Roger Pellett

Part 52 – Pin Rails, Spider Band, and Fife Rails
 
In the last post I questioned whether I should fully populate the pin rails or leave some positions open.  I received several different comments and opinions, which I greatly appreciate.  I decided to populate most of the pin positions, leaving several open.  The following photos show the results:
 
                       
 
                       
 
Dunbrody has Spider Bands on each of her masts - these are iron bands with sockets for some belaying pins, as shown in the following photo of the replica ship.
 
                       
 
Also note the simple fife rail configuration.
 
I found the following drawing of a spider band in Harold Underhill’s book ‘Masting and Rigging’, and used it as the basis for making the spider band.
 
                       
 
The bands would be made by annealing a brass strip and bending it to form the band.  The jig shown in the following photo was used to make the band.
 
                       
 
The jig was turned to the same size as the mast, and the protrusion is used to bend the projecting pieces of the band at the proper locations.  A CAD drawing was made to identify the locations of the holes for the pin sockets and was pasted to the top of the jig.
 
                       
 
A strip of medium card stock was formed around the jig, and the hole locations were marked on the card stock.
 
                       
 
                       
 
This strip was then glued to a brass strip and the holes were drilled.  A centering drill was used to make the initial hole, and the final drilling to the correct size was done with a rotary tool.
 
                       
 
After several trial and error attempts
 
                       
 
An acceptable band was produced.
 
                       
 
There were several attempts to make pin sockets.  I made some small rings from copper wire, but these didn’t hold the pins in a vertical position.  I tried bending 1/64 x 1/32 strip around a drill of the appropriate size, but the socket holes were elliptical rather than round.  I finally decided to form the pin sockets by shaping them with a rotary tool and diamond bits. 1/8 x .025 strip provided the correct depth. The strip was first drilled for the correct socket size, and the socket was then formed as shown in the following photo sequence:
 
                       
 
          
 
                       
 
          
 
          
 
The outside diameter of the socket is .055, and the hole for the pin is .025 – the thickness of the pin socket is then .015, or slightly smaller than 3/4" in actual terms.  The pegs for the sockets were shaped to .025.
 
The sockets were then individually soldered onto the band using the following setup.  The vertical piano wire was used to ensure that the sockets stayed horizontal during the soldering.
 
                       
 
The following photo shows the completed Spider Band before blackening.
 
                       
 
After blackening the Spider Band was installed on the mast and pins were added to the band.
 
                       
 
The final work involving the belaying pins was the manufacture and installation of the Fife Rails.  As shown in the earlier photo, these are fairly simple affairs.  The legs are not turned as spindles but are simply shaped.  This was performed on the lathe with an appropriate sized file.
 
                       
 
A jig was used to ensure that the fife rails were square and that the legs were centered on the rails.
 
                       
 
Black monofilament was used to simulate the bolts that hold the rails and legs together, and belaying pins were added to the rails.
 
                       
 
This completes the work related to the belaying pins. 
 
So Dunbrody is now on the final stretch - the remaining work consists of creating the companionways, making and installing a bollard on the port side, and making and installing a capstan. 
 
Thanks everyone.

Nice model!,
 
Roger

Nice model!,
 
Roger

Nice model!,
 
Roger

Michael, sorry to hear about your leg injury. I hope that you are back on your feet soon. I tried to email you relaxation,not pages of McCaffery's book on spinning wire rope but I got a non-delivery notice. I'll try again.
 
Long story short he chucks necessary number of strands in his Unimat, loops the free end through a bar that he holds tight, pulls the whole thing tight and turns on the lathe.
 
Roger Pellett

Looks great, Jack.   Since it's on the base, would a spot of glue where the oar goes through the hull and another under the bladetip work?   Off the top of my head, that's all I can think of.   

Ah yes Jan...that is why I still have this 40 year old Humbrol enamel, one of the best model paints that was ever on the market for hand painting in my humble opinion.
 

 
 
Seriously though I hear what you are saying and my intention is to do as little painting as is possible. blending in a 1/16th line of paint will be a lot less hassle than a large repaint. The collapsible lifeboat that was the most damaged is about as far as I hope to have to go regarding replacing broken wooden parts. There are a few bits missing and I will tackle them as I get to them.
 

 
I am going to use the enamel paint to fill the joint lines where possible this will take time to let the paint harden but will give me a lot of control over these small areas. In all likelihood Bassett Lowke used a very fine grind of enamel although they might also have used Lacquer, which is what we did at Allmodels when I was a young man in the early 60's we matched all our paints from the British Standard Colour charts I cannot remember the actual name of the Standards now  but we only used the primaries and black and white to make any colour we needed.
 
You are right in that this will be one of the most challenging areas but I do have a little background from the old school so I will be proceeding with a great deal of caution.
 
  Druxey, yes adding a little grime will no doubt be in order.
 
