shipmodel

Hi to all, and thanks for the comments and questions.  Please keep them coming.  Many eyes and brains will always spot problems that one set will not see until it is too late to easily correct them.
 
The last entry ended with the hull planked and the upper works painted as requested by the museum. 
 

 
The next task was to install all of the plank fastenings.  French practice at the time, as far as can be determined 300 years later, was to alternate wooden treenails with iron spikes.  That is, each time a plank crossed a frame there were two fasteners, one iron, one wood, set at a diagonal to each other.  At the neighboring frames to either side the pattern was flipped over, so if the first frame had a treenail at the top, the neighbor had a spike at the top.   Butt joints between planks were secured with four fasteners, two of each kind, also set diagonally.
 
Here is what the finished pattern looks like on the model.
 

 
The experiments that I did on the practice gun station led me to the following sequence, which got the thousands of fasteners done in a reasonable amount of time:
 
After installation, the planks were given a coat of pale stain, then a first clear coat to protect them from glue spots and dirt.  This coating also helped when it came time to remove the pencil lines that were drawn to indicate the frame locations under the planks.   Without it the graphite gets into the grain of the wood and is really hard to remove.
 
Next, the holes for all of the treenails were drilled.  I used the cordless Dremel 1000 which has a pistol shape.  It lets me simply point at the desired spot and just lean forward to make a 1/8” deep hole.  With some good music in the background and a repetitive chant under my breath, I would develop a rhythm that made the chore go pretty quickly.      
 
Multiple strips of treenail stock were cut from cherry veneer on the Preac.  They were 0.025” square, or about 0.035” on the diagonal.  The holes were drilled with a 0.0325” bit so that the strips could be inserted to the bottom of the hole with a friction fit and then clipped or snapped off.  Again, music made the task bearable.
 
Once all the holes were filled they were painted with heavily diluted white glue.  It was thin enough to wick down the sides of the strips to the bottom of the holes.  This not only secured the treenails to the planks and the hull, but it swelled the fibers so that the square strips now filled the entire round holes.  No lengthy, fiddly pulling through a drawplate was necessary.  This is a good thing, because I am really terrible at it.  I usually end up with more splinters on the floor than treenails in the cup.
 
Once the glue dried the stubs of the treenails were cut close to the plank surface using a small chisel, then they were sanded flush, which also removed the pencil lines.
 
Now the holes for the spikes could all be drilled, using the treenail locations as the guide.  This time the holes were only 0.025” diameter and were filled with 0.022” soft iron wire.  Clippers were used to cut them as close as possible to the plank surface.  Here I am filling the holes in the planks of the counter with the model turned upside down.
 

 
Once a large section of spikes were inserted they were peened or pressed into the hull until they were almost flush with the surface.  Then they were painted with a second clear coat of finish.  This not only secured the spikes from coming out, but darkened the tops of the treenails so the cherry stood out from the birch of the planking.
 
Even without doing the fasteners under the painted sections there are over 3,000 fasteners in the hull.  Using this sequence, the fasteners were done, start to finish, in three 6-hour workdays. 
 
With the planking done, the gunport linings were fitted using the square wooden tube as explained in the earlier log for the gun station.  Here is how it came out after staining to match the planking.
 

 
And here are two cannon protruding from their ports as they will be in the finished model.
 

 
As we all do, I use the photographs to check my work.  Some things seem to appear only under the light of a flash.  Here I am checking the symmetry of the bow.  It looks generally good, but there are two problems that I have to correct.
 

 
First, the thin molding just above the wale does not match, port to starboard.  The port side is about 1/16” low at the stem.  It will be pried up and relocated before re-gluing and final pinning with metal spikes.
 
The second problem is less clear.  The cap of the starboard bow is higher than its corresponding shape on the port side.  You can see it a bit better with the photo taken from a lower angle.
 

 
The cap molding will be removed, the shape adjusted, and the molding replaced.  Otherwise, I am happy with the symmetry of the hull both here at the bow, and here at the stern.
 

 
You can see that the two ports in the counter have been detailed.  Although the hull details will mostly be done later, it was easier to do this area while I could still turn the model over and work on it upside down.  
 

 
The ports have two half-lids with four hinge straps each and a lanyard to open the top half.  These were made in the same way as the hinge straps for the companionway that was shown in an earlier log.  I used my orthodontic pliers to bend 1/16” brass strips which were then drilled and chemically blackened before gluing and pinning with wire.  The four rings above the lower molding are for the preventer chains that will attach to the smaller rings on the sides of the rudder just above the white stuff.
 

 
The rudder itself is built up from two pieces of cherry which were cut, shaped and tapered according to the plans.  The gudgeons and pintles were bent up from 3/32” wide brass strips, blackened and drilled, then secured in the usual manner to the rudder and the hull.
 
At the transom you can see the paper pattern for the latest iteration of the stern gallery of windows.  This was originally taken from the Mercure plans, but heavily modified to fit the internal deck layout of the Advice Prize.  It was pushed, prodded, resized, and details were changed and changed back again in Photoshop before being printed out to test size and suitability against the spacing and layout of the hull moldings.  More changes will be made, I’m sure, before I am completely happy with it and can start cutting wood.
 
 I’m having to do a lot of testing like this to reconcile the shape and layout of the Advice Prize with the details from Le Mercure.  Here I have installed rough place-holders for the quarterdeck and forecastle deck so I can plan the layout in the waist.
 

 
The museum asked that one broadside of cannon be mounted through the ports with the lids opened.  The other side will have the guns “housed”.  But when I tested the layout of the guns with their muzzles hard against the bulwark it was clear that there would be no room for the ship’s boat on the centerline.  A check against the plans confirmed that this was so.
 

 
Instead, I suggested that the cannon not in use be housed fore and aft against the bulwark.  This is one way that it was done on the real ships.  Now, with the opposite cannon through the port, there is enough clearance for the boat and to work the guns.
 

 
And here is what the broadside looks like before the gunport lids and the rest of the hull details are installed.
 

 
Finally, lest you think that I work in a clean and orderly manner as implied in the heavily cropped photos in the log, here is our dining room table on a fairly neat day.   It looks much worse on a daily basis and for months at a time.
 

 
I can’t say enough about the forbearance and good humor of my wife.  Without her this would not be remotely possible.  I can only wish you all the same happiness with your spouse or significant other.
 
Be well
 
Dan

Build Log 32 – crojack and lateen sail
 
Hi again.  Being snowed in here in NYC had the silver lining of giving me some extra time to work on the model, so here is the next installment.
 
The next spar to be tackled was the crojack yard on the mizzen.  Even as far back as 1710 it did not carry a sail, but was there to spread the foot of the mizzen topsail.  It was shaped in the usual manner to the Budriot plans.  Since it does not carry a sail the number of blocks stropped to it is reduced.  There are sister blocks at the yardarms for the lifts and mizzen topsail sheets, pendant blocks for the braces and sheet blocks under the yard near the center.  Since the yard is not lowered with any frequency, the parrell is replaced by a static collar, with the yard having a single large block in the center that will hold a sling that circles the masthead and supports the spar.
 
Here is the spar ready for mounting.  The sling has been turned round the spar on one side and sized to the mast, leaving two long legs to be hitched round the spar and trimmed.
 
1
 
Here is the crojack yard mounted.  In the enlarged portion you can see the collar hitched around the mast and spar and the sling running through the center block.  According to Anderson (who I mistakenly referred to last time as Andersen) the French used the same lifts here as on the forward masts, while the English had already turned them into non-moving standing lifts since the yard did not move up or down.
 
14
 
In the above photo you might notice that there is now a railing around the poop deck/roof of the captain’s cabin.  In testing the fit and location of the lateen sail I realized that there were no belaying points anywhere at the stern of the ship.  Some belaying pins will be added to these rails, and other lighter lines can be hitched to the rails without pins.  The posts will also give me some future locations for swivel gun mountings.  They are 3 feet high in scale and made from steam bent pear, like the caprails.
 
15
 
The lateen spar is the simplest on the ship, even more so than the crojack yard.  It tapers to both ends, but without a center octagonal section.  There is a metal reinforcement and eyebolt at the lower end, but I never did discover the use for that fitting.  A halyard line hitches to a point near the center of the spar, but a little towards the upper end.  I left it loose until the yard was finally mounted.
 
Along the length of the spar are six small blocks.  They are for the brailing lines that furl the sail and take the place of the clew, bunt and leach lines.  They alternate single and double blocks, which will be made clear later.
 
16
 
The parrell is made up of “B” shaped spacers and black beads.  The final piece is a small deadeye with only two holes.
 
17
 
Here is how it goes together.  The deadeye is seized into the parrell line which doubles and laces through the spacers and beads.  The lines are seized together again, although I took a shortcut and knotted them so I could adjust the placement later.  The knot will be invisible in the final mounting.  The lines then loop around the mast and the base of the halyard before threading through the deadeye.  The parrell does not go around the lateen spar, but holds the halyard close to the mast instead.  I read Anderson’s description of this many times before I began to understand it, and I am not really sure that I fully get it even now.
 
18
 
The lateen sail started by being laid out on the prepared sailcloth.  All of the panel lines are parallel to the cloth threads, although the lower corner is not precisely a right angle.
 
19
 
Since the sail will be set with all its lines, I had to develop cringles at the edge of the sail as attachment points for the brailing lines.  For my first attempt I cut small openings in the fold of the tabling, then laid the bolt rope into the fold and glued it as before.  With a pin I reached in and pulled the bolt rope out of the opening.  This did not work too well.  The rope was fixed in place, so pulling it out made a visible kink in the edge of the sail. 
 
20
 
For the next effort I worked the bolt rope into the cringle openings as I ironed down the tabling.  This was a much more successful effort, although it took a significantly longer time.
 
21
 
Once the tabling was all down I turned the sail over and marked the panel seams.  I found that the cloth was thin enough that a piece of white paper placed under the sail allowed me to see the panel seams through the cloth.  Then the second seam was drawn on next to the first, but offset about 1/16”.   When light shines through the cloth this double seam can be seen, but it is a subtle effect and may not be worth the effort.
 
22
 
Reinforcement panels were added to the back side of the sail, as indicated on the plans, then the sail was laced to the spar.  I wanted to show a small aerodynamic curve to the sail, so I mounted it to a scrap cardboard box with tape at the corners of the spar and a line at the clew of the sail that was held with a clip so the curve could be adjusted.
 
23
 
I painted the sail with matte finish to stiffen it and laid in a folded plastic bag of rice to hold the curve as the finish dried.
 
24
 
As it turned out, this was not a successful effort.  There is too much rice in the bag and the excess weight deformed the sail too much.  I might have been able to live with this, but at this point I realized that the entire sail was too small.  I had taken the dimensions of the spar from a digitized scan of the rigging plans that I had not double checked.  It was two inches short.  Even that I might have lived with, but coupled with the ragged cringles and the excess curve, I decided to scrap the sail and start again.
 
I saved the stropped brail blocks and the metal end fittings, but made a new spar and sail, which came out satisfactory.  Here it is being curved and stiffened.  Note how little rice it took to give the sail the curve that I wanted.
 
25
 
Once stiffened the sail was suspended by its upper corner and the reefing points were laced through holes in the reef band.  There are knots on the back side which were glued into the holes, then the points were painted with matte finish and draped down on both sides.
 
26
 
The brailing lines were attached to the cringles then run up, diagonally, to the brail blocks.  The first line, at the top, goes through a single block, then through the inside hole of the second, double block.  The second line goes through the other hole of the double block, then both lines go together to a belaying point.  Here they are coiled and taped together with a small clip to keep them from tangling until needed.  The remaining brail lines are set up in similar pairs.
 
27
 
This photo was taken without a flash as it will normally be seen, with the light shining through the sail, making visible the doubled panel lines, reef points, and sail reinforcements.
 
28
 
A large single block was attached to the clew and a pair of single blocks on a short pendant to the lower end of the spar.  Here it is, mounted.  At the upper end of the spar a set of blocks on bridles leads the mizzen lift to a block at the masthead, then down to a belaying point on the rail.
 
29
 
Here it is from the windward side.  I am not really happy with the look of the lift bridles.  They are attached to the spar where both Anderson and Budriot indicate, but once tension was put on them they took on this pattern, not the more symmetrical one from the drawings. 
 
30
 
Here is how the halyard and parrell came out, as seen from forward and aft.  I am not happy with the bend in the halyard as is goes behind the crojack, but putting it in front results in an even bigger bend. 
 
31
32
 
The final bit of rigging are the lines at the fore lower corner.  Although they work like the braces of the square sails they are known, a bit confusingly, as the bowlines.
 
33
 
Here is the current status.  The main topsail yard is clipped in place to get a sense of the size and shape of the sail.  I can already see that the crowsfoot is going to be a problem.
 
34
 
Next, ad topsails per aspera . . .
 
Be well
 
Dan
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Build Log 32 – crojack and lateen sail
 
Hi again.  Being snowed in here in NYC had the silver lining of giving me some extra time to work on the model, so here is the next installment.
 
The next spar to be tackled was the crojack yard on the mizzen.  Even as far back as 1710 it did not carry a sail, but was there to spread the foot of the mizzen topsail.  It was shaped in the usual manner to the Budriot plans.  Since it does not carry a sail the number of blocks stropped to it is reduced.  There are sister blocks at the yardarms for the lifts and mizzen topsail sheets, pendant blocks for the braces and sheet blocks under the yard near the center.  Since the yard is not lowered with any frequency, the parrell is replaced by a static collar, with the yard having a single large block in the center that will hold a sling that circles the masthead and supports the spar.
 
Here is the spar ready for mounting.  The sling has been turned round the spar on one side and sized to the mast, leaving two long legs to be hitched round the spar and trimmed.
 
1
 
Here is the crojack yard mounted.  In the enlarged portion you can see the collar hitched around the mast and spar and the sling running through the center block.  According to Anderson (who I mistakenly referred to last time as Andersen) the French used the same lifts here as on the forward masts, while the English had already turned them into non-moving standing lifts since the yard did not move up or down.
 
14
 
In the above photo you might notice that there is now a railing around the poop deck/roof of the captain’s cabin.  In testing the fit and location of the lateen sail I realized that there were no belaying points anywhere at the stern of the ship.  Some belaying pins will be added to these rails, and other lighter lines can be hitched to the rails without pins.  The posts will also give me some future locations for swivel gun mountings.  They are 3 feet high in scale and made from steam bent pear, like the caprails.
 
15
 
The lateen spar is the simplest on the ship, even more so than the crojack yard.  It tapers to both ends, but without a center octagonal section.  There is a metal reinforcement and eyebolt at the lower end, but I never did discover the use for that fitting.  A halyard line hitches to a point near the center of the spar, but a little towards the upper end.  I left it loose until the yard was finally mounted.
 
Along the length of the spar are six small blocks.  They are for the brailing lines that furl the sail and take the place of the clew, bunt and leach lines.  They alternate single and double blocks, which will be made clear later.
 
16
 
The parrell is made up of “B” shaped spacers and black beads.  The final piece is a small deadeye with only two holes.
 
17
 
Here is how it goes together.  The deadeye is seized into the parrell line which doubles and laces through the spacers and beads.  The lines are seized together again, although I took a shortcut and knotted them so I could adjust the placement later.  The knot will be invisible in the final mounting.  The lines then loop around the mast and the base of the halyard before threading through the deadeye.  The parrell does not go around the lateen spar, but holds the halyard close to the mast instead.  I read Anderson’s description of this many times before I began to understand it, and I am not really sure that I fully get it even now.
 
