guillemot

The rigging saga continues... Lots of deadeyes need. Here are two - about 2mm in diameter. doing these would have been pretty unlikely till I bought an xy table Got it reasonably cheaply from a company in Germany. Those are blocks awaiting drilling in the vise. Here's one being seized to a shroud with fly-tying thread. Before the shrouds can go up, the mast-tackles need setting up. They were used to move heavy items about the deck. Two shrouds up...port side. This is a way of making sure your ratlines are evenly spaced at about 15 scale inches and the result and here are some blocks ...in the process. Slow? Tedious? Hellyeah. Start with them oversize, drill and then take them down to finished size, hoping to get within shouting distance of scale... Here's a book I reckon is one of the more valuable books in my library. A lot of the info pertains to the old days, very old days, but still. Davis was around when Clippers were still around, even if rather cut down from the glory days. and lastly, a selction of the usual suspects of my rigging tools... Te things that look like nail clippers arefly-tying nippers, very useful for neatening up knots etc., they cut dead flush. Thanks for looking.

I spent some time at sea many years ago and I now live near the sea. I also look at video of the sea and pillage the web for useful aerial sots of the sea - I also paint marine subjects.. Then I get out the gouges and chisels, decide on where the wind and sea are coming from and start carving without references.

The base is Lime and it's painted! Forgot to put that bit up.... Early on on the process... Lime is easy to carve and some paint applied...there's been a lot more paint applied since this shot, but I've been a bit lazy with the camera. I'll take some more soon!

Right, been a while... so a lot of progress has been made, on and off, with this build. Here's the incredibly long mainmast... I've re-done the crosstrees on both masts since this as I wasn't sure they were accurate. Still not totally sure but I think these are a lot closer anyway. Started work detailing the masts prior to raising them. Mast hoops are necessary, even if you aren't putting on sails, they outta be there, allegedly - they weren't on my first build. I got the method I used from Philip Reed's book. Basically, you roll brown gummed tape around a bit of dowel slightly larger than the mast, making sure you don't stick the first wind to the dowel...trust me. When the roll has dried you can cut of rings. by rolling a scalpel over the tape roll, close to it's end....not so very easy to get nice, thin rolls at this scale. I did a large one as well to see how that went...much easier. When you cut them off, you dip 'em into thin CA which hardens them up. If necessary, you can then rub them on some wet'n dry to thin them. Added spider bands and belaying pins - little bits of wire through really small eyebolts! The masts are now up, all of the main and the lower fore... and the anchors are aboard... In between knocking out a couple more illustrations and starting a painting, I've been working out what to do about blocks - gonna need a lot - and decided that doing them 'the old way would probably work as well as anything....so here's a couple of samples. Meanwhile, I ordered a very small machine vice which will allow me to hold the tiny strips of Degame accurately for drilling. I also have a small xy table coming as well, wanted one for a long time and it will be quite a help mass producing blocks. All for now, thanks for looking

Decided to try doing the ships boat a different way - a vac formed hull. First I needed a vacu-form...some 6mm ply, hardboard, a bit of graft and hey presto-ish. It seemed a good idea as the hull works out to about 30 mm - tiny. ITW as pretty straightforward, carveda blank, heated a piece of plastic card in the frame and turned on the vacuum cleaner. Fitting out the tiny hull was a different story...tiny bits of heavy paper - hot press watercolor. made up the innards. The oarsa re from brass wire with the ends flattened to make the blades, then painted. I still can't work out where the boat would have been stowed as the centre line is rather crowded between the masts. Any ideas?

Hi, been a while since I contributed much to this forum. Life got busy. Last year we re-located from Portugal back home to the UK, Isle of Wight to be precise. I started this build some time ago when it dawned on me that my re-worked Occre kit of the Dos Amigos/Fair Rosamund was going to work out a bit to big to put anywhere! If I'd had any brains I would have done this to the same 1/96th scale that I did. Anyway without further ado, as they say. Here's a load of photos to bring it up to date. I carved the hull from lime, intending to do a full hul model this time... Lots of shavings.... To do the deck I cut the shape from .5mm ply and decked with Lime shavings. Then I gave into a whim and waterlined it. The hull planking was done in strips of paper. The hull was duly painted and what little coppering was going to show was added on. At about this stage I carved the base - a change is as good as a rest! So onto the deck fittings. I have a little Proxxon wood lathe, which has been a great boon. I managed to turn a little carronade on it. Deck house/trunk Started on the head decoration... Still needing anchors and a boat, but starting to look shipshape, I think. Started making masts yesterday. Procrastinating on the jolly boat.... So that brings it up to date. Long way to go and loads of questions, like did she have a full top on the foremast like Dolphin? Where the heck did they stow the boat? Etc., etc. More soon and ta for looking. F

Only just got back to the forum after a long lapse which included relocating from Portugal back to the UK. Very nice work! I'd love to see a few more shots of her now that she's done!

Hi, just saw this, been busy building a scratch build of Fair Rosamund at 1/!44th. There are excellent plans of her in Howard Chapelles History of American Sailing ships and also in 'The Global Schooner' by Karl Heinz Marquardt. Not actually building plans, of course, but you can certainly get spar dimensions etc from them.

The clothes peg trick is a neat way of approximating the old 'serving mallet' used on full size rope. Cool tools and jigs aren't necessary, until you have hem and then you wonder how you ever managed....

Nice indeed. If you have a look at any fly-tying supplier, you'll find some useful serving tools, it being quite a part of fly-tying.

Sorry to hear the 'bug' has got you in it's grip again, tiresome to say the least. Hope you're back on your feet soon. All the Best, Fraser

Nice, that looks about right. Stuns'l booms were generally mounted slightly forward on the yards to clear the jack stays. MacGregor reckoned that stuns'ls etc. were a standard bit of kit for a crack clipper. Even the North Sea sometimes has mild winds! There's also a nice painting reproduced in His book of a slightly later (1843) clipper schooner, Pera, with stuns'ls up.

Re: that triangular object. I believe the two outer lumps are meant to be the main topmast backstay spreaders. Don't think they were generally that heavy. Your solution is a lot tidier.

Do you want to know how many times I accidentally cut the wrong bit of rope on my Scottish Maid? You did a nice repair though! F

Beautiful work. It's a shame that kit supplied wood is usually pretty crap. I guess that supplying fine woods would make the kits way too expensive to buy!. One reason why, once you've built a couple of kits, scratch building isn't all that much more work - if you've got reasonable plans, that is. Keep up the good work! F