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JSGerson

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Everything posted by JSGerson

  1. JSGerson
    A pattern of the net was drawn on a piece of paper and the tulle was taped down at approximately 45° to the vertical of the pattern. My initial thought was to cut the tulle so that corners of the diamond pattern would form a zig-zag edge. Then I would wrap thread through the edge diamonds and then secure it to the staves and eventually the horses. As you can see from the close-up image above, the material is not just a simple crisscross of thread. I didn’t have any thread fine enough to come close to the thread in the tulle and what I did have (polyester mono filament thread which came the closest to being thin enough) was very stiff. Trying to hold these tiny parts and manipulate them to conform to what I wanted was like trying to herd a bunch of drunken cats while on crutches…at night. I gave that idea up soon enough. At this point I went to the Nautical Research Guild’s yearly conference, which this year was held at Mystic Seaport, CT. I had a good time. There, I saw an award winning model (forgive me, but I did not record the model or its maker) with the fore topmast staysail netting. He just glued the net in place. If he could do it, so could I. The assembly was taped down and the netting was glued to the stretchers using G-S Hypo Fabric Cement I got from Model Expo. It has the look, feel, and smell of airplane glue, but dries clear and is flexible.
  2. JSGerson
    Using black 0.30mm Syren rope for the horses, one end of each line was secured to a blacken eyebolt using a pseudo splice. The open ends were then threaded through the stretchers. They would eventually be secured to the eyebolts already on the bowsprit cap.
  3. JSGerson
    Using a piece of 1/64” square boxwood stock, two staves to act as stretchers were formed each with holes to allow the horses to pass through. Once the holes were drilled, the square staves were rounded into rods.
  4. JSGerson
    Bowsprit Horses and Fore Topmast Staysail Netting Continuing to follow David Antscherl, now was the time to create the bowsprit horses, and although not shown on any of my plans, the fore topmast staysail netting. The netting is used to store the topmast staysail and is located on the bowsprit horses between forestay and the foretopmast preventer stay. Mr. Antscherl was very clear that the diagrams in Darcy Lever’s The Young Sea Officer’s Sheet Anchor, Lee’s The Masting and Rigging of English Ships 1625-1860, and Peterson’s Rigging of Model Ships¸ were incomplete. They only showed the initial zig-zag construction of the netting and not the final result which was a diamond shaped netting. David went so far as to reproduce this netting for his model; I, being of sound mind and body, elected not to. Instead I bought some tulle in black and off-white at Hobby Lobby. It’s a sheer often stiffened silk, rayon, or nylon net used chiefly for veils. It’s not perfect, but it was all that I could find in my area. Both pieces set me back a grand total 0.30 cents for more material than I will ever use in a lifetime.
  5. JSGerson
    Martin, I'll be heading out next Tuesday and checking in Wednesday. I'll see you Wednesday or Thursday!
  6. JSGerson
    This is how my Rattlesnake looks now:
  7. JSGerson
    The first to be attached was the block assembly, followed by the double eyelets, and finally the triple eyelets. The block assemble was attached with a loop through an eyelet and pulled tight. The multiple eyelet assemblies had to be installed in steps. In actuality, the rope ends were spliced or lashed together which at this scale was impossible to do. First, an assembly was orientated to the proper position and then a touch of glue was added at the top to hold it in place. The two ends were cut so that they would just meet under the bowsprit and butt together. First one end the given a touch of glue and then the other was made snug and glued into place. The fourth item, the footropes was not added at this time but will be added later. That will be made from thick thread so there is just enough room left to secure it.
  8. JSGerson
    However I chose to follow Mamoli for the construction of these items, in particular the addition of thimbles in the eyelets. They were cut from 3/64” brass tubing. You can just see it against the saw blade in the 90° groove.
  9. JSGerson
    The Topgallant Forestay was next. It starts at a pair of deadeyes coming off the bow, goes through a ring attached to a thimble at the tip of the bowsprit and is attached to the top for Fore Topgallant Mast with a line eye slipped over the mast. But, in order to do this, one of the corollaries of Murphy’s Law is that “No matter what you have to do, you have to do something else first” had to be complied with. In this case, it was on the tip of the bowsprit. There are four items there and two of them had to be completed first. They were (aft to forward): Spritsail Topsail Halyards Block, Outer Guys (two eyelets), Lifts and Stay (three eyelets, and the footropes. The Mamoli plans show different portions on the bowsprit depending on what is being rigged. They also have a complete image but without all the detail. The image below is from Model Shipways. As with everything else, it seems nobody can agree on how things were done. The Mamoli plans show the order as: Lifts and Stay (three eyelets), Outer Guys (two eyelets), Spritsail Topsail Halyards Block, and the footropes. I chose to follow MS for no particular reason other than I like their diagram.
  10. JSGerson
    Thanks all, your flattery er... opinions are greatly appreciated. Finally, we come to the Fore Topgallant stays. The backstays start at the mast top, pass through a previous drilled hole through the cross tree, looped around the top of the mast, back through the crosstree and finally anchored at the top. The anchoring at the top is by lashed rings off of the outside deadeyes. The looping at the top of the mast is seized and both the ends and the loop were served. In the picture below, the lines have not been tightened and finalized.
  11. JSGerson
    The Jib Stay was rigged once again with the new traveler this time with the hooked block and fiddle block (Syren Model Ship Co.).
  12. JSGerson
    The excess rod was trimmed. I initially planned to epoxy the rod on the outside face because didn’t want to reheat the assembly and risk having everything fall apart. I didn’t have multiple solders of different melting points. But as it turned out, no glue was necessary as there was enough friction to hold everything in place. Comparing the two travelers, you can see my second attempt gave a much cleaner part.
  13. JSGerson