18
 
The lateen sail started by being laid out on the prepared sailcloth.  All of the panel lines are parallel to the cloth threads, although the lower corner is not precisely a right angle.
 
19
 
Since the sail will be set with all its lines, I had to develop cringles at the edge of the sail as attachment points for the brailing lines.  For my first attempt I cut small openings in the fold of the tabling, then laid the bolt rope into the fold and glued it as before.  With a pin I reached in and pulled the bolt rope out of the opening.  This did not work too well.  The rope was fixed in place, so pulling it out made a visible kink in the edge of the sail. 
 
20
 
For the next effort I worked the bolt rope into the cringle openings as I ironed down the tabling.  This was a much more successful effort, although it took a significantly longer time.
 
21
 
Once the tabling was all down I turned the sail over and marked the panel seams.  I found that the cloth was thin enough that a piece of white paper placed under the sail allowed me to see the panel seams through the cloth.  Then the second seam was drawn on next to the first, but offset about 1/16”.   When light shines through the cloth this double seam can be seen, but it is a subtle effect and may not be worth the effort.
 
22
 
Reinforcement panels were added to the back side of the sail, as indicated on the plans, then the sail was laced to the spar.  I wanted to show a small aerodynamic curve to the sail, so I mounted it to a scrap cardboard box with tape at the corners of the spar and a line at the clew of the sail that was held with a clip so the curve could be adjusted.
 
23
 
I painted the sail with matte finish to stiffen it and laid in a folded plastic bag of rice to hold the curve as the finish dried.
 
24
 
As it turned out, this was not a successful effort.  There is too much rice in the bag and the excess weight deformed the sail too much.  I might have been able to live with this, but at this point I realized that the entire sail was too small.  I had taken the dimensions of the spar from a digitized scan of the rigging plans that I had not double checked.  It was two inches short.  Even that I might have lived with, but coupled with the ragged cringles and the excess curve, I decided to scrap the sail and start again.
 
I saved the stropped brail blocks and the metal end fittings, but made a new spar and sail, which came out satisfactory.  Here it is being curved and stiffened.  Note how little rice it took to give the sail the curve that I wanted.
 
25
 
Once stiffened the sail was suspended by its upper corner and the reefing points were laced through holes in the reef band.  There are knots on the back side which were glued into the holes, then the points were painted with matte finish and draped down on both sides.
 
26
 
The brailing lines were attached to the cringles then run up, diagonally, to the brail blocks.  The first line, at the top, goes through a single block, then through the inside hole of the second, double block.  The second line goes through the other hole of the double block, then both lines go together to a belaying point.  Here they are coiled and taped together with a small clip to keep them from tangling until needed.  The remaining brail lines are set up in similar pairs.
 
27
 
This photo was taken without a flash as it will normally be seen, with the light shining through the sail, making visible the doubled panel lines, reef points, and sail reinforcements.
 
28
 
A large single block was attached to the clew and a pair of single blocks on a short pendant to the lower end of the spar.  Here it is, mounted.  At the upper end of the spar a set of blocks on bridles leads the mizzen lift to a block at the masthead, then down to a belaying point on the rail.
 
29
 
Here it is from the windward side.  I am not really happy with the look of the lift bridles.  They are attached to the spar where both Anderson and Budriot indicate, but once tension was put on them they took on this pattern, not the more symmetrical one from the drawings. 
 
30
 
Here is how the halyard and parrell came out, as seen from forward and aft.  I am not happy with the bend in the halyard as is goes behind the crojack, but putting it in front results in an even bigger bend. 
 
31
32
 
The final bit of rigging are the lines at the fore lower corner.  Although they work like the braces of the square sails they are known, a bit confusingly, as the bowlines.
 
33
 
Here is the current status.  The main topsail yard is clipped in place to get a sense of the size and shape of the sail.  I can already see that the crowsfoot is going to be a problem.
 
34
 
Next, ad topsails per aspera . . .
 
Be well
 
Dan
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Build Log 32 – crojack and lateen sail
 
Hi again.  Being snowed in here in NYC had the silver lining of giving me some extra time to work on the model, so here is the next installment.
 
The next spar to be tackled was the crojack yard on the mizzen.  Even as far back as 1710 it did not carry a sail, but was there to spread the foot of the mizzen topsail.  It was shaped in the usual manner to the Budriot plans.  Since it does not carry a sail the number of blocks stropped to it is reduced.  There are sister blocks at the yardarms for the lifts and mizzen topsail sheets, pendant blocks for the braces and sheet blocks under the yard near the center.  Since the yard is not lowered with any frequency, the parrell is replaced by a static collar, with the yard having a single large block in the center that will hold a sling that circles the masthead and supports the spar.
 
Here is the spar ready for mounting.  The sling has been turned round the spar on one side and sized to the mast, leaving two long legs to be hitched round the spar and trimmed.
 
1
 
Here is the crojack yard mounted.  In the enlarged portion you can see the collar hitched around the mast and spar and the sling running through the center block.  According to Anderson (who I mistakenly referred to last time as Andersen) the French used the same lifts here as on the forward masts, while the English had already turned them into non-moving standing lifts since the yard did not move up or down.
 
14
 
In the above photo you might notice that there is now a railing around the poop deck/roof of the captain’s cabin.  In testing the fit and location of the lateen sail I realized that there were no belaying points anywhere at the stern of the ship.  Some belaying pins will be added to these rails, and other lighter lines can be hitched to the rails without pins.  The posts will also give me some future locations for swivel gun mountings.  They are 3 feet high in scale and made from steam bent pear, like the caprails.
 
15
 
The lateen spar is the simplest on the ship, even more so than the crojack yard.  It tapers to both ends, but without a center octagonal section.  There is a metal reinforcement and eyebolt at the lower end, but I never did discover the use for that fitting.  A halyard line hitches to a point near the center of the spar, but a little towards the upper end.  I left it loose until the yard was finally mounted.
 
Along the length of the spar are six small blocks.  They are for the brailing lines that furl the sail and take the place of the clew, bunt and leach lines.  They alternate single and double blocks, which will be made clear later.
 
16
 
The parrell is made up of “B” shaped spacers and black beads.  The final piece is a small deadeye with only two holes.
 
17
 
Here is how it goes together.  The deadeye is seized into the parrell line which doubles and laces through the spacers and beads.  The lines are seized together again, although I took a shortcut and knotted them so I could adjust the placement later.  The knot will be invisible in the final mounting.  The lines then loop around the mast and the base of the halyard before threading through the deadeye.  The parrell does not go around the lateen spar, but holds the halyard close to the mast instead.  I read Anderson’s description of this many times before I began to understand it, and I am not really sure that I fully get it even now.
 
18
 
The lateen sail started by being laid out on the prepared sailcloth.  All of the panel lines are parallel to the cloth threads, although the lower corner is not precisely a right angle.
 
19
 
Since the sail will be set with all its lines, I had to develop cringles at the edge of the sail as attachment points for the brailing lines.  For my first attempt I cut small openings in the fold of the tabling, then laid the bolt rope into the fold and glued it as before.  With a pin I reached in and pulled the bolt rope out of the opening.  This did not work too well.  The rope was fixed in place, so pulling it out made a visible kink in the edge of the sail. 
 
20
 
For the next effort I worked the bolt rope into the cringle openings as I ironed down the tabling.  This was a much more successful effort, although it took a significantly longer time.
 
21
 
Once the tabling was all down I turned the sail over and marked the panel seams.  I found that the cloth was thin enough that a piece of white paper placed under the sail allowed me to see the panel seams through the cloth.  Then the second seam was drawn on next to the first, but offset about 1/16”.   When light shines through the cloth this double seam can be seen, but it is a subtle effect and may not be worth the effort.
 
22
 
Reinforcement panels were added to the back side of the sail, as indicated on the plans, then the sail was laced to the spar.  I wanted to show a small aerodynamic curve to the sail, so I mounted it to a scrap cardboard box with tape at the corners of the spar and a line at the clew of the sail that was held with a clip so the curve could be adjusted.
 
23
 
I painted the sail with matte finish to stiffen it and laid in a folded plastic bag of rice to hold the curve as the finish dried.
 
24
 
As it turned out, this was not a successful effort.  There is too much rice in the bag and the excess weight deformed the sail too much.  I might have been able to live with this, but at this point I realized that the entire sail was too small.  I had taken the dimensions of the spar from a digitized scan of the rigging plans that I had not double checked.  It was two inches short.  Even that I might have lived with, but coupled with the ragged cringles and the excess curve, I decided to scrap the sail and start again.
 
I saved the stropped brail blocks and the metal end fittings, but made a new spar and sail, which came out satisfactory.  Here it is being curved and stiffened.  Note how little rice it took to give the sail the curve that I wanted.
 
25
 
Once stiffened the sail was suspended by its upper corner and the reefing points were laced through holes in the reef band.  There are knots on the back side which were glued into the holes, then the points were painted with matte finish and draped down on both sides.
 
26
 
The brailing lines were attached to the cringles then run up, diagonally, to the brail blocks.  The first line, at the top, goes through a single block, then through the inside hole of the second, double block.  The second line goes through the other hole of the double block, then both lines go together to a belaying point.  Here they are coiled and taped together with a small clip to keep them from tangling until needed.  The remaining brail lines are set up in similar pairs.
 
27
 
This photo was taken without a flash as it will normally be seen, with the light shining through the sail, making visible the doubled panel lines, reef points, and sail reinforcements.
 
28
 
A large single block was attached to the clew and a pair of single blocks on a short pendant to the lower end of the spar.  Here it is, mounted.  At the upper end of the spar a set of blocks on bridles leads the mizzen lift to a block at the masthead, then down to a belaying point on the rail.
 
29
 
Here it is from the windward side.  I am not really happy with the look of the lift bridles.  They are attached to the spar where both Anderson and Budriot indicate, but once tension was put on them they took on this pattern, not the more symmetrical one from the drawings. 
 
30
 
Here is how the halyard and parrell came out, as seen from forward and aft.  I am not happy with the bend in the halyard as is goes behind the crojack, but putting it in front results in an even bigger bend. 
 
31
32
 
The final bit of rigging are the lines at the fore lower corner.  Although they work like the braces of the square sails they are known, a bit confusingly, as the bowlines.
 
33
 
Here is the current status.  The main topsail yard is clipped in place to get a sense of the size and shape of the sail.  I can already see that the crowsfoot is going to be a problem.
 
34
 
Next, ad topsails per aspera . . .
 
Be well
 
Dan
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hello again -
 
Thanks for the likes and comments, and a happy Christmas Eve to everyone.
 
Just a quick post about the last bit of work before I go on vacation for two weeks.
 
Since the last posting the standing rigging has been completed.  Here are two shots of the overall model with the upper standing rigging complete.  No different techniques were used, just a selection of thinner lines as the rig got higher.  The final lines, the fore t'gallant stay and the outer bobstay, are tensioned by lanyards between eyes worked into the ends of the lines.
 
1
 
1a
 
Here is a closeup of the foretop before any of the running rigging goes on.  You can see that the upper deadeyes are not in a perfect line.  I have seen similar irregularities in photographs of later, much later, working merchant sailing ships.  I do not think that pirates would have been as careful as the Royal Navy, or even the French navy, at such details, so leaving one a little shorter adds to the realism.
 
1b
 
 
The first element of the running rigging was the spritsail, the spar handling lines, a furled sail, and the sail lines.  Here is how I approached it.  The spar is simple.  A properly sized length of square maple stock was planed to an octogon.  The center section which remained octagonal was marked off, then the spar was tapered and rounded with a small plane, Dremel sanding drums, then a sheet of sandpaper glued flat to a piece of acrylic.  This procedure is exactly like that used to shape the masts in an earlier log entry, just carried forward till the spar was properly tapered.  Cleats were mounted in the center section and stop cleats glued and pinned at either end.
 
3
 
The first lines to go on were the stirrups and footropes.  Since the ship was quite small the spritsail only needed one stirrup on each side.  These were made by laying up an eye in the end, then wrapping the running end over the spar twice, leaving enough hanging down so the eye came 3 feet (1" in scale) below the top of the spar.  This would allow a sailor to stand on it and reach over to furl the sail.  An eye was siezed into the ends of the footropes sized to slip over the spar ends.  The free end of the footrope was slid through the eye in the stirrup and a small eye worked into its end.  According to Budriot the ends of the footropes were not lashed to the spar or to any of the lines circling the spar, but laced to each other.  
 
Once the lengths had been adjusted and set, and the center lashing tied, a series of small weights were used to make the stirrups and footropes  hang vertically, as if by gravity.
 
4
 
In the closeup you can see the first heavy steel clip pulls the footrope down near its seizing, while the second pulls down the stirrup.  The two smaller aluminum clamps were set on either side of the stirrup to mimic the footrope sag. 
 
5
 
 Once I liked the look the lines were painted with water to assist in the penetration of dilute white glue which was left to dry to set  the sag permanently.  
 
The various blocks and rigging fittings were added to the spar.  The first was the line for the sling.  An eye was spliced into one end which was wrapped around the spar and under the center cleat on the port side.  A round seizing secured it in place.  The running end was left free until it was time to lash the spar to the bowsprit.  It did, however, provide a way of temporarily securing the spar while various measurements were made.
 
Moving outward, the clew blocks were tied to the spar so they hung down, then the small deadeyes for the standing lift which sit on the forward face of the spar.  At the end of the spar a large single block was spliced on facing forward for the running lift, and a similar single block on a short pendant for the brace.
 
Not shown in the photo are a large single block tied to the center of the spar for the halyard, a small block in the center for the leach line, and the clew lines themselves which tie to the spar just ouboard of the clew blocks.
 
6
 
Then I turned to the sail itself.  The first choice was what to make it out of.  Working in 1/36 scale allowed me to use actual cloth rather than silkspan or other paper-based product.  I haunted fabric stores and searched the internet for the thinnest that I could find.  I found it at the New York Fashion Center.  Their Imperial Batiste measured out to 0.008" (0.288" in scale, or just over 1/4") which was acceptably thin.  As you can see in the photo, you can read through it.  Best of all, it is quite reasonably priced.
 
7
 
Now, how to shape it to a furled look.  Although most of my ideas on this topic have been developed over many years, they are succinctly stated in an article by Professor John Tilley of Texas A&M which can be found on this website at this location: http://modelshipworldforum.com/resources/Rigging_and_Sails/ScaleSails.pdf 
 
The first idea is that a furled sail has to have less bulk than a full one, and that this has to start out as a trapezoid, because the outer ends of the furl are even less bulky than the middle.  I modified this to add two triangles of cloth that would hang down as representing the clews of the sail.  To this shape a series of panel lines were drawn on.  The outer ones were angled to lie parallel with the outer edge of the sail.
 
8
 
After that a lot of experimenting went on to get the size, layout and panel lines adjusted.  Then the edges of the sail were painted with white glue.  When dry the sail was cut out, the tabling folded and ironed, and the sail mounted on the spar.  It was soaked in clear acrylic matte finish and teased into furls that were tied with gaskets to the spar.  The teasing process continued throughout the drying process.  Where I was unhappy, water was liberally painted on the problem section to soften the cloth and the sail adjusted some more. I was so caught up in the process that I failed to take photos of my techniques, but I will do that with the fore and main courses, which will be furled in similar fashion.
 