Denis, my plan is to do as little to disturb the original surfaces as possible, the colour oxidation is already apparent regarding the areas of the deck that were hidden from exposure when I removed the structures from the funnel deck. The white will be the least problematic in my view. the most difficult I think will be the side of the hull, I will mix some colour let them dry after some initial test sample to get close, and then use the damaged area to test them with very small spots of the Humbrol to see how well they will blend.
 
The next picture shows the aft funnel structure and the area highlighted is where one of the tiny broken bits somehow avoided being swept up it is glued back on with carpenters glue. The vertical rectangular section was snapped completely in half and a section at the bottom was broken off as well.
 
The section highlighted on the collapsible lifeboat is one of the supports for the top boats and is the only pattern left, all the rest are missing from the port side boat deck, I managed to pull a small piece of similar Maple from my scrap maple drawer, so they will be easy enough to replace.
 

 
time for some breakfast and a coffee.
 
Michael 
 
 

Update
 
slowly working in forward direction on the boats deck.......
Last two days  made this little intermediate platform with deck-planking and two skylights ( two more lights and three vents also still to get mounted on this).
Am nearly at the position of the 3 rd. funnel....
 
Nils
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

If this were my model, I would scrape, not sand the deck. A single edge razor blade will work. Scraping up will clean things up and might improve the look of the trenails by removing the surface.
 
Roger Pellett

If this were my model, I would scrape, not sand the deck. A single edge razor blade will work. Scraping up will clean things up and might improve the look of the trenails by removing the surface.
 
Roger Pellett

If this were my model, I would scrape, not sand the deck. A single edge razor blade will work. Scraping up will clean things up and might improve the look of the trenails by removing the surface.
 
Roger Pellett

Michael, the Lloyd McCaffery book is Ships in Miniature. He discusses his simple method for producing nichrome wire rope on pages 51 and 52. If you don't want to buy a copy of this book for yourself send me a PM and I'll send you the relevant pages.
 
Roger Pellett

OK I couldn't resist! I just had to get those deck frilly edge bits on and despite quite a lot of CA gel on my fingers I think it looks, well pretty I suppose !!!! The decoration, not my fingers that is.
 
 
 

really looks great mike. Keep it up in the beautiful Scottish Northern Highlands

Michael,
 
What an interesting project! The lifeboats alone are wonderful models, not the crude poorly shaped objects often seen, and the Welin davits too.
 
Regarding miniature wire rope, you might want to check out fishing tackle, specifically cable used to hang downrigger weights. This is seven strand stainless steel so it is real wire rope. I'm not sure how small it comes. One spool that I found on the web listed the diameter as .032in which is a bit large for your purposes but maybe you can find a smaller size.
 
The miniature model maker Lloyd McCaffery writes of spinning rope for his models from nichrome wire. 36ga nichrome wire is available from Amazon.
 
Roger Pellett

If this were my model, I would scrape, not sand the deck. A single edge razor blade will work. Scraping up will clean things up and might improve the look of the trenails by removing the surface.
 
Roger Pellett

If this were my model, I would scrape, not sand the deck. A single edge razor blade will work. Scraping up will clean things up and might improve the look of the trenails by removing the surface.
 
Roger Pellett

Michael, the Lloyd McCaffery book is Ships in Miniature. He discusses his simple method for producing nichrome wire rope on pages 51 and 52. If you don't want to buy a copy of this book for yourself send me a PM and I'll send you the relevant pages.
 
Roger Pellett

If this were my model, I would scrape, not sand the deck. A single edge razor blade will work. Scraping up will clean things up and might improve the look of the trenails by removing the surface.
 
Roger Pellett

Michael, the Lloyd McCaffery book is Ships in Miniature. He discusses his simple method for producing nichrome wire rope on pages 51 and 52. If you don't want to buy a copy of this book for yourself send me a PM and I'll send you the relevant pages.
 
Roger Pellett

Michael, the Lloyd McCaffery book is Ships in Miniature. He discusses his simple method for producing nichrome wire rope on pages 51 and 52. If you don't want to buy a copy of this book for yourself send me a PM and I'll send you the relevant pages.
 
Roger Pellett

Michael, the Lloyd McCaffery book is Ships in Miniature. He discusses his simple method for producing nichrome wire rope on pages 51 and 52. If you don't want to buy a copy of this book for yourself send me a PM and I'll send you the relevant pages.
 
Roger Pellett

If this were my model, I would scrape, not sand the deck. A single edge razor blade will work. Scraping up will clean things up and might improve the look of the trenails by removing the surface.
 
Roger Pellett

If this were my model, I would scrape, not sand the deck. A single edge razor blade will work. Scraping up will clean things up and might improve the look of the trenails by removing the surface.
 
Roger Pellett

If this were my model, I would scrape, not sand the deck. A single edge razor blade will work. Scraping up will clean things up and might improve the look of the trenails by removing the surface.
 
Roger Pellett