Louie da fly

I haven't posted for a while - not because I haven't been doing anything, but because the progress wouldn't have been terribly obvious in a photograph. Finally there's been enough progress to post photos for the forecourse and fore topsail rigging. These are in the sequence I worked on the various bits of rigging - having now completed, there are several things I would have done in a different order (access with tweezers, taut ropes going slack as the next one went on, things like that). First the martnets - these were superseded by leechlines about the middle of the 17th century, but this appears to be how the leeches of the sails were furled in 1545. The martnets go both sides of the sail. There's a deadeye for each set of six - a line goes through each of the three holes in the deadeye and each and each end of the line is fixed to a cringle at the leech of the sail. First the deadeye with the three lines going through it, then threaded loosely through the leech (too small for cringles!). The little clothes pegs are acting as weights for other ropes that are in place but not finalised. Fake cringles - just went through the fabric with a needle and looped the thread around the edge and back through the hole. This is one of the things I will change - adding other ropes interfered with the tension of the martnets. When I do the mainsail I'll leave them unfinished till a lot of other stuff is done, and only fix the ends right at the last minute. Rear martnets in place. Adding braces. They go from the mainstay to blocks on pendants from the yardarms, and thence back to a pair of blocks attached to the stay and down to deck level. I've belayed them to the side rails. Cleats to belay the foresail lifts and (I think) topsail sheets - it's awhile ago, and there are so many ropes. Note the size of the cleats compared to my enormous match stick. And the second photo shows more ropes (sorry, can't remember which ones!) belayed to the bitts. Making blocks out of pearwood. They are gradually getting more and more like real blocks (even down to the groove for the strop) , but they're pretty tiny, so detail suffers. As it turned out, they were still too big, so unfortunately I had to cut them down further and lost even more detail. They also keep splitting and having to be glued back together before they can be put to use. And in almost all cases I have to re-drill the holes - they seem to close up as I put the strops on and the thread won't go through. If I remember, I re-drill them before I put them into place - it's very annoying and difficult to drill them out with my big heavy power drill once they're in position on the ship. (Yes I know, there are better drills to use, but I've not got that sorted). So here's a bunch of them ready to go. Foresail lifts and topsail clewlines, and blocks for various other things - the ones at the middle of the yard are for the buntlines (fortunately the topsails don't have martnets). Fore topsail lifts and clewlines belayed to the top. Next to do the topsail braces - the same as the braces for the course, but they have an extra pair of blocks - one pair at the topmast stay, another pair at the foremast stay and one for each pendant - so I have to make six of the rotten things for one pair of ropes! Here they are at various stages of completion. VERY slow progress - mostly because of having to make so many blocks. They're just within my skill level, and so I feel honour bound to make them myself. And anyway I don't think you can buy them that small. Steven

Krisan, I agree there's no need for you to get a kit. You can work with what you have. I started making ship models when I was in grade school - there were some pretty good plastic models available cheap in those days (affordable out of my pocket money), but I made two wooden models before I was old enough for high school, cut out of solid hunks of wood - both square rigged sailing ships, one with two masts, one with three. I was a sailing ship fanatic, and I had several picture books which I used as a basis. The sails were made out of art paper and the rigging was sewing cotton. I was lucky - my Dad was very supportive and he had a pretty well supplied workshop, but I mostly did it with simple hand tools - you really don't need very much to produce a good result. Looking back on them, they were a bit rough and ready, but I was very proud of them - and even today, at the age of 72, I'm still proud of what I achieved back then. So go for it. The members here will be very helpful - ask as many questions as you like - and (most important) enjoy yourself. Best wishes, Steven

Nice work, mate. A little birdie tells me your next one is to be the Niña or the Piñata. (Yes, I know I've posted this somewhere else . . .) Steven