9
 
With the sail mounted to the spar the sling was tied and siezed.  The halyad, the standing and running lifts, and the braces were tied, run through the appropriate blocks, and then to their belaying points.  Several, including the running lifts and clew lines, go through a long gammon block with six sheaves lashed to both sides of the gammoning.
 
10
 
At the belaying points, whether cleat or timberhead, the lines were secured with hitches. not knots or glue, leaving long tails for further adjustments.  Pirate Pete is supervising to make sure.
 
11
 
So here is where it is as I leave for Santa Fe.  I know that there are some items that I will have to adjust when I get back, and please, please, if you spot any that you question, let me know so I can correct them before I go too far past to easily redo.
 
12
 
My very best wishes to you all and your families.  I will see you in the New Year. 
 
Dan
 
 
 
 
 

Build Log 32 – crojack and lateen sail
 
Hi again.  Being snowed in here in NYC had the silver lining of giving me some extra time to work on the model, so here is the next installment.
 
The next spar to be tackled was the crojack yard on the mizzen.  Even as far back as 1710 it did not carry a sail, but was there to spread the foot of the mizzen topsail.  It was shaped in the usual manner to the Budriot plans.  Since it does not carry a sail the number of blocks stropped to it is reduced.  There are sister blocks at the yardarms for the lifts and mizzen topsail sheets, pendant blocks for the braces and sheet blocks under the yard near the center.  Since the yard is not lowered with any frequency, the parrell is replaced by a static collar, with the yard having a single large block in the center that will hold a sling that circles the masthead and supports the spar.
 
Here is the spar ready for mounting.  The sling has been turned round the spar on one side and sized to the mast, leaving two long legs to be hitched round the spar and trimmed.
 
1
 
Here is the crojack yard mounted.  In the enlarged portion you can see the collar hitched around the mast and spar and the sling running through the center block.  According to Anderson (who I mistakenly referred to last time as Andersen) the French used the same lifts here as on the forward masts, while the English had already turned them into non-moving standing lifts since the yard did not move up or down.
 
14
 
In the above photo you might notice that there is now a railing around the poop deck/roof of the captain’s cabin.  In testing the fit and location of the lateen sail I realized that there were no belaying points anywhere at the stern of the ship.  Some belaying pins will be added to these rails, and other lighter lines can be hitched to the rails without pins.  The posts will also give me some future locations for swivel gun mountings.  They are 3 feet high in scale and made from steam bent pear, like the caprails.
 
15
 
The lateen spar is the simplest on the ship, even more so than the crojack yard.  It tapers to both ends, but without a center octagonal section.  There is a metal reinforcement and eyebolt at the lower end, but I never did discover the use for that fitting.  A halyard line hitches to a point near the center of the spar, but a little towards the upper end.  I left it loose until the yard was finally mounted.
 
Along the length of the spar are six small blocks.  They are for the brailing lines that furl the sail and take the place of the clew, bunt and leach lines.  They alternate single and double blocks, which will be made clear later.
 
16
 
The parrell is made up of “B” shaped spacers and black beads.  The final piece is a small deadeye with only two holes.
 
17
 
Here is how it goes together.  The deadeye is seized into the parrell line which doubles and laces through the spacers and beads.  The lines are seized together again, although I took a shortcut and knotted them so I could adjust the placement later.  The knot will be invisible in the final mounting.  The lines then loop around the mast and the base of the halyard before threading through the deadeye.  The parrell does not go around the lateen spar, but holds the halyard close to the mast instead.  I read Anderson’s description of this many times before I began to understand it, and I am not really sure that I fully get it even now.
 
18
 
The lateen sail started by being laid out on the prepared sailcloth.  All of the panel lines are parallel to the cloth threads, although the lower corner is not precisely a right angle.
 
19
 
Since the sail will be set with all its lines, I had to develop cringles at the edge of the sail as attachment points for the brailing lines.  For my first attempt I cut small openings in the fold of the tabling, then laid the bolt rope into the fold and glued it as before.  With a pin I reached in and pulled the bolt rope out of the opening.  This did not work too well.  The rope was fixed in place, so pulling it out made a visible kink in the edge of the sail. 
 
20
 
For the next effort I worked the bolt rope into the cringle openings as I ironed down the tabling.  This was a much more successful effort, although it took a significantly longer time.
 
21
 
Once the tabling was all down I turned the sail over and marked the panel seams.  I found that the cloth was thin enough that a piece of white paper placed under the sail allowed me to see the panel seams through the cloth.  Then the second seam was drawn on next to the first, but offset about 1/16”.   When light shines through the cloth this double seam can be seen, but it is a subtle effect and may not be worth the effort.
 
22
 
Reinforcement panels were added to the back side of the sail, as indicated on the plans, then the sail was laced to the spar.  I wanted to show a small aerodynamic curve to the sail, so I mounted it to a scrap cardboard box with tape at the corners of the spar and a line at the clew of the sail that was held with a clip so the curve could be adjusted.
 
23
 
I painted the sail with matte finish to stiffen it and laid in a folded plastic bag of rice to hold the curve as the finish dried.
 
24
 
As it turned out, this was not a successful effort.  There is too much rice in the bag and the excess weight deformed the sail too much.  I might have been able to live with this, but at this point I realized that the entire sail was too small.  I had taken the dimensions of the spar from a digitized scan of the rigging plans that I had not double checked.  It was two inches short.  Even that I might have lived with, but coupled with the ragged cringles and the excess curve, I decided to scrap the sail and start again.
 
I saved the stropped brail blocks and the metal end fittings, but made a new spar and sail, which came out satisfactory.  Here it is being curved and stiffened.  Note how little rice it took to give the sail the curve that I wanted.
 
25
 
Once stiffened the sail was suspended by its upper corner and the reefing points were laced through holes in the reef band.  There are knots on the back side which were glued into the holes, then the points were painted with matte finish and draped down on both sides.
 
26
 
The brailing lines were attached to the cringles then run up, diagonally, to the brail blocks.  The first line, at the top, goes through a single block, then through the inside hole of the second, double block.  The second line goes through the other hole of the double block, then both lines go together to a belaying point.  Here they are coiled and taped together with a small clip to keep them from tangling until needed.  The remaining brail lines are set up in similar pairs.
 
27
 
This photo was taken without a flash as it will normally be seen, with the light shining through the sail, making visible the doubled panel lines, reef points, and sail reinforcements.
 
28
 
A large single block was attached to the clew and a pair of single blocks on a short pendant to the lower end of the spar.  Here it is, mounted.  At the upper end of the spar a set of blocks on bridles leads the mizzen lift to a block at the masthead, then down to a belaying point on the rail.
 
29
 
Here it is from the windward side.  I am not really happy with the look of the lift bridles.  They are attached to the spar where both Anderson and Budriot indicate, but once tension was put on them they took on this pattern, not the more symmetrical one from the drawings. 
 
30
 
Here is how the halyard and parrell came out, as seen from forward and aft.  I am not happy with the bend in the halyard as is goes behind the crojack, but putting it in front results in an even bigger bend. 
 
31
32
 
The final bit of rigging are the lines at the fore lower corner.  Although they work like the braces of the square sails they are known, a bit confusingly, as the bowlines.
 
33
 
Here is the current status.  The main topsail yard is clipped in place to get a sense of the size and shape of the sail.  I can already see that the crowsfoot is going to be a problem.
 
34
 
Next, ad topsails per aspera . . .
 
Be well
 
Dan
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Build Log 32 – crojack and lateen sail
 
Hi again.  Being snowed in here in NYC had the silver lining of giving me some extra time to work on the model, so here is the next installment.
 
The next spar to be tackled was the crojack yard on the mizzen.  Even as far back as 1710 it did not carry a sail, but was there to spread the foot of the mizzen topsail.  It was shaped in the usual manner to the Budriot plans.  Since it does not carry a sail the number of blocks stropped to it is reduced.  There are sister blocks at the yardarms for the lifts and mizzen topsail sheets, pendant blocks for the braces and sheet blocks under the yard near the center.  Since the yard is not lowered with any frequency, the parrell is replaced by a static collar, with the yard having a single large block in the center that will hold a sling that circles the masthead and supports the spar.
 
Here is the spar ready for mounting.  The sling has been turned round the spar on one side and sized to the mast, leaving two long legs to be hitched round the spar and trimmed.
 
1
 
Here is the crojack yard mounted.  In the enlarged portion you can see the collar hitched around the mast and spar and the sling running through the center block.  According to Anderson (who I mistakenly referred to last time as Andersen) the French used the same lifts here as on the forward masts, while the English had already turned them into non-moving standing lifts since the yard did not move up or down.
 
14
 
In the above photo you might notice that there is now a railing around the poop deck/roof of the captain’s cabin.  In testing the fit and location of the lateen sail I realized that there were no belaying points anywhere at the stern of the ship.  Some belaying pins will be added to these rails, and other lighter lines can be hitched to the rails without pins.  The posts will also give me some future locations for swivel gun mountings.  They are 3 feet high in scale and made from steam bent pear, like the caprails.
 
15
 
The lateen spar is the simplest on the ship, even more so than the crojack yard.  It tapers to both ends, but without a center octagonal section.  There is a metal reinforcement and eyebolt at the lower end, but I never did discover the use for that fitting.  A halyard line hitches to a point near the center of the spar, but a little towards the upper end.  I left it loose until the yard was finally mounted.
 
Along the length of the spar are six small blocks.  They are for the brailing lines that furl the sail and take the place of the clew, bunt and leach lines.  They alternate single and double blocks, which will be made clear later.
 
16
 
The parrell is made up of “B” shaped spacers and black beads.  The final piece is a small deadeye with only two holes.
 
17
 
Here is how it goes together.  The deadeye is seized into the parrell line which doubles and laces through the spacers and beads.  The lines are seized together again, although I took a shortcut and knotted them so I could adjust the placement later.  The knot will be invisible in the final mounting.  The lines then loop around the mast and the base of the halyard before threading through the deadeye.  The parrell does not go around the lateen spar, but holds the halyard close to the mast instead.  I read Anderson’s description of this many times before I began to understand it, and I am not really sure that I fully get it even now.
 
18
 
The lateen sail started by being laid out on the prepared sailcloth.  All of the panel lines are parallel to the cloth threads, although the lower corner is not precisely a right angle.
 
19
 
Since the sail will be set with all its lines, I had to develop cringles at the edge of the sail as attachment points for the brailing lines.  For my first attempt I cut small openings in the fold of the tabling, then laid the bolt rope into the fold and glued it as before.  With a pin I reached in and pulled the bolt rope out of the opening.  This did not work too well.  The rope was fixed in place, so pulling it out made a visible kink in the edge of the sail. 
 
20
 
For the next effort I worked the bolt rope into the cringle openings as I ironed down the tabling.  This was a much more successful effort, although it took a significantly longer time.
 
21
 
Once the tabling was all down I turned the sail over and marked the panel seams.  I found that the cloth was thin enough that a piece of white paper placed under the sail allowed me to see the panel seams through the cloth.  Then the second seam was drawn on next to the first, but offset about 1/16”.   When light shines through the cloth this double seam can be seen, but it is a subtle effect and may not be worth the effort.
 
22
 
Reinforcement panels were added to the back side of the sail, as indicated on the plans, then the sail was laced to the spar.  I wanted to show a small aerodynamic curve to the sail, so I mounted it to a scrap cardboard box with tape at the corners of the spar and a line at the clew of the sail that was held with a clip so the curve could be adjusted.
 
23
 
I painted the sail with matte finish to stiffen it and laid in a folded plastic bag of rice to hold the curve as the finish dried.
 
24
 
As it turned out, this was not a successful effort.  There is too much rice in the bag and the excess weight deformed the sail too much.  I might have been able to live with this, but at this point I realized that the entire sail was too small.  I had taken the dimensions of the spar from a digitized scan of the rigging plans that I had not double checked.  It was two inches short.  Even that I might have lived with, but coupled with the ragged cringles and the excess curve, I decided to scrap the sail and start again.
 
I saved the stropped brail blocks and the metal end fittings, but made a new spar and sail, which came out satisfactory.  Here it is being curved and stiffened.  Note how little rice it took to give the sail the curve that I wanted.
 
25
 
Once stiffened the sail was suspended by its upper corner and the reefing points were laced through holes in the reef band.  There are knots on the back side which were glued into the holes, then the points were painted with matte finish and draped down on both sides.
 
26
 
The brailing lines were attached to the cringles then run up, diagonally, to the brail blocks.  The first line, at the top, goes through a single block, then through the inside hole of the second, double block.  The second line goes through the other hole of the double block, then both lines go together to a belaying point.  Here they are coiled and taped together with a small clip to keep them from tangling until needed.  The remaining brail lines are set up in similar pairs.
 
27
 
This photo was taken without a flash as it will normally be seen, with the light shining through the sail, making visible the doubled panel lines, reef points, and sail reinforcements.
 
28
 
A large single block was attached to the clew and a pair of single blocks on a short pendant to the lower end of the spar.  Here it is, mounted.  At the upper end of the spar a set of blocks on bridles leads the mizzen lift to a block at the masthead, then down to a belaying point on the rail.
 
29
 
Here it is from the windward side.  I am not really happy with the look of the lift bridles.  They are attached to the spar where both Anderson and Budriot indicate, but once tension was put on them they took on this pattern, not the more symmetrical one from the drawings. 
 
30
 
Here is how the halyard and parrell came out, as seen from forward and aft.  I am not happy with the bend in the halyard as is goes behind the crojack, but putting it in front results in an even bigger bend. 
 
31
32
 
The final bit of rigging are the lines at the fore lower corner.  Although they work like the braces of the square sails they are known, a bit confusingly, as the bowlines.
 
33
 
Here is the current status.  The main topsail yard is clipped in place to get a sense of the size and shape of the sail.  I can already see that the crowsfoot is going to be a problem.
 
34
 
Next, ad topsails per aspera . . .
 
Be well
 
Dan
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Build Log 32 – crojack and lateen sail
 
Hi again.  Being snowed in here in NYC had the silver lining of giving me some extra time to work on the model, so here is the next installment.
 
The next spar to be tackled was the crojack yard on the mizzen.  Even as far back as 1710 it did not carry a sail, but was there to spread the foot of the mizzen topsail.  It was shaped in the usual manner to the Budriot plans.  Since it does not carry a sail the number of blocks stropped to it is reduced.  There are sister blocks at the yardarms for the lifts and mizzen topsail sheets, pendant blocks for the braces and sheet blocks under the yard near the center.  Since the yard is not lowered with any frequency, the parrell is replaced by a static collar, with the yard having a single large block in the center that will hold a sling that circles the masthead and supports the spar.
 
Here is the spar ready for mounting.  The sling has been turned round the spar on one side and sized to the mast, leaving two long legs to be hitched round the spar and trimmed.
 
1
 
Here is the crojack yard mounted.  In the enlarged portion you can see the collar hitched around the mast and spar and the sling running through the center block.  According to Anderson (who I mistakenly referred to last time as Andersen) the French used the same lifts here as on the forward masts, while the English had already turned them into non-moving standing lifts since the yard did not move up or down.
 
