JerseyCity Frankie

Bead stringing suppliers and jewelry making suppliers have lots of wire styles and sizes and options. 

Bead stringing suppliers and jewelry making suppliers have lots of wire styles and sizes and options. 

It raises interesting questions about ship size and Ground Tackle. And when exactly did sailors switch over to chain for the entire Rode? A rule of thumb kicking around these days is that the anchor rode needs to be eight times as long as the maximum depth in the waters you imagine you will be navigating. Nobody anchors offshore, so the amount needed is certainly finite. But what was considered a comfortable margin for error?
then there is ship size. I know large ships had a dedicated Cable Tier within the hull just for cable stowage. But as hull size diminishes,at a certain point the idea of a dedicated interior storage space becomes extravagant since interior space is scarce and the crew traditionally bunk in the Focastle’. They are NOT going to bunk with the wet muddy cable.
in my view, a schooner wouldn’t need the cable below decks if it’s a smaller vessel. But this is a guess and I wonder if anyone has a decent drawing of a schooner with a chain locker, or cable tier,  forward, below decks? 

Congratulations on the color and texture of this model. It’s hitting all the right notes and tones, in my opinion, many builders get the color and texture issue wrong.

As regards sheets on Fore-and-Aft sails on Great Eastern here are my thoughts. She’s BIGLY HUGE. So the sails are enormous and powerful. Like all sailing vessels you would need to be able to tack her, go about through the wind and get on the other tack. So every Fore-and-Aft sail will need two sheets. Very large robust sheets with enormous tackle on them, to handle the forces involved. I’m picturing blocks as large as watermelons on sheets as thick as your wrist, at a minimum. 
If you look at Pride of Baltimore II, she’s got a loose footed Fore. When she goes about the crew has to attach a safety line to the Clew just to control the flopping sail during the short period she’s in the eye of the wind and the sail is flapping. The Leeward sheet is taken up on, the sail draws on the other tack, and then this safety line is taken off, it’s job done.
Im certain Great Eastern would need this safety line too. Sails as large as hers, as she goes about, would be dangerous deadly thrashing monsters, those sheet blocks would be exactly like wrecking balls destroying everything as they whipped around. Even with the safety lines in place I’m certain that no member of the crew looked forward to tacking. So many masts! So many sails to tack! I’m certain they would go to great navigational lengths to assure tacking happened as infrequently as possible.
 
certainlty the gear on deck to handle the sheets would be correspondingly enormous. I doubt there was ever a pin made that could handle those sheets, I’m betting they had large bits on deck for those.
sheeting tight would be impossible in high wind and it seams likely they would have a steam powered capstan just for the sheets? That’s a lot of gear on deck though.

The website/app Pinterest is a very useful research tool. You can create folders and store any number of photos and keep them organized and freely a ailable. Or you can use it to look at the photo collections of others, AND there is a LOT of historic ship material on Pinterest. And more appearing every day. Here is a pretty good Great Eastern board someone is maintaining, it’s got a LOT of photos : https://pin.it/g36atwlxjvovsv
 
It’s free to use Pinterest. I can’t remember if you can view people’s boards without registering? But it’s a simple and free process to register. I never get spam from them. Here’s an example of a Great Eastern deck photo, showing eyebolts, from the link above: 

The key to the spar identity codes is provided for you in the lower left corner of this plan, where there is a simplified diagram of all the spars and their locations in relationship to each other.

The key to the spar identity codes is provided for you in the lower left corner of this plan, where there is a simplified diagram of all the spars and their locations in relationship to each other.

The key to the spar identity codes is provided for you in the lower left corner of this plan, where there is a simplified diagram of all the spars and their locations in relationship to each other.

The website/app Pinterest is a very useful research tool. You can create folders and store any number of photos and keep them organized and freely a ailable. Or you can use it to look at the photo collections of others, AND there is a LOT of historic ship material on Pinterest. And more appearing every day. Here is a pretty good Great Eastern board someone is maintaining, it’s got a LOT of photos : https://pin.it/g36atwlxjvovsv
 
It’s free to use Pinterest. I can’t remember if you can view people’s boards without registering? But it’s a simple and free process to register. I never get spam from them. Here’s an example of a Great Eastern deck photo, showing eyebolts, from the link above: 

Congratulations on the color and texture of this model. It’s hitting all the right notes and tones, in my opinion, many builders get the color and texture issue wrong.

Congratulations on the color and texture of this model. It’s hitting all the right notes and tones, in my opinion, many builders get the color and texture issue wrong.

