gak1965

Not what you want to hear, but I basically took brass wire, soldered them into closed loops and then replicated what you showed in the picture with the premade loops. Similar for the next segment down, but in that case brass wire to a link, soldered closed. The backing links were made from brass strip that I drilled holes into. Now that I have a drill press that would have been relatively simple; it's harder with a hand drill, I can assure you. I put Tamiya tape on the brass to help prevent the bit from slipping before it bit into the metal. It was a collosal pain in the posterior. George K

Hello all. My last entry was on the order of 3 weeks ago, not because of massive progress, but rather because of a bunch of other things prevented work. They ranged from the Cherry Blossom 10 mile running race here in DC to visiting my (eek) now 25 year old daughter in Boise where we (double eek) met her boyfriend's parents. I don't quite know why this has me so freaked out (this isn't the first set of parents we've met) but it feels radically more likely to be permanent. Anyway, since returning I have managed to get some time in the shipyard and some progress is being made. First the ratlines on the foremast are done, and I'm starting on the main. I also attached the sheet blocks and painted the masts. Next step is to touch them up and attach the foot ropes. They are all in the photo below but kinda distributed while they dry. Once the ratlines on the main are done, I'm going to start mounting the fore yards. My assessment is that I don't want my elbows to whack one of the yards trying to tie the ratline knots, so, nothing until I'm working on the mizzen. Once I'm on the mizzen it will be time to start making the remaining 4 main yards (the course was finished in the first batch). I am curious about some that that is going to come up soon. If you look at the section of the plans that are shown below, you will see the tackle that attaches the course, top, and topgallant sheet chains to the deck. The other end of the sheets are generally attached to the clew for the yard above (i.e. the other end of the course sheet is connected to the top clew line) when the sails are off the ship. According to the rigging plan, the live ends of the tackle are belayed to pins on the port or starboard pinrails. That (sorta) makes sense for the topgallant (the outer of the three) where the live end is coming down to the deck from a single block where it is attached to the chains. But the other two make no sense to me at all. The live end exits a double block on the deck and then appears to go straight to the pinrail for belaying. Am I missing something here? This seems like it would leave a set of two lines at each mast, port and starboard that runs from the deck to about 4 feet off the ground. What a colossal pain in the posterior that would be. And I keep hearing the bosun's mates telling me to watch lines on the deck. I know that it isn't impossible, the lines that control the tiller on the Niagara are equally in the way, but geez, these ships carried passengers as well, and I dunno there has to be a better way. I looked for signs of deck blocks near the pins that would at least keep the lines near the deck (easier to step over) but the plans show blocks for other lines, but not these. So, am I mad? Missing something? Or is this just the way these ships were rigged? Any help appreciated. As always, thanks for looking in and the likes, George K.

Very nice. Love the card bands!

I use thick CA on all the knots. Use a fine applicator (fresh bottles of Bob Smith glue have really fine ones). Try not to glop it on, you just want to stabilize them. The thicker stuff takes longer to cure, more time to fix things in my view. Std. disclaimer, George K

Get well quickly!

Both the Yamato and the Musashi had their secondary armament changed during the war, removing two of the 6 inch turrets to make room for more anti-aircraft batteries. This drawing (from Wikipedia) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato-class_battleship#/media/File%3AMusashi1942.png, license is CC-BY-SA) shows what the Musashi looked like in the early war configuration. Does the Trumpeter kit support both the early and late war variants?

I haven't seen the plans for the masthead of the CS, but on the other ships I've done, the shrouds have tended to be in pairs either port or starboard which tend to be the most straightforward. With 5 shrouds that still would leave you with one singleton. I have typically seized the singleton at the masthead before I attached the deadeye. That way I could give the shroud a nice tail while seizing, and then tighten followed by gluing the seizing thread at the masthead. Once that was dry, I could mount the deadeye at the correct distance and seize that in place. FWIW, I put glue on the circumference of the deadeye, and once that was stable, I could seize the lines together. Also, unless CS has something different, I add the sheer pole after I had tensioned and secured the lanyards. I also tended to cheat a bit, I'd use a bit of adhesive on the deadeye "eyes" to stabilize the lanyards before they were anchored. Regards, GAK

Some came with the kit, although in line with all three model shipways kits I've done/doing, nowhere near enough. I buy them from Model Expo. It's about $14 for 500 of them. https://modelexpo-online.com/75-x-6mm-Brass-Jackstay-Eyebolts-500-pcs_p_781.html. On a separate note, one thing I realized is that for the lower shrouds, doing the starboard side means starting on the second shroud (L to R) except for every 6th ratline, not the first. I almost started tying on the leftmost shroud (as I face the ship), which would have been interesting to try to repair.