14
 
In the above photo you might notice that there is now a railing around the poop deck/roof of the captain’s cabin.  In testing the fit and location of the lateen sail I realized that there were no belaying points anywhere at the stern of the ship.  Some belaying pins will be added to these rails, and other lighter lines can be hitched to the rails without pins.  The posts will also give me some future locations for swivel gun mountings.  They are 3 feet high in scale and made from steam bent pear, like the caprails.
 
15
 
The lateen spar is the simplest on the ship, even more so than the crojack yard.  It tapers to both ends, but without a center octagonal section.  There is a metal reinforcement and eyebolt at the lower end, but I never did discover the use for that fitting.  A halyard line hitches to a point near the center of the spar, but a little towards the upper end.  I left it loose until the yard was finally mounted.
 
Along the length of the spar are six small blocks.  They are for the brailing lines that furl the sail and take the place of the clew, bunt and leach lines.  They alternate single and double blocks, which will be made clear later.
 
16
 
The parrell is made up of “B” shaped spacers and black beads.  The final piece is a small deadeye with only two holes.
 
17
 
Here is how it goes together.  The deadeye is seized into the parrell line which doubles and laces through the spacers and beads.  The lines are seized together again, although I took a shortcut and knotted them so I could adjust the placement later.  The knot will be invisible in the final mounting.  The lines then loop around the mast and the base of the halyard before threading through the deadeye.  The parrell does not go around the lateen spar, but holds the halyard close to the mast instead.  I read Anderson’s description of this many times before I began to understand it, and I am not really sure that I fully get it even now.
 
18
 
The lateen sail started by being laid out on the prepared sailcloth.  All of the panel lines are parallel to the cloth threads, although the lower corner is not precisely a right angle.
 
19
 
Since the sail will be set with all its lines, I had to develop cringles at the edge of the sail as attachment points for the brailing lines.  For my first attempt I cut small openings in the fold of the tabling, then laid the bolt rope into the fold and glued it as before.  With a pin I reached in and pulled the bolt rope out of the opening.  This did not work too well.  The rope was fixed in place, so pulling it out made a visible kink in the edge of the sail. 
 
20
 
For the next effort I worked the bolt rope into the cringle openings as I ironed down the tabling.  This was a much more successful effort, although it took a significantly longer time.
 
21
 
Once the tabling was all down I turned the sail over and marked the panel seams.  I found that the cloth was thin enough that a piece of white paper placed under the sail allowed me to see the panel seams through the cloth.  Then the second seam was drawn on next to the first, but offset about 1/16”.   When light shines through the cloth this double seam can be seen, but it is a subtle effect and may not be worth the effort.
 
22
 
Reinforcement panels were added to the back side of the sail, as indicated on the plans, then the sail was laced to the spar.  I wanted to show a small aerodynamic curve to the sail, so I mounted it to a scrap cardboard box with tape at the corners of the spar and a line at the clew of the sail that was held with a clip so the curve could be adjusted.
 
23
 
I painted the sail with matte finish to stiffen it and laid in a folded plastic bag of rice to hold the curve as the finish dried.
 
24
 
As it turned out, this was not a successful effort.  There is too much rice in the bag and the excess weight deformed the sail too much.  I might have been able to live with this, but at this point I realized that the entire sail was too small.  I had taken the dimensions of the spar from a digitized scan of the rigging plans that I had not double checked.  It was two inches short.  Even that I might have lived with, but coupled with the ragged cringles and the excess curve, I decided to scrap the sail and start again.
 
I saved the stropped brail blocks and the metal end fittings, but made a new spar and sail, which came out satisfactory.  Here it is being curved and stiffened.  Note how little rice it took to give the sail the curve that I wanted.
 
25
 
Once stiffened the sail was suspended by its upper corner and the reefing points were laced through holes in the reef band.  There are knots on the back side which were glued into the holes, then the points were painted with matte finish and draped down on both sides.
 
26
 
The brailing lines were attached to the cringles then run up, diagonally, to the brail blocks.  The first line, at the top, goes through a single block, then through the inside hole of the second, double block.  The second line goes through the other hole of the double block, then both lines go together to a belaying point.  Here they are coiled and taped together with a small clip to keep them from tangling until needed.  The remaining brail lines are set up in similar pairs.
 
27
 
This photo was taken without a flash as it will normally be seen, with the light shining through the sail, making visible the doubled panel lines, reef points, and sail reinforcements.
 
28
 
A large single block was attached to the clew and a pair of single blocks on a short pendant to the lower end of the spar.  Here it is, mounted.  At the upper end of the spar a set of blocks on bridles leads the mizzen lift to a block at the masthead, then down to a belaying point on the rail.
 
29
 
Here it is from the windward side.  I am not really happy with the look of the lift bridles.  They are attached to the spar where both Anderson and Budriot indicate, but once tension was put on them they took on this pattern, not the more symmetrical one from the drawings. 
 
30
 
Here is how the halyard and parrell came out, as seen from forward and aft.  I am not happy with the bend in the halyard as is goes behind the crojack, but putting it in front results in an even bigger bend. 
 
31
32
 
The final bit of rigging are the lines at the fore lower corner.  Although they work like the braces of the square sails they are known, a bit confusingly, as the bowlines.
 
33
 
Here is the current status.  The main topsail yard is clipped in place to get a sense of the size and shape of the sail.  I can already see that the crowsfoot is going to be a problem.
 
34
 
Next, ad topsails per aspera . . .
 
Be well
 
Dan
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Log 31 – Furled Sails
 
Hello again to all, and thanks as always for the comments and likes. Here is the next installment.
 
Having done the furled spritsail, I used many of the same techniques for the fore and main courses.  Here is the current appearance of the model with those sails furled and hung.
 
1
 
To start, the spars were shaped as usual, octagonal in the center, then rounded and tapered to the ends.  Cleats were added to the center and stop cleats on the ends.  Two pair of single blocks were stropped below the spar near the center for the clew lines and topsail sheets.  Pendants for the braces were made up with an eye on one end to fit the spar and a large single block seized into the other end.
 
2
 
On top of the spar small single blocks were stropped for the leach lines and bunt lines.  Below the spar are the stirrups and footropes, stiffened, weighted and hung in the same way as those on the spritsail yard, as described in the last log. 
 
3
 
At the outer ends there are fiddle-style blocks, without sheaves, for the lifts and topsail sheets.  Here are those blocks before installation.
 
4
 
And here are the Dutch blocks which will be hung on short pendants at the masthead for the lifts, as described by Andersen.
 
5
 
The only other fitting not connected to the sail is the parrell.  The rollers were made from plastic tube, while the spacers were parted off a stick shaped like a triple letter “B”.  The ropes will go around the spar, double back lying in the grooves of the parrell, around the spar again, and then have one leg taken to a belaying point on the deck.
 
6
 
The technique that I worked out for the furled sail is a bit complex, and there were a lot of missteps and discarded efforts before I got a method that seems to work.  The first step was to lay out the shape of the sail onto the sailcloth.  The cloth was stretched slightly and pinned to a corkboard.  The entire sail area was sprayed lightly with matte finish to keep it from bunching as I worked on it.
 
The top line is the length of the sail, which is about 3/8” short of the stop cleats on each end of the spar.  This line was marked, as closely as possible, along the warp of the fabric so the fewest threads would be cut, reducing fraying.   The primary depth is 2/3 the actual height of the sail if it were to be set.  The reduced width of the lower edge was estimated by drawing out the full sail, then drawing a line between the clew and the future location of the clew block.  Where that line crossed the 2/3 line was where the corner of the sail was set.
 
If I wanted a tight furl, as though on a naval ship in harbor, I would stop here.  But for a pirate ship without a permanent base, I went with a loose furl with the clews of the sails pulled out a bit, ready to be lowered.  I therefore added two points on the ends of the lower edge. 
 
7
 
The size and shape of these points was done by eye, but I was a bit off.  I found out during the furling process that the points pull inward too much, making furling more difficult.  When I do it again I will have the clew points angle outward a bit to compensate.
 
Panel seams were penciled in every 20 inches in scale.  At the ends they were angled in so the last one was parallel with the outer edge of the sail.  An outer line for the tabling was drawn all around the sail.  A double coating of slightly thinned white glue was painted on the tabling and an equal distance inside the sail.  This was left to dry.
 
8
 
 
A length of line long enough to go around the perimeter of the sail was coated with white glue and laid along the sail edge inside the tabling to represent the bolt rope. This was pinned in place and left to dry.  
 
10
 
At the clews and upper corners the line was looped around itself to make the attachment points for future lines.
 
11
 
Once dry, the shape of the sail could be cut out without fraying.
 
 
9
 
Now the tabling was closed around the bolt rope.  First a metal straightedge was used to fold the tabling, then the fold was burnished to form a sharp crease.  With an old plank bender I carefully applied heat to the overlap.  This reactivated the glue to form an instant bond.
 
12
 
The tabling was ironed close to the trapped line, giving the impression of a bolt rope without having to sew it to the sail, a process that I have tried but cannot master.  Someone who knows how to use a sewing machine could probably make a realistic edge.
 
13
 
Now the sail could be hung on the spar, then furled.  After much experimentation, I decided that I could not simply fold, crumple and crush the sail so it looked realistically furled.  Instead, I found that a ‘twist’ in the method made all the difference.  If I rolled the sail around itself as I folded it, the resulting furl was much tighter and more even. 
 
But if I laced the sail to the spar it could not be rolled.  Instead, the majority of the lacing was put on first.  Between the outer single blocks, the ones for the leach lines, and across most of the spar, there is a false lacing.  It has been darkened with finish and you can see the contrast with the new lacing on the outer end of the sail.
 
14
 
The sail was now sprayed with water till it was pliable.  The sail was rolled, folded and crushed until I was happy with the look from the end of the spar to the leach block.  There the first grommet was wrapped twice around the sail and spar, then loosely tied.
 
This process was continued across the length of the sail.  Each section from grommet to grommet was treated separately, with more or less rolling, etc. as needed.  The sail was periodically sprayed to keep it supple.  When the final section was basically correct the sail was painted with acrylic matte finish.  While still wet and soft the final tweaks were made and the grommets tightened.
 
After the finish was dry and the sail stiff, clew and sheet blocks were attached to the dangling points of the sail.  A tack line with a stopper knot was laced through the clew and the spar was ready to be hung.
 
I apologize for not having photos of the process, but it took at least three hands to keep everything going, and I did not take photos along the way.  You can see how the process worked out.
 
15
 
Here the fore yard is being hung.  The parrell was laced around the mast to hold the spar to it.  The ties lead from under the central cleats up through the mast cap, down through the top and through the ramshead block, then up again through the mast cap and down to the spar where it is attached with a rolling hitch.
 
The lifts start at the Dutch blocks at the mast cap, then through the inner hole in the sister block at the yardarm, through the Dutch block and down to a sheave in the bitts at the base of the mast.  The braces run from the main stay to the pendant blocks, back to blocks on the stay, and to timberheads near the break of the foredeck.  All this is as I understand it from R.C. Andersen.  Budriot is actually not much help here.
 
The sail handling lines were fitted and run through their blocks.  Here you can see clew, bunt and leach lines.  Also in the photo are the blocks for the brace and sheet lines.  Finally, the bowlines were made up and run according to Andersen.
 
15a
 
At the base of the mast you can see the belaying points, as well as the ramshead block and halyard lines through it.
 
16
 
From the other angle you can see how that strange cleat fixture on deck actually works quite well.
 
17
 
So here is the model with both fore and main spars hung and their furled sails and lines all rigged.
 
18
 
Next, the crojack yard and lateen sail on the mizzen.  This will be the first sail that will be set, so there are a whole new bunch of issues that have to be addressed.  Until then,
 
Be well.
 
Dan
 
 
 

Hi Mark - 
 
Very nice start to the planking, as everyone else has said.  A long, smooth curve to the strake.
 
You might try scraping the ebony rather than sanding it.  I use a single edged razor blade, which generates scrapings rather than dust and which lift off rather than being rubbed into the grain of the nearby wood.
 
Looking forward to your progress.
 
Dan

Log 31 – Furled Sails
 
Hello again to all, and thanks as always for the comments and likes. Here is the next installment.
 
Having done the furled spritsail, I used many of the same techniques for the fore and main courses.  Here is the current appearance of the model with those sails furled and hung.
 
1
 
To start, the spars were shaped as usual, octagonal in the center, then rounded and tapered to the ends.  Cleats were added to the center and stop cleats on the ends.  Two pair of single blocks were stropped below the spar near the center for the clew lines and topsail sheets.  Pendants for the braces were made up with an eye on one end to fit the spar and a large single block seized into the other end.
 
2
 
On top of the spar small single blocks were stropped for the leach lines and bunt lines.  Below the spar are the stirrups and footropes, stiffened, weighted and hung in the same way as those on the spritsail yard, as described in the last log. 
 
3
 
At the outer ends there are fiddle-style blocks, without sheaves, for the lifts and topsail sheets.  Here are those blocks before installation.
 
4
 
And here are the Dutch blocks which will be hung on short pendants at the masthead for the lifts, as described by Andersen.
 
5
 
The only other fitting not connected to the sail is the parrell.  The rollers were made from plastic tube, while the spacers were parted off a stick shaped like a triple letter “B”.  The ropes will go around the spar, double back lying in the grooves of the parrell, around the spar again, and then have one leg taken to a belaying point on the deck.
 
6
 
The technique that I worked out for the furled sail is a bit complex, and there were a lot of missteps and discarded efforts before I got a method that seems to work.  The first step was to lay out the shape of the sail onto the sailcloth.  The cloth was stretched slightly and pinned to a corkboard.  The entire sail area was sprayed lightly with matte finish to keep it from bunching as I worked on it.
 
The top line is the length of the sail, which is about 3/8” short of the stop cleats on each end of the spar.  This line was marked, as closely as possible, along the warp of the fabric so the fewest threads would be cut, reducing fraying.   The primary depth is 2/3 the actual height of the sail if it were to be set.  The reduced width of the lower edge was estimated by drawing out the full sail, then drawing a line between the clew and the future location of the clew block.  Where that line crossed the 2/3 line was where the corner of the sail was set.
 
If I wanted a tight furl, as though on a naval ship in harbor, I would stop here.  But for a pirate ship without a permanent base, I went with a loose furl with the clews of the sails pulled out a bit, ready to be lowered.  I therefore added two points on the ends of the lower edge. 
 
7
 
The size and shape of these points was done by eye, but I was a bit off.  I found out during the furling process that the points pull inward too much, making furling more difficult.  When I do it again I will have the clew points angle outward a bit to compensate.
 
Panel seams were penciled in every 20 inches in scale.  At the ends they were angled in so the last one was parallel with the outer edge of the sail.  An outer line for the tabling was drawn all around the sail.  A double coating of slightly thinned white glue was painted on the tabling and an equal distance inside the sail.  This was left to dry.
 
8
 
 
A length of line long enough to go around the perimeter of the sail was coated with white glue and laid along the sail edge inside the tabling to represent the bolt rope. This was pinned in place and left to dry.  
 
10
 
At the clews and upper corners the line was looped around itself to make the attachment points for future lines.
 
11
 
Once dry, the shape of the sail could be cut out without fraying.
 
 
9
 
Now the tabling was closed around the bolt rope.  First a metal straightedge was used to fold the tabling, then the fold was burnished to form a sharp crease.  With an old plank bender I carefully applied heat to the overlap.  This reactivated the glue to form an instant bond.
 