I'm going to have to make one of these! Steven

Hi Shane, What can I say but WOW - just WOW! Your model looks to have been made around the turn of the 20th century. It's of a kind of ship usually known as a pre-Dreadnought. It's not an accurate model, but it's a real collector's item. It does look a little like the Prince George; it's certainly nothing like the King George V. It obviously needs (gentle!) cleaning, and repair. If you put the word "restoration" or "restoring" in the search bar (top right of this page) you'll find some old neglected models which have been cleaned up and restored to their former glory. I believe this one deserves the same treatment. If you're considering restoring this beautiful and historic model, a log posted in Build Logs for Scratch Projects with the tag "restoration" added would be appropriate. There'll be a lot of people on MSW fascinated by this model. It's a real find! Steven

Welcome to MSW, Rumbeard, from sunny Ballarat! There's quite a few Aussies on this forum, and I'm sure you'll get to know them as time goes on. You might like to check out RGL's builds, too. Amazing models - different medium (plastic), but probably right up your alley. Steven

I can't rely on the accuracy of this image, but it is contemporary - perhaps the 1590's - supposedly the capture of the Cacafuego by the Golden Hind. It's the only one I've been able to find. Hope it helps. Steven

More like a Greengrocer (big cicada) I just measured it; just on 40mm. Looking back at the original pic on the Anthony Roll I could have made it quite a bit bigger, maybe as much as 15mm more (and there's room for it on the weather deck). Steven

Looking good, mate! Steven

Looking good, mate. I agree, walnut's not a good carving wood. The best is apparently boxwood, but I've never tried it - I have stacks of pearwood and apricot wood, which will probably last for the rest of my lifetime. Steven

Yes, I found that out by accident as well. Great for holding things that would otherwise not stick. Beautiful work on the spinet, by the way. My brother once began scratch building a harpsichord (he was about 19, as I recall). Unfortunately his ambition was greater than his abilities and he never finished it. A pity, really. Steven

Ah, understood. I thought it was a language problem. Steven

Thanks everybody for the likes and comments. OC, strictly it should probably be better described not as a replica (since so much is unknown) as a speculative/theoretical reconstruction. I've just been playing with carving out blocks. When I first started I just made them circular with a hole in the middle, but as I've gone along I've been thinking - what the hey, it doesn't take much more work to make them look like real blocks, so gradually I've been making them closer and closer to the real thing. No sheaves at this scale, obviously, and just a single hole for the thread to go through (two would split the block), but I've started making them longer and shaping them more like a real block, adding a groove for the strop and putting the hole closer to the end of the block, like it's got a sheave, (though I'm not always as successful as I'd like with that - the one below has it pretty much in the centre). Note the enormous match stick which I keep to fool you guys into thinking this stuff is really small. And I've been making eyebolts (or perhaps fake ringbolts) out of thin wire, wrapped around a needle. So far I've got just about all the running rigging attached to the larboard side of the forecourse - buntlines, martnets (forerunners of leechlines), clewlines, halyards, lifts, sheets, tacks, bowlines and braces, and I've started on the starboard side. No footropes - they hadn't been invented yet. On reflection it would have been easier to do each line on both sides at the same time, but I'm learning as I go and each line required enough getting my head around it without also doing it twice. It did make the whole thing a bit lopsided, especially as I've been keeping the downhauls taut with tiny clothes-pegs, which have been weighing that side of the sail down. Now that I'm more confident, when I get to the next sails I'll be doing both sides simultaneously. And next time I won't add the topsail until I'd done all the rigging on the course. It made access very difficult. Well, we live and learn. Still bumbling along - taking long breaks between steps so I can recover my equanimity and face the next step with a fresh mind. But making steady progress and pleased with how it's going. Steven

Welcome, Daniel. When Dave E said don't be shy, he meant don't be too cautious or timid (scheu? timido?) if you want to ask questions. Everyone is very helpful and we only learn by asking questions. Steven

No soup for you! Steven

Coming along nicely, mate! Steven

Of course - how could you doubt it? Steven

Thanks Druxey. I don't need them at the moment, but I might try it if it becomes necessary. Steven

