gaff, and the upper eye will take the rope which forms the tackle (the part that runs through and between two blocks).

     

    Regards,

    Henry

  8. Glen,

    Great fix on the trysail mast, and an overall superb job on the re-rig for your client.

    Ah, yes, mai-tai's and scorpion bowls; de rigueur cocktails at Chinese restaurants everywhere.  I remember putting together several straws to make one very long one and stealing from others scorpion bowls in my youth.

     

    Regards,

    Henry

  9. Each pendant or block should have an eye spliced in and fitted over the end of the yard arm.  The inside one butts up against the yard arm cleat and the rest snug up close to the preceding one. The fittings usually went over the yardarm in a specific order, usually with the footrope being first over (most inboard) and then proceeding outward with the yard tackle pendant, brace pendant, topsail sheet block, and the lift block being the last (furthest outboard).

     

    Regards,

    Henry

  10. Hi Glen,

     

    I know it's too late for this build, but you appear to be installing your blocks backwards.  The hole for the tackle line should be closer to the top or strop eye end of the block. The hole represents where the line enters to go around a sheave that has its pin or axle in the middle of the block. The line should appear to pass on both sides almost the length of the block and around that imaginary sheave.

     

    Info for the next build.

     

    Regards,

    Henry

  11. Glen,

    The large yard in the first photo is a topmast yard.  The lower yards are considerably larger in circumference and length.

    The gundeck section was built as a display and the crew sometimes conducts gun drills for the public. It stays out in the yard year round.

     

    Henry

  12. Glen,

    The drawing above is not wrong. The question is what to do with the tackles? Which way do they go? Straight down to the deck or to another block under the top.

    Constitution has hers rigged with a block under the top so that the tackles lead upwards from the yard.  Then the single hauling part of each tackle comes down to the deck to be belayed at the foot of the mast or the fife rail.

     

    Regards,

    Henry

  13. For the jib sails, use a pendant with two legs seized to the clew of the sail.  Each leg of the pendant takes a sheet.

    Another way to attach the pendant to the clew; middle the pendant and then pass the bight through the clew and then over the legs of the pendant. Cinch the bight up tight to the clew. The legs were often seized to the bight to prevent loosening.

     

    Regards,

    Henry

  14. Glen,

    There are no rings used in the sling.  There are simple eye splices that are seized or lashed together, end to end.

    Also, on Constitution the truss tackle pendants have a double block seized in and the tackle runs up to another double block seized to an eyebolt under the top before leading down to the deck.

     

    Regards,

    Henry

  15. With the double block on top and the triple below there is really only one way to reeve the fall.  The standing end of the fall is bent to a becket on the bottom of the double block.  Reeve the fall through the blocks passing the line from outboard in on the triple block. The hauling part will pass through the third sheeve of the triple from outboard in and then finish by bringing the end of the fall up and hitch the end of the fall around the backstay, similar to a deadeye, expending however much hauling part you wish around the backstay and seizing in place.

     

    Regards,

    Henry 

×
×
  • Create New...