12
 
The tabling was ironed close to the trapped line, giving the impression of a bolt rope without having to sew it to the sail, a process that I have tried but cannot master.  Someone who knows how to use a sewing machine could probably make a realistic edge.
 
13
 
Now the sail could be hung on the spar, then furled.  After much experimentation, I decided that I could not simply fold, crumple and crush the sail so it looked realistically furled.  Instead, I found that a ‘twist’ in the method made all the difference.  If I rolled the sail around itself as I folded it, the resulting furl was much tighter and more even. 
 
But if I laced the sail to the spar it could not be rolled.  Instead, the majority of the lacing was put on first.  Between the outer single blocks, the ones for the leach lines, and across most of the spar, there is a false lacing.  It has been darkened with finish and you can see the contrast with the new lacing on the outer end of the sail.
 
14
 
The sail was now sprayed with water till it was pliable.  The sail was rolled, folded and crushed until I was happy with the look from the end of the spar to the leach block.  There the first grommet was wrapped twice around the sail and spar, then loosely tied.
 
This process was continued across the length of the sail.  Each section from grommet to grommet was treated separately, with more or less rolling, etc. as needed.  The sail was periodically sprayed to keep it supple.  When the final section was basically correct the sail was painted with acrylic matte finish.  While still wet and soft the final tweaks were made and the grommets tightened.
 
After the finish was dry and the sail stiff, clew and sheet blocks were attached to the dangling points of the sail.  A tack line with a stopper knot was laced through the clew and the spar was ready to be hung.
 
I apologize for not having photos of the process, but it took at least three hands to keep everything going, and I did not take photos along the way.  You can see how the process worked out.
 
15
 
Here the fore yard is being hung.  The parrell was laced around the mast to hold the spar to it.  The ties lead from under the central cleats up through the mast cap, down through the top and through the ramshead block, then up again through the mast cap and down to the spar where it is attached with a rolling hitch.
 
The lifts start at the Dutch blocks at the mast cap, then through the inner hole in the sister block at the yardarm, through the Dutch block and down to a sheave in the bitts at the base of the mast.  The braces run from the main stay to the pendant blocks, back to blocks on the stay, and to timberheads near the break of the foredeck.  All this is as I understand it from R.C. Andersen.  Budriot is actually not much help here.
 
The sail handling lines were fitted and run through their blocks.  Here you can see clew, bunt and leach lines.  Also in the photo are the blocks for the brace and sheet lines.  Finally, the bowlines were made up and run according to Andersen.
 
15a
 
At the base of the mast you can see the belaying points, as well as the ramshead block and halyard lines through it.
 
16
 
From the other angle you can see how that strange cleat fixture on deck actually works quite well.
 
17
 
So here is the model with both fore and main spars hung and their furled sails and lines all rigged.
 
18
 
Next, the crojack yard and lateen sail on the mizzen.  This will be the first sail that will be set, so there are a whole new bunch of issues that have to be addressed.  Until then,
 
Be well.
 
Dan
 
 
 

Log 31 – Furled Sails
 
Hello again to all, and thanks as always for the comments and likes. Here is the next installment.
 
Having done the furled spritsail, I used many of the same techniques for the fore and main courses.  Here is the current appearance of the model with those sails furled and hung.
 
1
 
To start, the spars were shaped as usual, octagonal in the center, then rounded and tapered to the ends.  Cleats were added to the center and stop cleats on the ends.  Two pair of single blocks were stropped below the spar near the center for the clew lines and topsail sheets.  Pendants for the braces were made up with an eye on one end to fit the spar and a large single block seized into the other end.
 
2
 
On top of the spar small single blocks were stropped for the leach lines and bunt lines.  Below the spar are the stirrups and footropes, stiffened, weighted and hung in the same way as those on the spritsail yard, as described in the last log. 
 
3
 
At the outer ends there are fiddle-style blocks, without sheaves, for the lifts and topsail sheets.  Here are those blocks before installation.
 
4
 
And here are the Dutch blocks which will be hung on short pendants at the masthead for the lifts, as described by Andersen.
 
5
 
The only other fitting not connected to the sail is the parrell.  The rollers were made from plastic tube, while the spacers were parted off a stick shaped like a triple letter “B”.  The ropes will go around the spar, double back lying in the grooves of the parrell, around the spar again, and then have one leg taken to a belaying point on the deck.
 
6
 
The technique that I worked out for the furled sail is a bit complex, and there were a lot of missteps and discarded efforts before I got a method that seems to work.  The first step was to lay out the shape of the sail onto the sailcloth.  The cloth was stretched slightly and pinned to a corkboard.  The entire sail area was sprayed lightly with matte finish to keep it from bunching as I worked on it.
 
The top line is the length of the sail, which is about 3/8” short of the stop cleats on each end of the spar.  This line was marked, as closely as possible, along the warp of the fabric so the fewest threads would be cut, reducing fraying.   The primary depth is 2/3 the actual height of the sail if it were to be set.  The reduced width of the lower edge was estimated by drawing out the full sail, then drawing a line between the clew and the future location of the clew block.  Where that line crossed the 2/3 line was where the corner of the sail was set.
 
If I wanted a tight furl, as though on a naval ship in harbor, I would stop here.  But for a pirate ship without a permanent base, I went with a loose furl with the clews of the sails pulled out a bit, ready to be lowered.  I therefore added two points on the ends of the lower edge. 
 
7
 
The size and shape of these points was done by eye, but I was a bit off.  I found out during the furling process that the points pull inward too much, making furling more difficult.  When I do it again I will have the clew points angle outward a bit to compensate.
 
Panel seams were penciled in every 20 inches in scale.  At the ends they were angled in so the last one was parallel with the outer edge of the sail.  An outer line for the tabling was drawn all around the sail.  A double coating of slightly thinned white glue was painted on the tabling and an equal distance inside the sail.  This was left to dry.
 
8
 
 
A length of line long enough to go around the perimeter of the sail was coated with white glue and laid along the sail edge inside the tabling to represent the bolt rope. This was pinned in place and left to dry.  
 
10
 
At the clews and upper corners the line was looped around itself to make the attachment points for future lines.
 
11
 
Once dry, the shape of the sail could be cut out without fraying.
 
 
9
 
Now the tabling was closed around the bolt rope.  First a metal straightedge was used to fold the tabling, then the fold was burnished to form a sharp crease.  With an old plank bender I carefully applied heat to the overlap.  This reactivated the glue to form an instant bond.
 
12
 
The tabling was ironed close to the trapped line, giving the impression of a bolt rope without having to sew it to the sail, a process that I have tried but cannot master.  Someone who knows how to use a sewing machine could probably make a realistic edge.
 
13
 
Now the sail could be hung on the spar, then furled.  After much experimentation, I decided that I could not simply fold, crumple and crush the sail so it looked realistically furled.  Instead, I found that a ‘twist’ in the method made all the difference.  If I rolled the sail around itself as I folded it, the resulting furl was much tighter and more even. 
 
But if I laced the sail to the spar it could not be rolled.  Instead, the majority of the lacing was put on first.  Between the outer single blocks, the ones for the leach lines, and across most of the spar, there is a false lacing.  It has been darkened with finish and you can see the contrast with the new lacing on the outer end of the sail.
 
14
 
The sail was now sprayed with water till it was pliable.  The sail was rolled, folded and crushed until I was happy with the look from the end of the spar to the leach block.  There the first grommet was wrapped twice around the sail and spar, then loosely tied.
 
This process was continued across the length of the sail.  Each section from grommet to grommet was treated separately, with more or less rolling, etc. as needed.  The sail was periodically sprayed to keep it supple.  When the final section was basically correct the sail was painted with acrylic matte finish.  While still wet and soft the final tweaks were made and the grommets tightened.
 
After the finish was dry and the sail stiff, clew and sheet blocks were attached to the dangling points of the sail.  A tack line with a stopper knot was laced through the clew and the spar was ready to be hung.
 
I apologize for not having photos of the process, but it took at least three hands to keep everything going, and I did not take photos along the way.  You can see how the process worked out.
 
15
 
Here the fore yard is being hung.  The parrell was laced around the mast to hold the spar to it.  The ties lead from under the central cleats up through the mast cap, down through the top and through the ramshead block, then up again through the mast cap and down to the spar where it is attached with a rolling hitch.
 
The lifts start at the Dutch blocks at the mast cap, then through the inner hole in the sister block at the yardarm, through the Dutch block and down to a sheave in the bitts at the base of the mast.  The braces run from the main stay to the pendant blocks, back to blocks on the stay, and to timberheads near the break of the foredeck.  All this is as I understand it from R.C. Andersen.  Budriot is actually not much help here.
 
The sail handling lines were fitted and run through their blocks.  Here you can see clew, bunt and leach lines.  Also in the photo are the blocks for the brace and sheet lines.  Finally, the bowlines were made up and run according to Andersen.
 
15a
 
At the base of the mast you can see the belaying points, as well as the ramshead block and halyard lines through it.
 
16
 
From the other angle you can see how that strange cleat fixture on deck actually works quite well.
 
17
 
So here is the model with both fore and main spars hung and their furled sails and lines all rigged.
 
18
 
Next, the crojack yard and lateen sail on the mizzen.  This will be the first sail that will be set, so there are a whole new bunch of issues that have to be addressed.  Until then,
 
Be well.
 
Dan
 
 
 

Hello again -
 
Thanks for the likes and comments, and a happy Christmas Eve to everyone.
 
Just a quick post about the last bit of work before I go on vacation for two weeks.
 
Since the last posting the standing rigging has been completed.  Here are two shots of the overall model with the upper standing rigging complete.  No different techniques were used, just a selection of thinner lines as the rig got higher.  The final lines, the fore t'gallant stay and the outer bobstay, are tensioned by lanyards between eyes worked into the ends of the lines.
 
1
 
1a
 
Here is a closeup of the foretop before any of the running rigging goes on.  You can see that the upper deadeyes are not in a perfect line.  I have seen similar irregularities in photographs of later, much later, working merchant sailing ships.  I do not think that pirates would have been as careful as the Royal Navy, or even the French navy, at such details, so leaving one a little shorter adds to the realism.
 
1b
 
 
The first element of the running rigging was the spritsail, the spar handling lines, a furled sail, and the sail lines.  Here is how I approached it.  The spar is simple.  A properly sized length of square maple stock was planed to an octogon.  The center section which remained octagonal was marked off, then the spar was tapered and rounded with a small plane, Dremel sanding drums, then a sheet of sandpaper glued flat to a piece of acrylic.  This procedure is exactly like that used to shape the masts in an earlier log entry, just carried forward till the spar was properly tapered.  Cleats were mounted in the center section and stop cleats glued and pinned at either end.
 
3
 
The first lines to go on were the stirrups and footropes.  Since the ship was quite small the spritsail only needed one stirrup on each side.  These were made by laying up an eye in the end, then wrapping the running end over the spar twice, leaving enough hanging down so the eye came 3 feet (1" in scale) below the top of the spar.  This would allow a sailor to stand on it and reach over to furl the sail.  An eye was siezed into the ends of the footropes sized to slip over the spar ends.  The free end of the footrope was slid through the eye in the stirrup and a small eye worked into its end.  According to Budriot the ends of the footropes were not lashed to the spar or to any of the lines circling the spar, but laced to each other.  
 
Once the lengths had been adjusted and set, and the center lashing tied, a series of small weights were used to make the stirrups and footropes  hang vertically, as if by gravity.
 
4
 
In the closeup you can see the first heavy steel clip pulls the footrope down near its seizing, while the second pulls down the stirrup.  The two smaller aluminum clamps were set on either side of the stirrup to mimic the footrope sag. 
 
5
 
 Once I liked the look the lines were painted with water to assist in the penetration of dilute white glue which was left to dry to set  the sag permanently.  
 
The various blocks and rigging fittings were added to the spar.  The first was the line for the sling.  An eye was spliced into one end which was wrapped around the spar and under the center cleat on the port side.  A round seizing secured it in place.  The running end was left free until it was time to lash the spar to the bowsprit.  It did, however, provide a way of temporarily securing the spar while various measurements were made.
 
Moving outward, the clew blocks were tied to the spar so they hung down, then the small deadeyes for the standing lift which sit on the forward face of the spar.  At the end of the spar a large single block was spliced on facing forward for the running lift, and a similar single block on a short pendant for the brace.
 
Not shown in the photo are a large single block tied to the center of the spar for the halyard, a small block in the center for the leach line, and the clew lines themselves which tie to the spar just ouboard of the clew blocks.
 
6
 
Then I turned to the sail itself.  The first choice was what to make it out of.  Working in 1/36 scale allowed me to use actual cloth rather than silkspan or other paper-based product.  I haunted fabric stores and searched the internet for the thinnest that I could find.  I found it at the New York Fashion Center.  Their Imperial Batiste measured out to 0.008" (0.288" in scale, or just over 1/4") which was acceptably thin.  As you can see in the photo, you can read through it.  Best of all, it is quite reasonably priced.
 
7
 
Now, how to shape it to a furled look.  Although most of my ideas on this topic have been developed over many years, they are succinctly stated in an article by Professor John Tilley of Texas A&M which can be found on this website at this location: http://modelshipworldforum.com/resources/Rigging_and_Sails/ScaleSails.pdf 
 
The first idea is that a furled sail has to have less bulk than a full one, and that this has to start out as a trapezoid, because the outer ends of the furl are even less bulky than the middle.  I modified this to add two triangles of cloth that would hang down as representing the clews of the sail.  To this shape a series of panel lines were drawn on.  The outer ones were angled to lie parallel with the outer edge of the sail.
 
8
 
After that a lot of experimenting went on to get the size, layout and panel lines adjusted.  Then the edges of the sail were painted with white glue.  When dry the sail was cut out, the tabling folded and ironed, and the sail mounted on the spar.  It was soaked in clear acrylic matte finish and teased into furls that were tied with gaskets to the spar.  The teasing process continued throughout the drying process.  Where I was unhappy, water was liberally painted on the problem section to soften the cloth and the sail adjusted some more. I was so caught up in the process that I failed to take photos of my techniques, but I will do that with the fore and main courses, which will be furled in similar fashion.
 
9
 
With the sail mounted to the spar the sling was tied and siezed.  The halyad, the standing and running lifts, and the braces were tied, run through the appropriate blocks, and then to their belaying points.  Several, including the running lifts and clew lines, go through a long gammon block with six sheaves lashed to both sides of the gammoning.
 
10
 
At the belaying points, whether cleat or timberhead, the lines were secured with hitches. not knots or glue, leaving long tails for further adjustments.  Pirate Pete is supervising to make sure.
 
11
 
So here is where it is as I leave for Santa Fe.  I know that there are some items that I will have to adjust when I get back, and please, please, if you spot any that you question, let me know so I can correct them before I go too far past to easily redo.
 
12
 
My very best wishes to you all and your families.  I will see you in the New Year. 
 
Dan
 
 
 
 
 

Log 31 – Furled Sails
 
Hello again to all, and thanks as always for the comments and likes. Here is the next installment.
 
Having done the furled spritsail, I used many of the same techniques for the fore and main courses.  Here is the current appearance of the model with those sails furled and hung.
 
1
 
To start, the spars were shaped as usual, octagonal in the center, then rounded and tapered to the ends.  Cleats were added to the center and stop cleats on the ends.  Two pair of single blocks were stropped below the spar near the center for the clew lines and topsail sheets.  Pendants for the braces were made up with an eye on one end to fit the spar and a large single block seized into the other end.
 
