Tomculb

Unrelated, but my wife and I just returned from a trip, and I posted here about the amazing ship model collection at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. I mentioned previously that I intend to place the forward ship’s boats on racks inboard from the bulwarks, instead of outboard hanging from davits as OcCre intends. The ship’s plans I refer to and a number of the Frank Hurley photos show the forward boats stowed that way. Before leaving on our trip, I built the basic frames for this stowage, and I partially assembled one of the boats to see how everything would fit. I had already determined that the smaller boats fit better forward, with the larger boats aft, the opposite of the way OcCre places them. Neither these racks nor the deck gangways are glued in place yet. I will assemble, rig and install the mainmast before these things are glued in place.

Thanks SHJ. I wish I was smart enough to deserve the credit you gave me. Actually I didn't paint those lines at all. What I did is find some grey thread which I used untreated, then mixed some white and grey paint to give the brass stanchions a color that is at least close in color to the lines. The goal was to have the lines look like wire cable.

At long last the time has come to glue the deckhouse in place. As I mentioned in an earlier post, OcCre shows a stay running from half way up the main mast down to an eyebolt at the front of the deckhouse roof/deck. Stays are frequently rigged with a lot of tension, they should be fixed to something having plenty of strength, and what could be stronger than the base of Endurance’s foremast? I stared at it for some time, trying to figure out how I was going to get my big clumsy fingers in there to wrap the thread around the mast a couple of times and then using thin thread, tie half a dozen or so half hitches around the two parts of the stay, all without disturbing the lines tightly secured to the mast’s spider band and the bulwark pinrails. Eventually I decided that it can’t be done (only barely acknowledging that it can’t be done by me). So I installed an eyebolt to the deck of the deckhouse as instructed and secured one end of the stay to it. I then loosened the gaff sheets to make room, applied glue to the bottom of the deckhouse, gently slid it in between all the running rigging, and glued it in place. I was then able to tighten and secure the gaff sheets to the pin rails and glue the remaining ladders in place.

After some delays, I have now finished rigging the headsail halyards and the downhauls. There are four headstays. OcCre has you install running rigging and sails on the inner three, consistent with plans and some photos I have. Other photos show running rigging on the outer three. For no particular reason, I chose to do the latter. In each case, OcCre's instructions show a halyard and two downhauls on each designated stay. One downhaul is attached to the head of the sail and one attached to the tack. I have been on many sailboats but never one with a downhaul attached to the head of the sail; the weight of the sail was always sufficient to bring it down when the halyard was released. Also, the tack was secured to a fitting on the bow (on the bowsprit here), and the purpose of the downhaul was to adjust the tightness of the luff (leading edge of the sail). As such, the bitter end was attached to the bow, and the line ran up through a grommet a short distance up the sail and then back down to a block and then aft. But then the largest sailboat I’ve been on was about half the size (by length) of Endurance and about half a century newer, so what do I know? In any event, I opted for one downhaul and linked it to the halyard. Keep in mind that I decided not to install any sails. The loose ends of the downhauls and halyards were then secured to the forward pinrail and the foremast’s spider band respectively.

Putting aside the things I was thinking about in my last post, I installed the head stays between the bowsprit and the foremast. For thread I used a very dark brown by Gutermann that I ordered online. It turned out to be too dark, brown instead of black only on close inspection, but I used it anyway. In the photos below it certainly looks black. The OcCre supplied thread is a mid brown color; not dark enough in my view. It is also half a millimeter thick, which translates to almost 1.4 inches thick on the real ship. I doubt that Endurance’s standing rigging was that thick. I’m not sure what the thickness of the Gutermann thread is, but it is something less than half the thickness of the OcCre thread. OcCre has the lowest stay secured to the mast at the mast cap. As can be seen in the second picture below (from the rigging instructions), that would put the stay right smack in the middle of the topsail. You would have to cut a hole in the topsail for the stay, which makes no sense. I ran it to the mast at the foretop.