Queen Victoria Monument - just outside Buckingham Palace Steven

Thanks, Druxey. That certainly reduces the mucking around I have to do. I made sure I got some cotton thread today - not a perfect colour match, but close enough (particularly as thread thread this thin it's hard to make out the exact colour anyway). I thought I'd post a few progress pics of the ship as it looks overall. Coming along nicely, but so many ropes. But I'm finding it gives me a more than just intellectual understanding of how everything works together - it's all been a bit vague and conceptual up to now, so the hands-on stuff is doing me good. Oh, and the painted sails are looking nice, too - (they're actually more colourful than they show in the photos). Steven

I had the same problem with threading the deadeyes, and I ended up doing the same thing - remove the deadeyes, thread them and put them back on again. I don't know what other people do, though. Steven

Well, now you know. A wide range of opinions regarding whether or not to show sails. Keep in mind also that ships often had only a few sails set and the rest furled - and when a ship went into action it reduced its canvas to "fighting sails" - usually just topsails and headsails, such as in this painting of the Shannon vs Chesapeake. And here's one of the whaling ship New Phoenix, hove to with just topsails, headsail and driver set. Steven

I think you'll find a wide divergence in opinion on this one - I've done both, but despite the reasons you've quoted against sails, I feel sails are a sailing ship's raison d'être, so should be shown. Yes, the fabric available is never going to be fine enough to replicate real sails to scale (though even this can be largely solved by using silkspan). I think there are valid reasons for both furled and unfurled, and it's often a matter of what you're intending to portray. It would be quite interesting, for example, to show a ship hove to, so the sails on one mast are facing the opposite way to the others - or a ship with sails drying, or partially furled. As far as which ships can pull unfurled off best, I think they all look good under full sail, but I particularly like the look of the sails on ships of the late 16th/early 17th centuries. On the other hand, a lateen sail is particularly beautiful as well. All a matter or personal preference. Steven

You're right, Druxey. The polyester is a b*gger to work with. I'm thinking of getting some cotton thread the same thickness, and dye it to match. It would certainly be easier. Fortunately I only have to make four sister-blocks for the whole ship - just two for each course - according the C.E. Anderson, the topsails seem either to have had martnets or buntlines, not both - and as the topsails were a lot smaller in 1545, the chances of the Great Harry having martnets on them are pretty low anyway. Steven

More larboard rigging for the forecourse and fore topsail. First the martnets (historically, they were the precursors to the leechlines). Quite a complex system - first I had to make a couple of sister blocks (same as a fiddle block, I think). You can see a complete one between the matchstick and the tiny peg - another in progress held in the peg - drilling 2 holes in a piece of wood so close together, it usually splits, so I've glued it back together again and held it in the peg to dry. And the tackle - one rope though the top sheave of the fiddle block, then running through another block; the other rope through the bottom sheave, running to a (triangular) deadeye - currently partly glued to the strop (thanks henrythestaffy for those wonderful 3D printed deadeyes! And in place - you can see the single block attached just below the fighting top - it's used to haul the whole assembly tight when furling the sail - and the fiddle block just below that - and running from the fiddle block is a line that runs to the deadeye (about a third of the way up the shrouds in the second photo) which has its lanyards - or more correctly, martnets -through the holes. And the martnets roughly in place - what I thought was the right placement of each lanyard on the leech turned out to be completely wrong - it all got twisted up - I had to re-do them several times, but worked out ok in the end. Then tightening the martnets so they hang right. I'm using polyester thread which is VERY springy, and I had to wet it and then glue it down to get the acute angle where the lanyards go through the holes, and to get the threads to hang naturally like rope. And finally, the martnets at the front of the sail - at the other end of the rope that goes through the bottom sheave of the fiddle block. Of course this will have to be done again on the starboard side, and then I have to repeat the whole thing for the main course. But first, I've made a start on the larboard buntlines, then the bowlines - so many ropes! I'll put photos up when I've done them. Steven