2
 
On top of the spar small single blocks were stropped for the leach lines and bunt lines.  Below the spar are the stirrups and footropes, stiffened, weighted and hung in the same way as those on the spritsail yard, as described in the last log. 
 
3
 
At the outer ends there are fiddle-style blocks, without sheaves, for the lifts and topsail sheets.  Here are those blocks before installation.
 
4
 
And here are the Dutch blocks which will be hung on short pendants at the masthead for the lifts, as described by Andersen.
 
5
 
The only other fitting not connected to the sail is the parrell.  The rollers were made from plastic tube, while the spacers were parted off a stick shaped like a triple letter “B”.  The ropes will go around the spar, double back lying in the grooves of the parrell, around the spar again, and then have one leg taken to a belaying point on the deck.
 
6
 
The technique that I worked out for the furled sail is a bit complex, and there were a lot of missteps and discarded efforts before I got a method that seems to work.  The first step was to lay out the shape of the sail onto the sailcloth.  The cloth was stretched slightly and pinned to a corkboard.  The entire sail area was sprayed lightly with matte finish to keep it from bunching as I worked on it.
 
The top line is the length of the sail, which is about 3/8” short of the stop cleats on each end of the spar.  This line was marked, as closely as possible, along the warp of the fabric so the fewest threads would be cut, reducing fraying.   The primary depth is 2/3 the actual height of the sail if it were to be set.  The reduced width of the lower edge was estimated by drawing out the full sail, then drawing a line between the clew and the future location of the clew block.  Where that line crossed the 2/3 line was where the corner of the sail was set.
 
If I wanted a tight furl, as though on a naval ship in harbor, I would stop here.  But for a pirate ship without a permanent base, I went with a loose furl with the clews of the sails pulled out a bit, ready to be lowered.  I therefore added two points on the ends of the lower edge. 
 
7
 
The size and shape of these points was done by eye, but I was a bit off.  I found out during the furling process that the points pull inward too much, making furling more difficult.  When I do it again I will have the clew points angle outward a bit to compensate.
 
Panel seams were penciled in every 20 inches in scale.  At the ends they were angled in so the last one was parallel with the outer edge of the sail.  An outer line for the tabling was drawn all around the sail.  A double coating of slightly thinned white glue was painted on the tabling and an equal distance inside the sail.  This was left to dry.
 
8
 
 
A length of line long enough to go around the perimeter of the sail was coated with white glue and laid along the sail edge inside the tabling to represent the bolt rope. This was pinned in place and left to dry.  
 
10
 
At the clews and upper corners the line was looped around itself to make the attachment points for future lines.
 
11
 
Once dry, the shape of the sail could be cut out without fraying.
 
 
9
 
Now the tabling was closed around the bolt rope.  First a metal straightedge was used to fold the tabling, then the fold was burnished to form a sharp crease.  With an old plank bender I carefully applied heat to the overlap.  This reactivated the glue to form an instant bond.
 
12
 
The tabling was ironed close to the trapped line, giving the impression of a bolt rope without having to sew it to the sail, a process that I have tried but cannot master.  Someone who knows how to use a sewing machine could probably make a realistic edge.
 
13
 
Now the sail could be hung on the spar, then furled.  After much experimentation, I decided that I could not simply fold, crumple and crush the sail so it looked realistically furled.  Instead, I found that a ‘twist’ in the method made all the difference.  If I rolled the sail around itself as I folded it, the resulting furl was much tighter and more even. 
 
But if I laced the sail to the spar it could not be rolled.  Instead, the majority of the lacing was put on first.  Between the outer single blocks, the ones for the leach lines, and across most of the spar, there is a false lacing.  It has been darkened with finish and you can see the contrast with the new lacing on the outer end of the sail.
 
14
 
The sail was now sprayed with water till it was pliable.  The sail was rolled, folded and crushed until I was happy with the look from the end of the spar to the leach block.  There the first grommet was wrapped twice around the sail and spar, then loosely tied.
 
This process was continued across the length of the sail.  Each section from grommet to grommet was treated separately, with more or less rolling, etc. as needed.  The sail was periodically sprayed to keep it supple.  When the final section was basically correct the sail was painted with acrylic matte finish.  While still wet and soft the final tweaks were made and the grommets tightened.
 
After the finish was dry and the sail stiff, clew and sheet blocks were attached to the dangling points of the sail.  A tack line with a stopper knot was laced through the clew and the spar was ready to be hung.
 
I apologize for not having photos of the process, but it took at least three hands to keep everything going, and I did not take photos along the way.  You can see how the process worked out.
 
15
 
Here the fore yard is being hung.  The parrell was laced around the mast to hold the spar to it.  The ties lead from under the central cleats up through the mast cap, down through the top and through the ramshead block, then up again through the mast cap and down to the spar where it is attached with a rolling hitch.
 
The lifts start at the Dutch blocks at the mast cap, then through the inner hole in the sister block at the yardarm, through the Dutch block and down to a sheave in the bitts at the base of the mast.  The braces run from the main stay to the pendant blocks, back to blocks on the stay, and to timberheads near the break of the foredeck.  All this is as I understand it from R.C. Andersen.  Budriot is actually not much help here.
 
The sail handling lines were fitted and run through their blocks.  Here you can see clew, bunt and leach lines.  Also in the photo are the blocks for the brace and sheet lines.  Finally, the bowlines were made up and run according to Andersen.
 
15a
 
At the base of the mast you can see the belaying points, as well as the ramshead block and halyard lines through it.
 
16
 
From the other angle you can see how that strange cleat fixture on deck actually works quite well.
 
17
 
So here is the model with both fore and main spars hung and their furled sails and lines all rigged.
 
18
 
Next, the crojack yard and lateen sail on the mizzen.  This will be the first sail that will be set, so there are a whole new bunch of issues that have to be addressed.  Until then,
 
Be well.
 
Dan
 
 
 

Hello, all –
 
My name is Peter.  Dan is working in the shipyard so he asked me to give you a tour of the completed Swan 42.  As you can see, I brought with me the world’s largest dime for a bit of size comparison.  Since the last segment of this build log we have installed all of the various pieces and subassemblies that were created before, set up the mast, boom and rigging, and installed her on a custom made presentation base ready for delivery.
 

 
So let me show you around, from bow to stern and bottom to top.  Here she is, neatly balanced on her keel bulb.  You can see just how tall her rig is.  The laminated wood mast rises 62 scale feet from the deck, some 20 feet longer than the hull itself.  The spreaders which set up the shrouds are of different lengths and are set at different angles to the mast and to vertical.  They are cut from brass sheet, given a layer of epoxy and then faired to their aerodynamic shapes.  The standing rigging is 0.012” stainless steel beading wire, which is too small to see in this photo, but will show up later.
 

 
Here is a view of the entire deck.  If Dan did his job well there should be nothing that draws the eye and disrupts the overall impression of being aboard the actual boat.  He always says that it has to obey the Rule of 3 – it has to look good from across the room, with detail work that makes you want to see it much closer.  Then it has to look good from 3 feet away, like the point of view of this photo, with new and interesting details to see.  And then it has to look right from 6 inches away, with even more details that create the ‘texture’ of the actual boat.
 
  
 
Of course, the hull and deck have to be symmetrical, so we checked it repeatedly as the mast was being installed.  Here is how it came out, viewed from the middle distance.
 

 
Now let’s move in to the 6 inch viewpoint and look around.  At the bow is the pulpit.  Dan has explained how this is made from brass tubes that are assembled, soldered and electroplated in chrome.  Now it is installed with small feet at the end of each leg made from chrome foil.  The jibstay is made up from beading wire with a sleeve of insulation taken from black speaker wire.  The furling fittings at top and bottom are simply made up from a short piece of tubing and punched discs as caps.  The railing is 0.009” silver beading wire which is turned back on itself and seized with black fly tying thread. The lacing is also fly tying thread, which is looped over the top rail and then goes through some tiny eyebolts set into the deck.   
 

 
The railing stanchions are turned and tapered brass rods with holes drilled for the railings.  The support bar is a thinner brass rod soldered to the upright and bent to shape.  The base, feet and other fittings are chrome foil.  The turnbuckles are made up from sections of 0.04” brass tube that surround and secure the beading wire shrouds to a pair of large deck eyebolts.  All of the brass is electroplated like the pulpit.
 

 
Amidships is the mast, boom and boom support arm (vang?).  The running rigging is color coded so that during a race there is no confusion or delay in identifying the right line to haul.  The halyards travel mostly inside the mast tube, then emerge not very far above the boom, run down to single blocks at the foot of the mast, through a wide flat tunnel under the cabin roof, up and through the line clutches and then to the winch.  Here they are displayed as if for dockside presentation at a regatta.
 

 
The boom is laminated wood, attached to the mast with a hinged and pivoting fitting of machined brass pieces.  The arm is constructed from three pieces of telescoping brass tubing with a double block slung underneath on a brass crescent fitting.  The pink vang line runs from the port side camcleat near the aft cabin handrail to a single block secured to the deck, then through a single block on a strap tied to the lower hinge fitting for the boom arm, back and forth between the upper triple block and lower double block (note how the line switches from under/over the triple block to over/under during its second pass), then out a matching set of single blocks and camcleat on the starboard side.  All of this is just to get the purchase to haul on the large single block whose line reeves through several pulleys inside the boom arm. The mechanical advantage of this setup must be immense.
 

 
Much of the rest of the deck details have been shown before, but here they are all installed. 
 

 
The wheel pedestals are set at a 10 degree angle to vertical.  The main sheet traveler track and car are rigged for use with the main sheet running up to blocks attached to the fore and aft ends of the boom.  At the extreme aft end of the deck is the hydraulic tensioner for the backstay.  Again, this is telescoping brass tube and rod, securing the backstay which is heavier beading wire painted to simulate the Kevlar coating.
 

 
Below the waterline is the keel fin, keel bulb, and rudder.  All are carved from basswood, sealed and painted.  Between them is the small propeller for powered maneuvering in port.  The blades of the prop close like a clamshell when not in use and stay most of the time in this streamlined configuration.
 

 
Finally, at the very top of the mast are the instruments that read wind direction and speed.  This data, along with that from other sensors, is displayed on a series of screens mounted on the mast below the boom that you can see in other photos.
 

 
So there she is, completed and mounted.  Here are a few overall photos.  It has received some critical praise from owners of the actual boats and hopefully will be accepted for display in the Model Room of the New York Yacht Club.
 



 
The shipyard is now moving back in time 300 years from 2005 to 1705 to build the Queen Anne’s Revenge, a 20-gun light frigate that was the flagship of the pirate Edward Teach, known as Blackbeard.  It is being excavated underwater at Beaufort Inlet in North Carolina.  Go to http://www.qaronline.org/History/TheShipwreck.aspx   Look for a build log here in the future.
 

Jan - 
 
There is a build log for the Swan 42 here at MSW in the scratch built forum.
http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/1615-swan-42-by-dan-pariser-shipmodel-one-design-racing-yacht/?hl=swan 
 
Thanks to you and the others for the compliments.
 
Dan

Log 31 – Furled Sails
 
Hello again to all, and thanks as always for the comments and likes. Here is the next installment.
 
Having done the furled spritsail, I used many of the same techniques for the fore and main courses.  Here is the current appearance of the model with those sails furled and hung.
 
1
 
To start, the spars were shaped as usual, octagonal in the center, then rounded and tapered to the ends.  Cleats were added to the center and stop cleats on the ends.  Two pair of single blocks were stropped below the spar near the center for the clew lines and topsail sheets.  Pendants for the braces were made up with an eye on one end to fit the spar and a large single block seized into the other end.
 
2
 
On top of the spar small single blocks were stropped for the leach lines and bunt lines.  Below the spar are the stirrups and footropes, stiffened, weighted and hung in the same way as those on the spritsail yard, as described in the last log. 
 
3
 
At the outer ends there are fiddle-style blocks, without sheaves, for the lifts and topsail sheets.  Here are those blocks before installation.
 
4
 
And here are the Dutch blocks which will be hung on short pendants at the masthead for the lifts, as described by Andersen.
 
5
 
The only other fitting not connected to the sail is the parrell.  The rollers were made from plastic tube, while the spacers were parted off a stick shaped like a triple letter “B”.  The ropes will go around the spar, double back lying in the grooves of the parrell, around the spar again, and then have one leg taken to a belaying point on the deck.
 
6
 
The technique that I worked out for the furled sail is a bit complex, and there were a lot of missteps and discarded efforts before I got a method that seems to work.  The first step was to lay out the shape of the sail onto the sailcloth.  The cloth was stretched slightly and pinned to a corkboard.  The entire sail area was sprayed lightly with matte finish to keep it from bunching as I worked on it.
 
The top line is the length of the sail, which is about 3/8” short of the stop cleats on each end of the spar.  This line was marked, as closely as possible, along the warp of the fabric so the fewest threads would be cut, reducing fraying.   The primary depth is 2/3 the actual height of the sail if it were to be set.  The reduced width of the lower edge was estimated by drawing out the full sail, then drawing a line between the clew and the future location of the clew block.  Where that line crossed the 2/3 line was where the corner of the sail was set.
 
If I wanted a tight furl, as though on a naval ship in harbor, I would stop here.  But for a pirate ship without a permanent base, I went with a loose furl with the clews of the sails pulled out a bit, ready to be lowered.  I therefore added two points on the ends of the lower edge. 
 
7
 
The size and shape of these points was done by eye, but I was a bit off.  I found out during the furling process that the points pull inward too much, making furling more difficult.  When I do it again I will have the clew points angle outward a bit to compensate.
 
Panel seams were penciled in every 20 inches in scale.  At the ends they were angled in so the last one was parallel with the outer edge of the sail.  An outer line for the tabling was drawn all around the sail.  A double coating of slightly thinned white glue was painted on the tabling and an equal distance inside the sail.  This was left to dry.
 
8
 
 
A length of line long enough to go around the perimeter of the sail was coated with white glue and laid along the sail edge inside the tabling to represent the bolt rope. This was pinned in place and left to dry.  
 
10
 
At the clews and upper corners the line was looped around itself to make the attachment points for future lines.
 
11
 
Once dry, the shape of the sail could be cut out without fraying.
 
 
9
 
Now the tabling was closed around the bolt rope.  First a metal straightedge was used to fold the tabling, then the fold was burnished to form a sharp crease.  With an old plank bender I carefully applied heat to the overlap.  This reactivated the glue to form an instant bond.
 
12
 
The tabling was ironed close to the trapped line, giving the impression of a bolt rope without having to sew it to the sail, a process that I have tried but cannot master.  Someone who knows how to use a sewing machine could probably make a realistic edge.
 
13
 
Now the sail could be hung on the spar, then furled.  After much experimentation, I decided that I could not simply fold, crumple and crush the sail so it looked realistically furled.  Instead, I found that a ‘twist’ in the method made all the difference.  If I rolled the sail around itself as I folded it, the resulting furl was much tighter and more even. 
 
But if I laced the sail to the spar it could not be rolled.  Instead, the majority of the lacing was put on first.  Between the outer single blocks, the ones for the leach lines, and across most of the spar, there is a false lacing.  It has been darkened with finish and you can see the contrast with the new lacing on the outer end of the sail.
 