Progress report . . . I installed the gaff, with a couple of eyebolts imitating a gooseneck. I then brought the gaff peak halyard, the topsail and topgallant yard halyards, and the main spar lifts down to the cleats at the base of the mast, where they were secured. I then separately made rope coils and draped them over the cleats. That’s a total of five lines, leaving three cleats available for the headsail halyards. Since none of the installed lines are attached to the hull anywhere, I was able to do this rigging with the mast off the ship, which made things a lot easier. Then after securing the mast to the hull, I brought the topsail and topgallant spar lifts down to belaying pins in the bulwark pinrails, secured them and added rope coils. As I mentioned previously, the deck cabin is only dry fit in place, and removing it made it a lot easier to secure these lines and add the coils. I installed paralls at the back of each of the yards. Had I given it any thought, I would have installed them before installing any of the other rigging; securing them with the spar lifts and halyards in place made things considerably more difficult. The gaff sheets are still loose, but they do run through blocks I installed in the deck below the aft pin rails, where they will be eventually secured. Fortunately I recognized that putting the deckhouse back in place would be very difficult with those sheets fully rigged. Same issue as to at least one stay that will run between the mainmast and an eyebolt on the deck house deck (or as I prefer, to the foremast). On the other hand, with the deckhouse fixed in place, it will be a lot more difficult securing those sheets to the belaying pins as I intend to do. Hmmm . . . Some other issues I need to think about. . . As I said it was a lot easier securing lines to the cleats at the base of the foremast with that mast not attached to the ship. Most of the lines that will similarly be secured on cleats at the base of the mainmast (that is, the braces attached to the foremast yards), can only be installed with the mainmast installed on the ship. And the bulkhead immediately behind that mast obviously cannot be temporarily removed. Maybe I will secure those lines to the cleats first (before the mast is installed), then once the mast is installed run them up to, and attach them to, their yards? Or will I attach the lower end of the braces to pinrails I could install at the aft end of the bulwarks?? Or run them to the cleats on the mast as I originally intended after the mast is installed??? As did @HakeZou, I want to build cradles for the forward ship’s boats, stowed on board rather than hanging from davits. A number of Frank Hurley’s photos show them stowed that way, as do the ship’s plans I refer to frequently. Obviously they would need to be stowed in such a way as to not interfere with any rigging. As supplied by OcCre, the boats come in two sizes, with the forward ones being larger than the aft ones. After test fitting laser-cut one-piece railings for each size boat, I think I want to reverse that, as Hake did. Regarding those boats, someone(s) mentioned that ship's boat kits manufactured by Master Korabel and available in different sizes are much better than those included in this kit. I gave some thought to purchasing four of those kits, but everywhere I looked they were out of stock. Not surprising given that Master Korabel is apparently a Russian company.

That's really interesting George. I never would have spotted those blocks in the photo you posted. I am beyond the point of rigging my model that way, but some other builder will likely benefit from your research. Thank you.

Thank you George. Your builds are really coming along nicely. How you can do two of them simultaneously (especially one that is scratch built) is beyond me! Holes in the top that are fairleads is new to me. On both my Niagara and my Constitution cross section, lines secured on or near the base of the mast went through lubber's holes. Amazing how much I learn with each new build. I'm not sure what you are referring to with regard to deck mounted tackles. Probably a good indication that there isn't any such thing on Endurance, or at least on OcCre's Endurance. Nice summer outdoor distractions are limiting my time in the shipyard . . . no complaints there. Probably another week or two before I get another update posted.

I have completed, glued in place and rigged the bowsprit. Other than blackening the chain (rather than leaving it bare brass), nothing worth commenting on that I can think of. In my last post I mentioned two things I wasn’t happy about: running rigging that rubs against structural pieces, and fuzzy rigging thread. The rigging that rubbed against the mast top was main spar lifts, and I have reduced (but not completely eliminated) that problem by running those lines down through holes OcCre drilled in the top. Those lines will now be secured on cleats at the base of the mast; previously they were to be secured on the pin rails at the bulwarks. As I mentioned in response to Gimp’s post, I have run about half of the installed running rigging through bee’s wax. That worked pretty well on a test piece of thread, but not as well on the installed rigging. You should be able to tell the difference in the pictures below (roughly the thread to the left in the pictures below have been waxed; the ones to the right have not). I know I should buy (or make my own) better thread, but the idea of completely redoing the rigging I’ve done on the foremast doesn’t excite me at all.

Thanks for your kind words Chimp. It's been a fun build, and OcCre kits leave lots of room for some "kit bashing" (an unfortunate term, IMHO, but just about everyone on these boards knows what it means). I really like your Beagle. That kit is definitely among those I'm considering for a future build. If I do build it one day, I'll be reading your log carefully. Thanks for the rope walk suggestion. As a relatively quick break between this and my next build, I may do the NRG rigging project, which would be a perfect opportunity to learn to make my own rigging thread. What are you working on now?

The yards have been glued to the mast and the running rigging is in place. Both the mast and the deckhouse are still loose fit; not ready to glue them yet. Similarly the working ends of the running rigging are not yet secured. The most difficult part of this was securing the chain sling to the eyebolt in the main yard. The eyebolt pulled out twice as I was trying to tie the chain to it. The last time I glued it back in place, I used thin CA glue, and some of it got on the chain, with the result that it is not quite straight. I managed to keep the swearing under my breath, so my better half wasn’t aware of my frustrations. 😀 I have not attached parrals (the collars that wrap around the back of the mast) to the yards yet. I added a block to the topsail yard so that there would be a double purchase on its halyard. Even the smaller yards are heavy, and I felt that a single purchase on that one would be inadequate. The same could probably be said about the topgallant yard. I haven’t put the gaff together yet, but I did hang some line off the stern of the mast cap for the gaff’s peak halyard. OcCre would have you also install a throat halyard, which makes no sense to me, since the gaff is attached to the mast with an immovable gooseneck. This is the case with all the ship’s gaffs. As I mentioned in my prior post, I’m trying to keep the rigging relatively simple, and not having throat halyards helps. I have not yet determined for sure where I want to fix the running rigging; that is, how to allocate it between the cleats at the base of the mast and the belaying pins on the bulwarks. I’m not paying much attention to how OcCre does it. In the photo below I have preliminarily fixed the yard halyards to the spider bands and the lifts to the belaying pins. When installed, the jib halyards will also be secured on the spiderband cleats. If my calculations are correct, the stick figure leaning against the deck house represents a crew member about 5’10” tall. One thing I want to avoid is running rigging that rubs against anything, as can be seen in the photo below. I have to figure out how to avoid that. That photo also shows how fuzzy OcCre’s rigging thread is. I have some bees wax which does a pretty good job of taking care of that problem. I forgot to use it, but I should be able to unrig the lines, apply some wax, and rerun them through the blocks.