Thanks for looking, in and for the encouragement. Another brief update. First, the full set of fore yards are done, save for painting, footropes, and blocks, as well as the main course yard. Looking at the photo, I see that the main course yard is upside down compared to everything else. Oh well. Even if I wanted to make more yards now, I doubt I have enough eyebolts left, so, an order needs to be made. Which means, of course, that it's back to tying ratlines. Or as that old corporate adage goes, the ratlines will continue until morale improves. The good news is that it feels like I'll soon be exiting this long phase during which lots of stuff is being done, but the ship isn't changing its appearance much. It's been two months since I started tying ratlines (and making yards and gin blocks, and cranes) and probably another 3-5 more weeks on the starboard ratlines (during which I'll paint the fore yards and mount the footropes). But once that is done, the ship should start changing appearance at a reasonable pace which will be a relief. As always, thanks for looking in! Regards, George K

BlueJacket makes photoetch safety nets for the USS Arleigh Burke, which I think is the same scale. I thought that @MrBlueJacket mentioned elsewhere that it is possible to get parts that are in their kits (but not something that they routinely sell separately) by calling their office. You might check this.

I'm with Ian here. Print a sheet with lines spaced 14-16 scale inches apart, cut out, attach to shrouds to give you a pattern. I lack the skill and patience to do clove hitches, I just use simple overhand knots that I secure in place with a little CA glue. I find I can do 5-6 rows, and then carefully position and secure with the glue. I'll then move to another set of shrouds while the first batch sets, and then I can nip off the excess on either end. That shroud jig is an abomination. I tried it on my Passat and it was a complete disaster, nothing stuck properly, I gave up and made them the way Ian describes (and that I've done on all of my subsequent ships). As Ian notes, there are a lot of simple jigs people make to do the spacing. This is a common method; it's from my Niagara kit and I've used this method on three ships now. Also as Ian notes, methods like this keep the lanyard spacing the same, they don't keep the upper deadeyes in a line. It may not be a problem, but if you notice a bend in the line of the upper deadeyes and it bothers you, you may want to space it with this, and then adjust ever so slightly to maintain the line better. Regards, George K

Well a brief update. Work continues apace on the yards. I had already made the main course, and I decided I would make all 5 yards for the foremast before I restart knot tying. Probably a mistake b/c no doubt I will lose some of my facility with the knots picked up over the previous several weeks, but well, damn the torpedoes and all that. So, here are the first 4, top to bottom main course yard, fore course yard, fore top yard, fore royal yard. The fore topgallant yard is missing because I wound up binning two of them, one after my drill bit basically chunked out the underside, and a second after it snapped while I was sanding the yardarm. The metal piece attached to the truss is going to wrap around the mast and then be trimmed to size to represent the iron work. It's 0.002 in thick brass that I cut from a sheet. One thing I have learned is for the small diameter yards is to only sand the yardarms out on the live end of lathe. Once that end is made, I reverse the yard and once again sand at the live end. Hopefully I won't bin any more due to stress failure of the narrow dowels. The one thing not yet on the yards are the sheet blocks (present on the course and top yards) which were iron and hang from under the yard. I tried a bunch of things that did not work to make the blocks, but I think I have something that works now. Here is a photo of the first one. The block is hanging from the wood strip which I am going to trim down to just above the single nail on the top and CA glue to the yard. I made the frames from two square pieces of 0.002 inch brass sheet, which I sat on top of each other, held together with some Tamiya tape. I then drilled the three holes, 2 on the bottom, and one on the top. I ran small brass nails through the holes in one sheet. On the two bottom nails I slid some tiny parrel bead to space the top and bottom frames, and on the top, I put a small wood strip with a hole drilled into it and the used my dremel to create a rounded end so that there would be some space. Next, I put the other piece of brass sheet with holes on, sending the nails through the holes and used CA glue on the outside to hold everything in place. trimmed the nails, used my dremel to shape the brass so that it has the shape above (basically 3 intersecting circles). When I mount them, I'm going to keep chain in place, they were far to much of a pain to try to thread them on the mast, on the ship. That probably means some wasted chain, but I'd rather buy more chain than become completely frustrated by my inability to get it in place. Anyways, thanks for looking in! Regards, George K.

I'm sure it will be great. Anyway, rigs changed over the life of a ship (often just when a new captain came on board), the specific pin to anchor a line that is shown on plans is just someone's guess as to what made sense - probably changed for some lines throughout the voyage. The point is to build something you are happy with and continue to improve, and she's looking great. Just swapping out those plastic deadeye lanyards will make a huge difference. Good luck, George K.

I would start aft and work forward. Going the other way is the mistake I made on the Flying Fish. The issue is that if you have forestays that mount onto the mast further forward the attachment points become harder to reach once you have shrouds and backstays on the more forward mast. Agree on bottom to top, although I found that the most effective thing was to reeve everything, and then tighten at the end. In some cases (I.e. if the royal/sky sail spar needed aligning) I would start tightening at the top, but generally I followed the bottom up approach. George K

Wow. Making your own belaying pins. That is hardcore! George K

YMMV, but you really want to put those blocks on before you cross the yards. Having to get in amid all of the standing rigging and whatever running stuff is in place to mount the blocks is asking for problems. Maybe leave off the brace blocks and pendants (they are on the yardarms after all) but if you are going to rig sheets, bunts, leeches, etc. I would put the blocks on now. Some people will even reeve the lines before they mount the yards (I feel like it would be difficult to estimate the amount of line needed but it definitely works for some). Your ship, your choice, but something to consider. Regards, George K

Just saw the disaster, but a truly amazing recovery! I feel your pain, caught a bowsprit line in my drill on the Niagara. Pin vices for me from now on. Anyway, she's looking great! George K

Hi Alex. Build is really looking great. We must be about the same age, because I built the Revell Connie about 15 years ago after having watched my grandfather start one in '68, and in my case, fail to complete it as a tween in the mid '70's (my grandfather having died in early '69).