14
 
The sail was now sprayed with water till it was pliable.  The sail was rolled, folded and crushed until I was happy with the look from the end of the spar to the leach block.  There the first grommet was wrapped twice around the sail and spar, then loosely tied.
 
This process was continued across the length of the sail.  Each section from grommet to grommet was treated separately, with more or less rolling, etc. as needed.  The sail was periodically sprayed to keep it supple.  When the final section was basically correct the sail was painted with acrylic matte finish.  While still wet and soft the final tweaks were made and the grommets tightened.
 
After the finish was dry and the sail stiff, clew and sheet blocks were attached to the dangling points of the sail.  A tack line with a stopper knot was laced through the clew and the spar was ready to be hung.
 
I apologize for not having photos of the process, but it took at least three hands to keep everything going, and I did not take photos along the way.  You can see how the process worked out.
 
15
 
Here the fore yard is being hung.  The parrell was laced around the mast to hold the spar to it.  The ties lead from under the central cleats up through the mast cap, down through the top and through the ramshead block, then up again through the mast cap and down to the spar where it is attached with a rolling hitch.
 
The lifts start at the Dutch blocks at the mast cap, then through the inner hole in the sister block at the yardarm, through the Dutch block and down to a sheave in the bitts at the base of the mast.  The braces run from the main stay to the pendant blocks, back to blocks on the stay, and to timberheads near the break of the foredeck.  All this is as I understand it from R.C. Andersen.  Budriot is actually not much help here.
 
The sail handling lines were fitted and run through their blocks.  Here you can see clew, bunt and leach lines.  Also in the photo are the blocks for the brace and sheet lines.  Finally, the bowlines were made up and run according to Andersen.
 
15a
 
At the base of the mast you can see the belaying points, as well as the ramshead block and halyard lines through it.
 
16
 
From the other angle you can see how that strange cleat fixture on deck actually works quite well.
 
17
 
So here is the model with both fore and main spars hung and their furled sails and lines all rigged.
 
18
 
Next, the crojack yard and lateen sail on the mizzen.  This will be the first sail that will be set, so there are a whole new bunch of issues that have to be addressed.  Until then,
 
Be well.
 
Dan
 
 
 

Log 31 – Furled Sails
 
Hello again to all, and thanks as always for the comments and likes. Here is the next installment.
 
Having done the furled spritsail, I used many of the same techniques for the fore and main courses.  Here is the current appearance of the model with those sails furled and hung.
 
1
 
To start, the spars were shaped as usual, octagonal in the center, then rounded and tapered to the ends.  Cleats were added to the center and stop cleats on the ends.  Two pair of single blocks were stropped below the spar near the center for the clew lines and topsail sheets.  Pendants for the braces were made up with an eye on one end to fit the spar and a large single block seized into the other end.
 
2
 
On top of the spar small single blocks were stropped for the leach lines and bunt lines.  Below the spar are the stirrups and footropes, stiffened, weighted and hung in the same way as those on the spritsail yard, as described in the last log. 
 
3
 
At the outer ends there are fiddle-style blocks, without sheaves, for the lifts and topsail sheets.  Here are those blocks before installation.
 
4
 
And here are the Dutch blocks which will be hung on short pendants at the masthead for the lifts, as described by Andersen.
 
5
 
The only other fitting not connected to the sail is the parrell.  The rollers were made from plastic tube, while the spacers were parted off a stick shaped like a triple letter “B”.  The ropes will go around the spar, double back lying in the grooves of the parrell, around the spar again, and then have one leg taken to a belaying point on the deck.
 
6
 
The technique that I worked out for the furled sail is a bit complex, and there were a lot of missteps and discarded efforts before I got a method that seems to work.  The first step was to lay out the shape of the sail onto the sailcloth.  The cloth was stretched slightly and pinned to a corkboard.  The entire sail area was sprayed lightly with matte finish to keep it from bunching as I worked on it.
 
The top line is the length of the sail, which is about 3/8” short of the stop cleats on each end of the spar.  This line was marked, as closely as possible, along the warp of the fabric so the fewest threads would be cut, reducing fraying.   The primary depth is 2/3 the actual height of the sail if it were to be set.  The reduced width of the lower edge was estimated by drawing out the full sail, then drawing a line between the clew and the future location of the clew block.  Where that line crossed the 2/3 line was where the corner of the sail was set.
 
If I wanted a tight furl, as though on a naval ship in harbor, I would stop here.  But for a pirate ship without a permanent base, I went with a loose furl with the clews of the sails pulled out a bit, ready to be lowered.  I therefore added two points on the ends of the lower edge. 
 
7
 
The size and shape of these points was done by eye, but I was a bit off.  I found out during the furling process that the points pull inward too much, making furling more difficult.  When I do it again I will have the clew points angle outward a bit to compensate.
 
Panel seams were penciled in every 20 inches in scale.  At the ends they were angled in so the last one was parallel with the outer edge of the sail.  An outer line for the tabling was drawn all around the sail.  A double coating of slightly thinned white glue was painted on the tabling and an equal distance inside the sail.  This was left to dry.
 
8
 
 
A length of line long enough to go around the perimeter of the sail was coated with white glue and laid along the sail edge inside the tabling to represent the bolt rope. This was pinned in place and left to dry.  
 
10
 
At the clews and upper corners the line was looped around itself to make the attachment points for future lines.
 
11
 
Once dry, the shape of the sail could be cut out without fraying.
 
 
9
 
Now the tabling was closed around the bolt rope.  First a metal straightedge was used to fold the tabling, then the fold was burnished to form a sharp crease.  With an old plank bender I carefully applied heat to the overlap.  This reactivated the glue to form an instant bond.
 
12
 
The tabling was ironed close to the trapped line, giving the impression of a bolt rope without having to sew it to the sail, a process that I have tried but cannot master.  Someone who knows how to use a sewing machine could probably make a realistic edge.
 
13
 
Now the sail could be hung on the spar, then furled.  After much experimentation, I decided that I could not simply fold, crumple and crush the sail so it looked realistically furled.  Instead, I found that a ‘twist’ in the method made all the difference.  If I rolled the sail around itself as I folded it, the resulting furl was much tighter and more even. 
 
But if I laced the sail to the spar it could not be rolled.  Instead, the majority of the lacing was put on first.  Between the outer single blocks, the ones for the leach lines, and across most of the spar, there is a false lacing.  It has been darkened with finish and you can see the contrast with the new lacing on the outer end of the sail.
 
14
 
The sail was now sprayed with water till it was pliable.  The sail was rolled, folded and crushed until I was happy with the look from the end of the spar to the leach block.  There the first grommet was wrapped twice around the sail and spar, then loosely tied.
 
This process was continued across the length of the sail.  Each section from grommet to grommet was treated separately, with more or less rolling, etc. as needed.  The sail was periodically sprayed to keep it supple.  When the final section was basically correct the sail was painted with acrylic matte finish.  While still wet and soft the final tweaks were made and the grommets tightened.
 
After the finish was dry and the sail stiff, clew and sheet blocks were attached to the dangling points of the sail.  A tack line with a stopper knot was laced through the clew and the spar was ready to be hung.
 
I apologize for not having photos of the process, but it took at least three hands to keep everything going, and I did not take photos along the way.  You can see how the process worked out.
 
15
 
Here the fore yard is being hung.  The parrell was laced around the mast to hold the spar to it.  The ties lead from under the central cleats up through the mast cap, down through the top and through the ramshead block, then up again through the mast cap and down to the spar where it is attached with a rolling hitch.
 
The lifts start at the Dutch blocks at the mast cap, then through the inner hole in the sister block at the yardarm, through the Dutch block and down to a sheave in the bitts at the base of the mast.  The braces run from the main stay to the pendant blocks, back to blocks on the stay, and to timberheads near the break of the foredeck.  All this is as I understand it from R.C. Andersen.  Budriot is actually not much help here.
 
The sail handling lines were fitted and run through their blocks.  Here you can see clew, bunt and leach lines.  Also in the photo are the blocks for the brace and sheet lines.  Finally, the bowlines were made up and run according to Andersen.
 
15a
 
At the base of the mast you can see the belaying points, as well as the ramshead block and halyard lines through it.
 
16
 
From the other angle you can see how that strange cleat fixture on deck actually works quite well.
 
17
 
So here is the model with both fore and main spars hung and their furled sails and lines all rigged.
 
18
 
Next, the crojack yard and lateen sail on the mizzen.  This will be the first sail that will be set, so there are a whole new bunch of issues that have to be addressed.  Until then,
 
Be well.
 
Dan
 
 
 

Log 31 – Furled Sails
 
Hello again to all, and thanks as always for the comments and likes. Here is the next installment.
 
Having done the furled spritsail, I used many of the same techniques for the fore and main courses.  Here is the current appearance of the model with those sails furled and hung.
 
1
 
To start, the spars were shaped as usual, octagonal in the center, then rounded and tapered to the ends.  Cleats were added to the center and stop cleats on the ends.  Two pair of single blocks were stropped below the spar near the center for the clew lines and topsail sheets.  Pendants for the braces were made up with an eye on one end to fit the spar and a large single block seized into the other end.
 
2
 
On top of the spar small single blocks were stropped for the leach lines and bunt lines.  Below the spar are the stirrups and footropes, stiffened, weighted and hung in the same way as those on the spritsail yard, as described in the last log. 
 
3
 
At the outer ends there are fiddle-style blocks, without sheaves, for the lifts and topsail sheets.  Here are those blocks before installation.
 
4
 
And here are the Dutch blocks which will be hung on short pendants at the masthead for the lifts, as described by Andersen.
 
5
 
The only other fitting not connected to the sail is the parrell.  The rollers were made from plastic tube, while the spacers were parted off a stick shaped like a triple letter “B”.  The ropes will go around the spar, double back lying in the grooves of the parrell, around the spar again, and then have one leg taken to a belaying point on the deck.
 
6
 
The technique that I worked out for the furled sail is a bit complex, and there were a lot of missteps and discarded efforts before I got a method that seems to work.  The first step was to lay out the shape of the sail onto the sailcloth.  The cloth was stretched slightly and pinned to a corkboard.  The entire sail area was sprayed lightly with matte finish to keep it from bunching as I worked on it.
 
The top line is the length of the sail, which is about 3/8” short of the stop cleats on each end of the spar.  This line was marked, as closely as possible, along the warp of the fabric so the fewest threads would be cut, reducing fraying.   The primary depth is 2/3 the actual height of the sail if it were to be set.  The reduced width of the lower edge was estimated by drawing out the full sail, then drawing a line between the clew and the future location of the clew block.  Where that line crossed the 2/3 line was where the corner of the sail was set.
 
If I wanted a tight furl, as though on a naval ship in harbor, I would stop here.  But for a pirate ship without a permanent base, I went with a loose furl with the clews of the sails pulled out a bit, ready to be lowered.  I therefore added two points on the ends of the lower edge. 
 
7
 
The size and shape of these points was done by eye, but I was a bit off.  I found out during the furling process that the points pull inward too much, making furling more difficult.  When I do it again I will have the clew points angle outward a bit to compensate.
 
Panel seams were penciled in every 20 inches in scale.  At the ends they were angled in so the last one was parallel with the outer edge of the sail.  An outer line for the tabling was drawn all around the sail.  A double coating of slightly thinned white glue was painted on the tabling and an equal distance inside the sail.  This was left to dry.
 
8
 
 
A length of line long enough to go around the perimeter of the sail was coated with white glue and laid along the sail edge inside the tabling to represent the bolt rope. This was pinned in place and left to dry.  
 
10
 
At the clews and upper corners the line was looped around itself to make the attachment points for future lines.
 
11
 
Once dry, the shape of the sail could be cut out without fraying.
 
 
9
 
Now the tabling was closed around the bolt rope.  First a metal straightedge was used to fold the tabling, then the fold was burnished to form a sharp crease.  With an old plank bender I carefully applied heat to the overlap.  This reactivated the glue to form an instant bond.
 
12
 
The tabling was ironed close to the trapped line, giving the impression of a bolt rope without having to sew it to the sail, a process that I have tried but cannot master.  Someone who knows how to use a sewing machine could probably make a realistic edge.
 
13
 
Now the sail could be hung on the spar, then furled.  After much experimentation, I decided that I could not simply fold, crumple and crush the sail so it looked realistically furled.  Instead, I found that a ‘twist’ in the method made all the difference.  If I rolled the sail around itself as I folded it, the resulting furl was much tighter and more even. 
 
But if I laced the sail to the spar it could not be rolled.  Instead, the majority of the lacing was put on first.  Between the outer single blocks, the ones for the leach lines, and across most of the spar, there is a false lacing.  It has been darkened with finish and you can see the contrast with the new lacing on the outer end of the sail.
 
14
 
The sail was now sprayed with water till it was pliable.  The sail was rolled, folded and crushed until I was happy with the look from the end of the spar to the leach block.  There the first grommet was wrapped twice around the sail and spar, then loosely tied.
 
This process was continued across the length of the sail.  Each section from grommet to grommet was treated separately, with more or less rolling, etc. as needed.  The sail was periodically sprayed to keep it supple.  When the final section was basically correct the sail was painted with acrylic matte finish.  While still wet and soft the final tweaks were made and the grommets tightened.
 
After the finish was dry and the sail stiff, clew and sheet blocks were attached to the dangling points of the sail.  A tack line with a stopper knot was laced through the clew and the spar was ready to be hung.
 
I apologize for not having photos of the process, but it took at least three hands to keep everything going, and I did not take photos along the way.  You can see how the process worked out.
 
15
 
Here the fore yard is being hung.  The parrell was laced around the mast to hold the spar to it.  The ties lead from under the central cleats up through the mast cap, down through the top and through the ramshead block, then up again through the mast cap and down to the spar where it is attached with a rolling hitch.
 
The lifts start at the Dutch blocks at the mast cap, then through the inner hole in the sister block at the yardarm, through the Dutch block and down to a sheave in the bitts at the base of the mast.  The braces run from the main stay to the pendant blocks, back to blocks on the stay, and to timberheads near the break of the foredeck.  All this is as I understand it from R.C. Andersen.  Budriot is actually not much help here.
 
The sail handling lines were fitted and run through their blocks.  Here you can see clew, bunt and leach lines.  Also in the photo are the blocks for the brace and sheet lines.  Finally, the bowlines were made up and run according to Andersen.
 
15a
 
At the base of the mast you can see the belaying points, as well as the ramshead block and halyard lines through it.
 
16
 
From the other angle you can see how that strange cleat fixture on deck actually works quite well.
 
17
 
So here is the model with both fore and main spars hung and their furled sails and lines all rigged.
 
18
 
Next, the crojack yard and lateen sail on the mizzen.  This will be the first sail that will be set, so there are a whole new bunch of issues that have to be addressed.  Until then,
 
Be well.
 
Dan
 
 
 

Hi Mark - 
 
Very nice start to the planking, as everyone else has said.  A long, smooth curve to the strake.
 
You might try scraping the ebony rather than sanding it.  I use a single edged razor blade, which generates scrapings rather than dust and which lift off rather than being rubbed into the grain of the nearby wood.
 
Looking forward to your progress.
 
Dan

Hi Mark - 
 
Very nice start to the planking, as everyone else has said.  A long, smooth curve to the strake.
 
You might try scraping the ebony rather than sanding it.  I use a single edged razor blade, which generates scrapings rather than dust and which lift off rather than being rubbed into the grain of the nearby wood.
 