Congratulations on the color and texture of this model. It’s hitting all the right notes and tones, in my opinion, many builders get the color and texture issue wrong.

Congratulations on the color and texture of this model. It’s hitting all the right notes and tones, in my opinion, many builders get the color and texture issue wrong.

Congratulations on the color and texture of this model. It’s hitting all the right notes and tones, in my opinion, many builders get the color and texture issue wrong.

Rigged the lanyards through the deadeyes. Got all the lower shrouds completed.
 
Jesse

Sailor I really don't know yet. I don't have much money for kits and running out of space for large models. Been thinking about doing some Ship-in-bottles again.
 
Denis, been Experimenting. Have no idea what kind of cloth this is, something I have saved for things like this. I mixed white glue and water with a drop of tan and black acrylic paint to give it a dingy look. Rolled it up after coating it with the glue mixture. When it dried enough I cut a few pieces out and folded them over. (Sorry for the horrible focus on that picture) I tried them in the hammock crane netting. I've seen them turned both ways online, tried fitting them both ways. Would like from feedback. What do they look like? Are they too big? Stick up too far? What should I try different?
 
Jesse

Bowsprit, Jibboom & flying Jibboom assembly.....
 

Got the hammock netting installed. Didn't turn out as good as I would like. My camera doesn't capture the details I can see. I would suggest if anyone ties the netting to the rope edging use a much finer thread. Mine had too large of knots everywhere I tied one. Most of it is hidden though. 
 
Went on and tied the longboat on. was worried it would be in the way of trying to tie to the pin rails but then thought that it might be just as hard to tie it down later too.
 
Jesse
 

I didn't have much choice. Kits are not cheap. A poor man has to build it from scratch. Actually started carving small ships from scratch when I was a teenager. I did buy one kit in my early 20's to learn planking but most of my life I had to make them myself. The last 2 kits were gifts. This one is about half the kit and half scratch.
 
Jesse

In a little conflict about the belaying pins. Would prefer to have wood ones but It would take so long to try to turn all of them. The brass ones are all uniform and the same so I'm trying painting them with one thin coat of Testors Wood color then 1 thin coat of flat tan over that. I will see if this works ok seeing how most of them will be covered up with the rigging tie-offs and coils. If it does not work I will try to turn them from toothpicks or something. The brass ones will have the most strength.
 
I'm making sure the anything secured to the deck (especially where there will be additional pull or pressure from rigging being tied off has metal pins underneath for additional security.
 
Overhead look at the progress so far...
 
Jesse
 

I received an email today from the New Bedford whaling museum. They have put together a data base of American whaling voyages. It is an amazing collection of data. Voyages, logs, crew members, etc. Searchable in many different ways. The data base seems to be huge. I just stared poking around and the info is great to anyone interested in whaling history. 
Here's a link to the PDF about the data base
Whaling History pdf
 
..And here's the site. 
The data takes some time to load. Give it a minute. I have just started to scratch the surface of what is avialable here. It's a little tough to navigate, but worth the effort. 

I certainly hope everyone has read the novel The Cruel Sea, which features the life of a Flower Class corvette in the North Atlantic in WWII. There’s a pretty good film version of the novel too.

Are you asking about attaching the load to the hook? Any loop knot or eye splice. A specific knot for tying to the hook is the Blackwall Hitch but it only works when there’s a load on it, otherwise it falls right off.

My technique is to PUT ON SAFETY GOGGLES then put on a thick work glove. I fold a pice of sandpaper in half, then in half again on the same axis. I fold it a third time to form a crease. I tuck the spar into the crease and fold the sandpaper over it. Now with the tool rotating I can cradle the whole spinning-spar within the sandpaper “taco” I’ve pinched around it. The sandpaper completely surrounds the spinning spar. I can squeeze my hand to bring more abrasive action to bear on the spar. 
Another techniqu is to use the same set up but instead of folding my hand around the sandpaper, I lay the spar inside the paper on a horizontal work surface and I use my hand to PRESS DOWN on the spinning spar. The solidity of the table and the pressure of my hand prevents wobble and whipping.
in each case I’m using the hand holding the tool to move the tip of the spar in and out of the sandpaper bundle while at the same time varying the pressure with the gloved hand. This helps to make the taper eaven.
on larger spars I rough out the taper with an exacto and this lessens the amount of material that needs to be removed. 
Like all sandpaper operations I use different grades of paper, finishing with fine.
tapering yards is more difficult since you have to duplicate the same taper on each arm. I make homemade sanding sticks by gluing sandpaper onto pieces of lattice and I use these without the spinning tool to knock down the rough exacto cuts and to dress the tips of spars.