    Another dry fit was performed and at this point I decided the roller needed to be a bit longer so another piece was cut. It ended up as 3mm long.
  14. JSGerson
    The U-shape served two purposes, first it obviously was part of the final structure but it also had a built-in second function – it held its shape so I didn’t have to fuss getting the vertical members with the holes lined up and soldered while keeping them in alignment. Having served its second purpose, the horizontal base was cut off and the excess solder was filed to shape.
  15. JSGerson
    A fine brush was used to apply the flux at the joints and tiny pieces of solder were placed in position. I didn’t want the solder to flow and plug the holes I drilled earlier. Another surprise, it worked!
  16. JSGerson
    Now came the tricky part, I had to silver solder the U-shape to the ring. The ring was made like the first one but a gap was cut out and filed to fit the U-shape.
  17. JSGerson
    The hook, which had given me problems before was made from a 1mm (internal dia.) eyebolt using the tiny nails used for model railroads to wrap and shape the hook. My initial concern for strength went away because the eyebolt wire was stronger than my spool wire and the hook itself would not be put under any stress. The roller was simply a piece of 3/16” brass tube. A dry fitting was performed and surprisingly, everything fit.
  18. JSGerson
    Starting off with a small piece of copper plate, a strip was cut off approximately 1mm x 9mm. Using a #76 drill holes were made at either end. Then the strip was bent into a 3.5mm wide U-shape so that the holes where about the same height from the base of the “U.” The top of the vertical members were filed rounded over.
  19. JSGerson
    Dave and Martin, well, I see you two liked that bit of rigging...but as it turned out I didn't. The Jib Traveler - Redo it was pointed out to me by a friend, that I installed the jib traveler backwards (the hook should be pointing aft) and upon further investigation reading Lees’ The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War 1625 – 1860 and Lennarth Petersson’s Rigging Period Ship Models, it was realized (and in some cases contrary to the plans) that I also: Probably used the wrong style traveler Permanently attached the block that to the jib cap when it more than likely should have been hooked to the cap Use a double block that was part of the cap tackle when it more than likely a fiddle block Incorrectly (but per the Mamoli plan) tied off the tackle at the jib cap which made no sense to me. The tie-off from the cap actually goes to a forecastle railing stanchion cleat per MS plans and inferred by other references. First off the traveler had to be changed. The U-shaped hoop had to go and be replaced by a roller. The MS plans do show the jib traveler with a roller. I elected to use the roller traveler with hook shown in Lees’ but without the hoop. Second, I thought about modifying the existing traveler I made but because I didn’t like the traveler’s hook (too large), I decided to start fresh from square one. The below images show the travelers from Lees book, Model Shipways, and final my modified version.
  20. JSGerson
    The Jib Stay is looped over the Fore topmast using a mouse and passes through the jib traveler and into the jib sheave where it terminates at a double block. The tackle is constructed the same way as the termination tackle of the Fore Topmast Stay and Preventer Stay. In the last image, it’s hard to see, the jib traveler lines terminate at the belay pin rail. In this case the tie off at the pin is temporary and will be finalized later.
  21. JSGerson
    Once the pieces were made, they were assembled and the main ring was closed. It was at this point that I gave the assembly an acid bath and then blackened it. I figured there would be less chance of scrapping the blackened surface afterwards than before. The final touch was to paint most of the ring outside the shackle area brown to simulate leather. The rings were normally covered in leather to protect the jib from wear. It’s kind of difficult to see the brown color against the blackened metal so I guess I could have skipped that step. The next to last image compares the kit traveler and my version. The final image shows the lines used to pull the jib traveler towards the bow attached.
  22. JSGerson
    I wanted to make the shackle from thinner stock but as I stated I didn’t have any suitable brass rod, so I improvised and used a paper clip. I did not want to use too fine of wire because it would not have any strength. Because I did have suitable diameter music wire I had a fleeting thought of using that, but dismissed that idea as impractical as it would be too tough to bend to the required tight curves with the tools that I had. As pliable as paperclips are, at this scale, making tight loops was still tricky. I used a pair of closely nailed brads in a piece of wood to wrap the ends around to make the tight loops. Along with other instruments of mass destruction (hammers, needle nose pliers, etc.), the shackle was made…twice. The first one broke due to over manipulation of the metal – metal fatigue. The little hook was a problem. I just could have made it at the size shown with thinner wire but it would have bent too easily at the barest touch so I had to make it bigger.
  23. JSGerson
    As you can see, the real thing is a bit more complex than what was provided in the kit. For one, the little loop atop the ring is a moveable shackle and two, there is a little hook which according to Antscherl, is for the “jib sail tack cringle… [which] is a loop of rope formed at the lower forward corner of this sail”). Because my model won’t have sails, the hook will go unused. As an aside, I don’t know what hardware Model Shipways provided in their kit, but their plans show a roller in lieu of the shackle and no hook. Lees does show that variation in his book. To start, I used a 3/64” brass rod to make the initial ring. I wanted to use a 1/32” rod like Antscherl, but did not have one. The difference was within the tolerances provided in Lees’ book.
  24. JSGerson
    Having jumped in with both feet in fabricating most of the other components, I decided to give this a crack. I was in luck that both David Antscherl and James Lees agreed as to what it should look like. This illustration is from James Lees’ The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War 1625-1860.
  25. JSGerson
    Jib Traveler The Mamoli kit provided a Jib Traveler. It is a ring component that fits over the Jib Boom and receives the Outer Foremast Stay from the Foremast Top Tree and directs it to a sheave at the tip of the Jib where it ends at the bowsprit cap. It is designed to slide along the Jib Boom adjusting the stay.

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