I make my stirrups from black fine guage wire. With thread, I find that the loop on the bottom is generally not heavy enough to make it hang neatly, whereas the wire hangs nice and straight and looks fine at 1:96 or 1:64. Also, I'm pretty sure that the stirrups and foot ropes hang from the jackstays. I wound up hanging them the same way you did here on my Revell Connie since there were no jackstays on the yards, but if you are going to put the jackstays on anyway, you might consider making the change. FWIW, I use annealed, black steel wire from Bluejacket. You can get that kind of wire all over the place, but I try to support companies that produce relatively unique things for ship modelers and every little bit helps. Looking good! George K

In the second photo (and it appears on the Cutty Sark) the stuns'l irons (and hence the boom) are below the yard, on Constitution, Pride of Baltimore, and Flying Fish, they are on top of the yard. @rwiederrich do you know if this was some American vs. British thing, or just individual preferences?

Another instance of what my wife calls the "great scaffolding conspiracy", to wit, all the photos of man made things you want to see are always free of people and repairs, but when you go to see them, they are in some state of repair and at least partially covered by scaffolding.

So, a few updates during my break from tying ratline knots. First, I made the remaining 3 gin blocks I need for the trusses on the topsail yards. They still need to be painted, but you can see how I made them from some of my (dwindling) stock of 1/32 x 1/64 brass. I've also done almost all of the work on the main course yard. At 1/8" = 1 foot, 1 inch ironwork would be 0.25 mm thick, and most of available sizes of brass were way more than that, so I made the iron bands from copper tape that I cut to the proper width. For the mast bands and the yardarm ironwork I took the approach shown at the top of Fig 73 below - basically use the tape to create the bands/ironwork, then drill holes in the band and put in eyebolts to represent the attachment points that were more like those shown at the top of Fig 72 from the instructions. The truss was made from 1/32 by 1/16 brass that I drilled a hole in, and then inserted a brass belaying ping in (having cut off most of the pin's head) to act as the link between the truss and the mast band. It was glued onto the yard, and the copper tape "iron bands" wrapped over the mounting point for extra strength, and to mimic the attachment points between the truss and band. I tried a bunch of ways to make the sheet fairlead. At the end of the day, I drilled a hole in the yard, inserted an eyebolt, and then used the eyebolt to guide the copper tape that represents the mast band that the fairlead is attached to. I think it turned out okay, and will look better once painted. The yard currently looks like the below: I'm still missing the iron sheet block. Several fabrication methods have thus far failed, so I'm going to get some thin sheet styrene to make the two sides of the block body, and I have some parrel beads that should actually be a pretty good set of "rollers", either glued in place, or using a small nail to allow them to rotate. We'll see what works. So, the plan for the moment is to finish up the main and fore course yards, and then get tying knots again. I've been thinking about the best way to start raising the yards, and I think I'm going to work fore to aft, finishing each mast (including the gaffs, but not the braces) before moving on. The logic here is that the bulk of the rigging is to the rear of the masts, so it will be the most accessible that way. I'll probably break up the tedium with more yards, and hopefully I can start on the running rigging pretty quickly once the ratlines are done. We shall see. As always, thanks for looking in! Regards, George K

Hi @Cathead. Doesn't make it much better, but I was under the impression that you could rotate a cowl vent so that you could work better with the direction of air flow, especially on smaller ships and when not moving. In that sense the particular aim of the vents just needs to be consistent rather than specific. Exactly what consistent would be I'm less certain but you would presumably want some facing into the wind for air to enter, and some facing away for it to leave. MY $0.02. Ship is looking good despite the limitations of it's design. Good luck on those davits, I really hate working with those types of things myself. George K

That's a great way to make the gin blocks and movable. Where do you get your drill bits? I find I snap a lot of the really narrow ones putting holes in brass and wonder if I'm buying from the wrong place The ship is looking magnificent, looks like you are getting close to finishing! George K

@Bruma I put the main up against the 1:1 drawing and it seemed to be pretty much the correct size (the drawings only include the main). I am pretty certain about the center diameter (the 5/16 dowel is .015 inches too large but I doubt that would be noticable). I will double check the taper though while it's still easy to change. FWIW, The main and fore have length:center diameter ratios of 33.6 and 40 respectively. If I read the plans right Cutty's main course is about the same length (plus or minus 20-30 cm), what is the center diameter on her main course? Regards, George K