The foremast has three (instead of the more common four) yards: main (or course), topsail, and topgallant. If there were four, the highest one would be the royal yard. After cutting and tapering the yards, I chose not to paint them all white as OcCre does, but partially white, partially stained, as seen in the photos below. No authority I can cite for that; I just like the look better. You can see that I put a pin in each yard where it joins the mast (and drilled a corresponding hole in the mast) so as to attach the yard to the mast more securely. I then rigged footropes on all three yards, with jackstays on the main and topsail yards. Next step was attaching blocks and running rigging. A few general comments: Although OcCre has supplied them, I have decided not to put sails on my model. Personal preference. As a result, I decided to make the running rigging simpler, by not installing running rigging that is attached to the squaresails (as opposed to attached to the yards). So no sheets (lines running from the bottom corners of the sail [the clews] down to the deck) and no clewlines (running from those corners up to the yard the sail hangs from). I’m not crazy about the light color of the OcCre supplied blocks. I have quite a few darker blocks left over from prior builds, and I decided to use them instead. Also, they are slightly smaller than OcCre’s, which I think looks better. OcCre supplies a lot of beige colored 0.15m thread which I decided to use. Not bad quality, but not as nice as what’s available from Syren and other sources. I had thought about ordering some of the latter, but I hadn’t done it yet when I got to this stage of the build, and rather than wait for it to arrive, went ahead and used OcCre’s thread. Looking at the photo below, The topgallant yard has a halyard attached at the center. The topsail and main yards have blocks at each end for the yard lifts, and blocks with short lanyards at each end for the yard braces (fore and aft lines used to pivot the yard around the mast). The topsail yard also has a block in the middle for its halyard. Starting at the top, the mast has a pair of blocks for the topgallant yard lifts; a pair of blocks with lines attached for the topsail lifts and a block with line attached for its halyard; and a pair of blocks with lines attached for the main yard lifts, a chain for the main sling (no halyard), and a block with line attached at the back of the cap for the gaff peak halyard. Now I just have to put it all together.

I decided to work on the foremast next. The basic assembly and painting was pretty straightforward . . . ….. with one exception. There was a discussion some months ago about how the loose end of the running rigging was secured near the base of the mast. There was general agreement that tying the lines to eyebolts in the deck, as OcCre would have you do it, was not realistic. Once the original ship was discovered a couple of years ago, a photo surfaced which showed a pin rail ring around one of the masts. You have to look carefully to see it in the first picture below. I was concerned that if I tried to fabricate something like that, the model’s too-fat belaying pins would make the whole thing stick out too far from the surface of the mast to look right. Earlier this year I had the good fortune to pay a visit to San Diego’s wonderful maritime museum. The second photo is of a spider band around one of the masts of the clipper ship Star of India, which is birthed there. I thought maybe I could duplicate that, and even if it is not quite authentic, the bulk of it would be hidden by rope coils, and the end result might look pretty good. I bent some wire to make cleats, glued the cleats to the mast using wood glue, wrapped some medium thick thread around them, and doused the thread with white school glue to better secure everything. It looks a little ugly now, but should look much better when rope coils are added.

Anchor deck and aft deck stanchions and railings completed. With regard to the anchor deck, as you can see below, there are photos out there that both show a railing running between the two ladders and show no railing there. The latter railing must have been added later in the voyage. I opted to put that railing in. Obviously the no-railing photo was taken in a port, but I have no idea where. The stanchions for the aft railing are closer together than the other ones, in order to maintain the curve around the stern. After completing the aft railings I noticed a big mistake I made. There is a wooden cap that is the top of that railing, which I had seen but forgot about. I simply did what OcCre did. Whether I go back and redo it remains to be seen, but if it happens, it won’t be anytime soon. I am delaying working on the railings for the deck immediately forward of the aft deck. I need to think about the order in which I install the shrouds and ratlines, the dog kennels and those stanchions and railings. One will likely get in the way of the other, and the railings are fragile, susceptible of being snagged when I’m tying the ratlines, for instance.

Thank you George. I just now looked at your Discovery and Kearsarge builds, which are coming along nicely. I don't know how I'd find the time to do two simultaneously.