gak1965

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.

3 hours ago, Ian_Grant said:

via many many clove hitches and a striped paper jig behind the shrouds to ensure constant ratline spacing. Prepare to spend hours and hours.

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.

3 hours ago, Ian_Grant said:

Heller also provides a "shroud jig" which purportedly simplifies forming the shrouds and ratlines off the model then attaching. Few builders use it;

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.

3 hours ago, VitusBering said:

This is great fun. I am sure I'm doing some things that are not canon - I have a semi-limited set of rigging ropes (the Amati set that was supplied by HISModel). The ones I'm using look right and I suppose that counts.

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).

On 2/26/2023 at 12:40 PM, VitusBering said:

The stirrup is a bit long but that's why we practice.

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

22 hours ago, rwiederrich said:

Example of the Flemish horse attachments..

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?

On 1/26/2023 at 1:02 PM, Ian_Grant said:

see her in the early 80's but at that time the foremast was unrigged and the bow was enveloped in scaffolding

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

9 hours ago, Bruma said:

 

In the end, just a small sequence to show I made the gin blocks.  

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

Taking a brief break from tying ratlines and starting to make some the yards. Trying an experiment to see if this is easier than the way I made the yards on the Niagara. I start by marking the dowels that will become the yards, indicating the end of the yard, the iron band on the yardarm, and three lines at the center that defines the center itself and the iron bands that the trusses are attached to. I also marked the location of the holes that I need for the jackstay eyebolts.

I then went in and drilled all the jackstay eyebolt holes using my drill press (Santa was very good to me this year)

From there it was off to my mini-lathe to turn the yards. Of the first three, I think that the fore and main turned out fine (bottom and middle in the picture, but I'm going to bin the mizzen which is just a mess. It was half the diameter of the main and needed a gentler hand, I suspect.

A couple of things I learned. One is that I should have drilled the jackstay eyebolt holes larger, they often gotten filled in the process of turning the yard, to the point where I could barely or couldn't find them. I still think that drilling first is the right idea, I just need to actually make the hole a little bigger so it will survive the sanding. The other thing is that I really need to be careful about putting pressure on the yard with the sandpaper. One reason I'm binning the mizzen is that the narrow point between the yardarm and the unmodified wood snapped just as I was finishing up, and it was because I put too much pressure on. I still think that cutting the yardarms first is the correct move (it gives me a nice template to work against, but care is required.

Thanks for looking in,

George K

Well, it turns out that once you get started, the ratlines go faster than you originally thought. I was hoping for 3 weeks on the rest of the port side, and finished in 2, so, not too bad. Some photos of the ship overall and separate masts, although, I find it doesn't look all that different with and without the ratlines, at least at a macro level.

I'm about to make the first of the yards, seeing as I should only be few weeks away from finishing the ratlines. Step 1 was just to build out a table with the actual dimensions of the yards, the yardarms, and the diameter at center and iron bands and their corresponding scale size. I pulled the values off the plans, but they are also in the article from the Boston Daily Atlas that Lars Bruzelius transcribed (http://www.bruzelius.info/Nautica/News/BDA/BDA(1851-11-04).html). For me, given that there are 15, all different yards, this is way easier than doing the calculations one at a time from the plans. I will note that in the section marked 'Scale (in) - frac', I selected the nearest measurement that I could realistically build to.

A couple of observations/questions. First, the plans suggest that all of the spars used 3/4 inch iron rod as a jackstay. Was it common to use the same size jackstay on all the yards? I mean the mizzen skysail was only 6.5" at the center and 4.25" at that iron band that demarcates the beginning of the yardarm, that seems, I dunno, kind of overbuilt for the size of the spar. Given the physical properties of the materials, an iron jackstay with a spar attached if you will.

Second, the kit has a really weird set of Britannia fittings. There are 4 (nominally 3), identically sized "upper yard trusses" and that is it. Given that there are 9 yards secured with trusses, and six yards that use (hopefully correct term here) truss cranes to attach the yard to the halyards, so, I'd need 15 of these, not 4 or 3. Given that they are all different sizes, and the kit has 1/32 thick brass, I guess I'll just scratch build them (although I see that bluejacket has 3 sizes of trusses - so if the scratch ones are a disaster, I can default back to those).

Third, was the use of a deadeye on a shroud or backstay as a truck for fairleads a McKay thing? Usually I see this as a board attached across multiple shrouds. Just curious - another one of those repeat tasks, a bit of a nuisance (I think I need 34 of them total). 

Finally, the instructions say to leave out the course clew and reefing tackle if you aren't going to install sails. Is that common? When I rigged the Niagara the instructions suggested (and I followed) including the clew and reefing tackle, and attaching the clew garnet to the reefing tackle. Was this just the difference between 1813 and 1851 or just two ways that one can handle the situation? Above the course, I need the clew to have something to attach the sail end of the sheet so they will be there - it just feels a little asymmetrical, but if they were really removed I'll probably leave them off.

As always, thanks for looking in!

Regards,

George K.

The carving (and the ship overall) is looking great, Vlad! 

I'll echo @BANYAN, you're a braver man than I for even trying at such a small scale.

George K

Amazing and quick!

That is genuinely amazing work!

23 hours ago, robdurant said:

haven't stopped working on this, but it takes me a good couple of hours to put the bolt rope on each sail, so here is sail BS 4 getting bolt rope... 

Yikes. Another reason to not put on sails...

Following as well.

On 1/18/2023 at 1:54 PM, rwiederrich said:

Hours of something.......

 

I build in 1/96 so I don't tie....I glue....then paint.  I can lay ratlines on the entire mast in a about .. two to three hours.  Futtocks included.

 

2 time killers.........laying copper plates and ratlines...  2 reasons why I developed my embossed copper tape system and my ratline technique.

I like the look of the knots as long as they are reasonably tight so I don't mind the time (absurdly) much, although I am with you on the copper tape.

I am curious about adhesives and thread that you use for your ratlines. This ship is also 1:96 and when I get near the tops and the shrouds start to get really close together, I will tie knots on the outer shrouds only, and use glue on the intervening ones, and then at the very top I find that the only practical thing is to glue the line on. But particularly the final (only glued) line is always a royal pain in the posterior. Getting the glue to stick and the line to stay can take longer than tying the darn knots. I'm using CA on cotton thread, should I be using something different that won't slide around so much?

Regards,

George K.