Looking forward to your progress.
 
Dan

Thanks for looking in, everyone.
 
Port side, first three strakes.  Not too bad to my eye and I'm happy.  The pics, though tell me that I'll have to do some sanding and shaping still around the joints and also to fair and smooth things out a bit.  The big challenge here is the where the plank thickness changed and also where the hull shape changed due to the tumblehome.  I'll fix things with some sanding and then finally scraping to get the ebony dust out of the Swiss pear grain.
 
Onto the starboard side....

 

Log 29 – lower standing rigging
 
Two weeks ago there were no masts or rigging set up.  The channels weren’t even on.
 
1
 
Today, with the invaluable help of JerseyCityFrankie, the lower standing rigging is done and the upper rigging well on its way.
 
2
 
Here is how it was done. 
 
First came the channels.  They are all situated in the line of the second molding, just under the blue painted bulwarks and above the gunports.  In typical fashion they are stylishly curved at each end, with a cap strip that captures the deadeye “chains”.  They are located such that the foremost deadeye lines up with the center of the mast.  In the photo you can see how I miscalculated this and the main channels had to move aft about half an inch, leaving a gap in the molding that had to be filled later.  Unlike English practice which usually had the supports under the channel, French practice at the time was for wooden knees above the platform.
 
3
 
For the lower masts, the rule of thumb is that deadeyes are half the diameter of the mast, while for upper masts they are more closely the size of the mast.  For this 17mm main mast the deadeyes are 9mm boxwood ones purchased from Model Shipways and stained.  Each hole was opened a little and a lanyard groove cut for each hole on an angle to ease the bend in the lanyard line.  In my restoration work it is almost invariably true that the rigging line fails at these sharp corners in deadeyes and blocks, so wherever possible I will be preparing the rigging fittings this way.
 
The deadeye “chains” are not the three links that are seen on later ships, but solid iron straps that are bolted through the hull at the bottom.  At the top there is a loop that hooks through a raised section of the deadeye strop.  This setup has been seen in contemporary drawings and confirmed by artifacts discovered in the excavation of La Belle, LaSalle’s ship when he explored Texas in 1674.  La Belle is a little early and about half the size of the QAR, but the rigging fittings should be similar so I have decided to go with this.  I will be taking many cues from the La Belle excavation as reported by Glenn Greico in his Master’s dissertation, available here: http://nautarch.tamu.edu/Theses/pdf-files/Grieco-MA2003.pdf
 
My deadeye straps were made from brass strip, with a narrow section ground and bent to a hook, then chemically blackened.  They are pinned to the hull with half inch roundhead steel nails that are glued into holes that angle upward slightly to counteract what will be some pretty high stresses as the shrouds are tensioned.
 
4
 
The metal strops were formed from stiff iron wire.  (Yes, there are straps, strips, and strops.  Sorry about that, but I’ll try to keep them straight).  Here is the jig that I used.  It is for the deadeyes in the tops which have long legs to go through the top, but the principle is the same.
 
5
 
A length of wire is bent around the middle pin, which is there to keep the loop open for the later hook.  The legs pass between the pair of larger pins and are then bent out in a straight line.  A deadeye is held hard against the center point and the legs are bent by hand into the groove till they cross at the top.  Using the legs as handles the strop is spread apart until the deadeye can be popped out.  A bit of epoxy is laid into the strop groove and the deadeye is put back into the strop and rotated as needed to line up properly.  The legs of the strop are clipped short and the ends bent down into the groove with pliers.  When the epoxy dries they are ready for use.  Although the gap in the strop used to worry me, I have never had one open up.  Besides, if the stresses are that great, I would rather that the strop open up than have the entire channel pulled up.
 
With the deadeyes all strapped and stropped to the channels the rigging could begin.  I did this from aft to forward, with one exception.  The very first piece of rigging was the gammoning around the bowsprit.  This is important because all of the stresses and tensions of the standing rigging are anchored here.  You can see the way the lines cross as they wrap from aft to forward on top of the bowsprit, but from forward to aft within the gammon hole in the stem.  The gammoning is finished with a few round turns just above the grating in the head.
 
6
 
You can also see in the photo that the seat of ease has been lined with lead like the scuppers.  I would not otherwise show this feature, but the excavation of the QAR has turned one up, so it has been added.
 
7
 
Beginning with the mizzen mast the deadeyes were turned into the shrouds and given three seizings.  The shrouds were made from linen line sourced from a pool cue manufacturer who uses the line to make non-slip grips.  The line comes in unbleached white, which was dyed with RIT liquid black dye according to the package instructions. 
 
8
 
As was consistent for almost all ships of this period, whatever their origin, the deadeyes were laced with oiled line.  The lacing had to be protected from salt water, but could not be tarred since it must have been adjusted fairly often as the shrouds stretched from the strains of sailing and weather.  This has been represented with a dark brown line rather than the darker black of the tarred shrouds.
 
9   
 
At the mizzen top the shrouds are served as they go over the trestletrees and around the masthead.  Under the top are several blocks for the running rigging and for the crojack yard halyard.  The mizzen stay is served and an eye worked into the end.  A mouse is raised on the stay to form the loop that drops over the masthead and the heads of the shrouds.  The mouse is shaped with the bulbous end down, in the French fashion, so the bulb jams against the eye.  English practice is to have the tapered “tail” of the mouse slide through the eye until it has no more space to run.  I don’t know why there is this difference, or whether one or the other conveys any kind of advantage.
 
10
 
At the lower end I ran into a problem.  Although never detailed, it is clear that the mizzen stay has to set up to a collar on the main mast.  However, if the stay is centered it interferes with the ramshead block and tie for the main spar.  I decided to offset the collar to starboard with a bullseye seized into it.  A set of double blocks were seized into the lower end of the stay and the upper end of the collar, then joined with a lanyard.  The lower end of the collar is belayed to one of the large mast cleats.
 
11
 
The shrouds for the main mast are set up much like those of the mizzen.  There are five heavy shrouds with large deadeyes, and two more on the aft end of the channel for the topmast shrouds. 
 
12
 
For the main shrouds the forward one is served its whole length to protect it from chafing by the mainyard sail.  The other shrouds are served only where they go around the masthead and then for a short distance below the top where they are seized to each other in pairs.  The three futtock shrouds have been hooked into the strops of the upper deadeyes then turned around a futtock stave that is seized across the shrouds.  You can also see the pendants that hang below the top, which are served all over with an eye worked into the end.  They were used as anchor points for hauling up the ship’s boat, supplies, etc. 
 
12a
 
Here in a later photo they are shown with a double block hooked into the eye, the running line goes down to a corresponding block at the deck which is hooked into an eyebolt near the base of the mast.
 
13
 
These hooks were made up in my usual way, by turning an eye into appropriately sized iron wire using orthodontic wire bending pliers.  The wire is then turned back over the pliers and clipped off.  For the larger hooks used for the pendants the clipped end was further tapered with a grinding drum, then the tip was recurved as in full sized practice.
 
14
 
Aft of the mast a set of catharpins are laced to the futtock staves and pull them inward against the strain of the futtock shrouds.  According to R.C. Andersen this diagonal pattern was used by the French, probably to leave space immediately behind the mast for the main yard ties and other rigging lines.  They were installed on all three masts as they were rigged.
 
15
 
The main stay is set up with an eye and mouse, just as the mizzen stay was.  Although this is the largest of the rigging lines on the ship I decided not to worm it, nor to have a preventer stay.  I reasoned that a small ship that had been a slaver for several years and was now in the hands of pirates would not have the spare manpower to maintain lines that would not be called on except in battle, which the pirates avoided at all costs.  The collar is set up in the French fashion, served all over and anchored around the base of the bowsprit.  The two legs are seized together at the bow and then on both sides of the foremast.  Large triple blocks are seized into the ends of the stay and collar and laced together.
 
16
 
In this close-up you can see the blocks, which the French used rather than hearts favored by the English.  You can also see the thumb cleats that secure the collar to the mast on either side.
 
17
 
The standing rigging to the foremast is identical to that of the main mast, except that the stay goes to a collar on the bowsprit.  You can see most of what has been discussed in this one photo.
 
18
 
The fore and main masts had crowsfeet laced from the top to the stay to prevent the lower edge of the topsails from curling under the top and fouling all the lines and blocks that live there.  These were made by first shaping the euphroes out of pear.  They are about ¾” long, with a strop groove cut in all around the edges.  Since there are 16 holes in the forward edges of the tops, the euphroe has 8 corresponding holes.  A strop was seized into the groove with the tails left on which were used to attach the euphroe to the stay.
 
19
 
The crowsfoot was formed by lacing the line up through the hole in the top closest to the center cleat on the starboard side.  A stopper knot under the top prevented it from pulling through, much like the deadeye lanyards.  The line laced down and through the top hole in the euphroe, up and over the lip of the top on the port side, down through the first port side hole, and up the second port side hole.  It continued down and through the second euphroe hole, up over and down the second starboard hole, and up the third starboard hole.  The lacing continued loosely back and forth in this manner until the line reached the outermost starboard hole.  All the lines were tightened and a knot was worked close under the top and the excess line snipped off.  To strengthen it all the lines were painted with dilute PVA glue.
 
20
 
The final element for the lower standing rigging is the ratlines.  The line itself was selected to scale out to ¾” diameter, suitable for the weight of a man, and spaced 10mm apart, which converts to 15” in real space.  As for tying them, many others have gone over the lacing of ratlines, so I will not repeat that here.  Suffice to say that they are attached to the outermost shrouds of each gang with an overhand loop, which makes the smallest bulge around the shroud, and secured to the inner shrouds with clove hitches.  This is not nearly as daunting as it may seem.  Once a rhythm is established it goes rather quickly, like knitting.  Frank and I tied all the ratlines for all the lower shrouds in just four hours.  No special effort was made to have the ratlines sag between the shrouds, but they naturally take on a mild curve as the tying proceeds.  This can be increased or reduced by gently tugging on the appropriate knots until the desired look is achieved.  Once I was happy with the overall look the entire shroud gang was painted with dilute glue and, when the glue was dry, the tails were clipped as close to the shrouds as could be managed.
 
21
 
I hope to have another report out before Christmas, with the completion of the standing rigging and the beginning of hanging the spars and sails. 
 
If not, a very Happy Holiday Season to all and I will be back in the New Year.
 
Dan

Hi again, and thanks for the likes and compliments.  
 
It is going well, I think.  I am trying to create the look of a working ship, rather than one fresh off the building ways.  
 
Now that the foredeck is installed, I turned to the waist.  With the cannon rigged out they can be covered by the gangways.  But first I decided to put in the ropes that go through the hull and belay below the gangways.  It would have been much harder to do them with the gangways in place.  These are the main course tack that goes through the chesstree, and the two sheets that go through the sheaves in the hull.
 
These lines will be some of the larger running rigging ropes and, because of their locations, some of the more visually prominent ones.  They have to be good quality and look like miniature rope.  I could have laid them up on my ropewalk, but I have a few spools of treasured Cuttyhunk Irish linen line (which is no longer available for any price).   The Zane Grey and Natural colors are too white, but a quick run through Minwax wood stain in Ipswitch Pine color makes them look the right shade.
 
1
 
Even examined closely this gives them the look of miniature rope.
 
2
 
I fed the line through the hull openings.  The larger line (C-21) was used for the tacks which belayed to cleats, while the smaller one (C-12) was for the sheets.which belayed to the staghorn kevil.
 
3
 
Although each line is tied off properly, they were all further secured with dilute white glue.  When dry the ends were nipped off and hidden by separate rope coils.  I make these on a simple jig.  A block of soft wood - basswood in this case, but it could be balsa - has several holes drilled in the top face and one or two holes in the front face in the same line.  Removable brass pegs fit into the holes and everything is given several coats of clear finish to keep glue from sticking to it.  Then matching lines are wrapped around the pegs with the ends friction fit into notches in the jig.
 
4
 
As I wrap I randomly make larger and smaller loops and even the occasional figure eight.  When I have the look that I want, the coils are painted with dilute white glue.  Actually, they are first wet down with water, which helps the dilute glue to penetrate the line rather than having it sit on the surface.  When the glue is dry the top peg is removed and the coil peeled up from the jig and trimmed.  Using dilute glue means that the coils are flexible while still holding their shape.
 
5
 
The coils are hung over the belaying points, teased into position where they look like they are hanging with the force of gravity, and secured with white glue.
 
6
 
7
 
In the photos you can see the supporting knees for the gangways.  These were made as before by cutting and shaping a stick and then parting off individual ones.  After locating and installing the forward and aft ones, the gangways were glued in, then the middle two knees for each gangway were installed.  In the photo you can see the ropes that feed through the hull.  I left what I hope is more than enough to reach to the sails, but we will see when the rigging is installed.
 
8
 
The final fittings in the waist were the four ladders from the gun deck up to the gangways.  They were wider at the base than at the top, and were built up as has been detailed before as a stack, then parted off.
 
9
 
After individual ladders were parted off they were cleaned up, stained and installed.
 
10
 
Now that the waist was complete, I turned to the quarterdeck.  The railing that was built up last time was installed, then the whipstaff.  For those not familiar, this is an obsolete steering device that predated the wheel.  It consisted of a rotating fitting called a rowel set into the deck through which a staff passed before it hooked into the end of the tiller arm.  Moving the staff port or starboard turned the rudder.  It was not very efficient, but then most steering was done with the sails during this time.
 
10a
 
A hole was drilled in the deck and a piece of pear cut and sanded to fit.  The fore/aft slot for the rowel was carved into the pear piece, as were indentations for the staff clearance athwartships.  The rowel was turned from maple, and the hole drilled to allow the staff to have a sliding fit.  I set the staff at an offset angle and glued it in place.
 
11
 
You can also see the ladders from the quarterdeck to the poop deck on the roof of the captain's cabin.  These were made up as before, just a little taller than the gangway ladders.  Similarly, the post with sheaves for the lateen halyard was made like the fore and mainyard halyard fittings.  Along the bulwarks are staghorns and pinrails as drawn by Budriot.  I am not completely sold on the pinrails, which do not appear anywhere else on the ship, but they are certainly needed for belaying points.
 
The four 4-pounder cannon were rigged and installed like the 6-pounders on the gun deck.
 
12
 
 Now the deck fittings that were made up almost a year ago could be installed.  These were the companionway house, the officers' bench in front of it, and the two small binnacles.
 
13
 
The ship is now ready for rigging, which will start next month.
 
14
 
Until then, happy Thanksgiving to all and to your families.
 
Dan
 
 
 
 

This evening I had to give the union a run.
First order was to set up the change gears on the Myford lathe to cut 80 threads per inch, then did some test cuts with a freshly ground cutter on some brass.
 
then turned down some 1/4 inch drill rod to .138" which is the size of the major diameter of a #6 machine screw then turning everything by hand(I unplugged the lathe) and taking .001" cuts threaded the shaft, polished it up with a leather strop. Hardened and tempered it then ground three flats with the diamond stone.
 

 
next I turned up the brass nut, and threaded it after the threading was done the clearance hole wad drilled through and then it was parted off.
 

 
Next the male part was threaded and tested with the tapped nut and  .0005" reduction threading cuts until the nut wound on to the thread easily.
 

 
The male part was then parted off and slipped onto the end of some 3/32 tube.
 

 
A couple of tiny refinements and it will work just fine.
 
michael