Mike Reader

Hi allenyed, sorry for delay in replying, got involved with diy jobs around house, garden and garage. Anyway I have posted a picture of the sails for the main mast, as you suggested and I am sure you are going to say that they are out of scale. I am still leaning toward not fitting sails which will mean removing them from the spars. I have read the very good article by grbsolutions (on his cutter sherbourne) about furling them and it does seem rather complicated.

Whilst still wading through the standing rigging on my Norske Love rebuild, my thoughts are on the next stage. my initial thoughts were no sails, however as the previous owner/builder has cut out stitched and assembled all of the sails onto the spars, and left them ready to fit loose in the box, it seems a shame to cut them off, so now I have to decide to either fit the full set of sails or perhaps attempt to furl them. I have been looking at various builds and I see that often only the main sails are furled, so my question is should I just furl the main sails on the spars and leave off the rest ie jib sails ect, or attempt to furl all of them. I am thinking that the weight on the standing rigging could make them sag and give a lot of extra problems. What is the general opinion to furl or not to furl that is the question ?

Cheers seahawk, I had not thought of this, so gave it a try and it worked, a bit fiddly and not sure if they are strictly to scale but they look reasonable and any smaller would be fairly difficult.

Has anyone got any tips on either where to get some or how you made collars. I have unsuccessfully attempted to make some for my Norske Love rebuild, (if they were supplied then they have been lost over the years). I managed to make the euphroe blocks but the collars are beating me, I have tried out of wood but they keep splitting and even tried to drill out a large plastic deadeye but all have been a failure so far. I have got James Lees book and know what they should look like, any advice would be most welcome.

Before adding anything of my own to this ship, I am having to redo some of the work already done. The more I look the more bits I see that I would have done differently (but where do you stop !). I decided to attempt rigging the deck cannons before adding any more standing rigging, but discovered that there is a small sliding block under the muzzle that does not allow any elevation (in fact on a lot of them it is pushing the muzzle downwards, so I am partially dismantling all 20 of them and removing this block with very careful use of my trusty dremel. I suppose this is the joy of taking over a partially built model, it looks great at first glance but when you look deeper and study more books and other members builds you realise it could be better, however I am drawing the line at going too deep. In fairness it was assembled in 1984 and a lot of work has gone into the build, and of course there was not the ability to get information like there is now.

Cheers Blue Ensign, I have looked at your build log, and it will be invaluable to me in my attempted to complete my acquired ship.

Thanks Blue Ensign, as you know I have an older incomplete model which I was given and am trying to complete, and have struggled to find good informative photos, but now you have solved that problem, many thanks these will be of great help to me.

Thank you blue ensign, the pictures you posted are very helpful (and impressive). I have been looking at a lot of photos of this model to try to get a better understanding of the rigging (as well as reading a number books), but either a lot of the models viewed have sails fitted which obscure the rigging or in the case of the crows-feet are not fitted at all. Would it be possible to have a couple more photos of your rigging as yours is by far the best I have seen so far. regarding the ship I was given, (as stated he did a good job in 1984 but) unfortunately there are a few issues regarding accuracy (as well as a small amount of damage over the years) which without deconstructing a lot of his work I am going to have to put up with. My original plan was just to finish it off, but reading and beginning to understand more I will try to do the rest to the best of my ability. Many thanks to all that are replying for there knowledge and assistance.

thanks allanyed, I was only looking at that in my copy of James Lee,s book this morning (I should have looked there before the previous post !) ,however when I looked at the drawing that came with the ship it looked as if they were triangular but now I have seen this I will have a go at making them. Cheers.

although this is an old article, it does answer a problem I have regarding euphroe tackle, I am assuming that these were made as I cannot see any for sale in the various suppliers, if so has anyone has anyone else made these and any suggestions would be most welcome, also a clearer idea of how they are attached to the standing rigging would be good. Thanks in advance to anyone that has information,

Hi, thanks for all of the help so far, I have a couple more questions about the rigging, 1) on the general drawing it shows the crows-feet for each mast going through what I have discovered is called a euphroe tackle fitting, I have not got anything like these and cannot see them on the suppliers lists, do members make there own and how is the line from these attached to the main standing rigging. 2) do members lash the deck guns (I have a drawing for this) , and if so does it make sense to do this before starting on the main standing rigging.

Thank you Shetlocker that should help a lot, much appreciated. Popeye that was going to be my next question, hopefully when I have enlarged plan 3, I can see the details clearer.

Hi new to forum, as mentioned in my new members thread, I was given a half complete model of Norske Love, put together by a friends father in 1984, the hull and deck was fitted out along with shrouds and rat lines but no further rigging, although the sails were fitted to the spars and supplied loose along with most of the other bits to complete the build. I have spent the last few days repairing a lot of the shrouds (a number of the deadeyes were broken) and colouring the fitted rigging black. I am not sure if the shrouds should be black also, so have left them for now but any advise would be welcome. Looking around the ship more closely I can see a number of issues that I would have done differently but I will have to put up with these as I do not want to replace to much of the existing work as there is more than enough for me to do already. I also ordered some black rigging thread as all of the supplied thread is tan coloured. I ordered a small amount 0.50 and 0.75 as was not sure which to use, I think the 0.75 is looking better but again any advise would be welcome. I have the build manual and the large double sided general drawing 1&2, I have been studying these to try to determine how to fit the standing rigging, there is too much other info on these drawings to see clearly, so was wondering if there was a separate standing rigging drawing that is missing. I have James Lee,s rigging book along with a few other books and have been studying lots of photos , so could probably work it out in time, but if there where a standing rigging drawing it would be so much easier. I have just completed another much easier project that was started by me about 30 years ago (Artisania Latina - Clara May) which I am happy with, and now feel ready to try to complete this project although I am aware it is not going to be easy.

Sorry for any confusion, I have just check my profile, I thought my previous introduction in 2019 had been lost, when I changed computer I lost the contact details and having put the model to one side had forgotten that I had put it on the forum. I do intend this time to continue with the project as explained I have lots of time on my hands now.

Hi everyone, due to a very long lockdown and shielding due to having a Kidney transplant 4 months ago (all went very well and so is recovery) I found myself with lots of time on my hands. About 2 years ago I was given an incomplete model of Billings ship Norske Love it was very well made in 1984 by an old friends father, up to the fitting of the rigging (the rat lines and supporting lines have been fitted but no other rigging). I put it to one side in my man cave with the intension of one day trying to complete it. In the meantime I also had an incomplete Artisania Latina ship Clara May which I had got up to completing the hull about 30 years ago. So with time on my hands I completed the Clara May, having bought and read a number of books on the subject, I know think it time to give the Norske Love a go, (I will start a separate completion build in the correct place).

Hi, recently acquired this ship from an old friend who,s dad put it together up to the ringing and sails stage in 1984. He seems to have made a very good job up to this point, and i have been provided with the rest of the kit so thinking about trying to complete it. He seems to have prepared the sails for fitting but I have some doubts as to wether he has done this correctly hopefully you guys will tell me if i am right. I have attached some photo,s hopefully they will load ok. My doubts are that, the edges have been turned over and machined on the opposite side to the (tell- tale if that is the correct term) threads, and the sails then assemble on the spars so that the tell-tale threads would be at the front of the sails, surely this is wrong. On a slightly different note I notice that some of the Norske Love ships photographed have a tender on the deck and my plans do not show this, so are the latter ship models different from the early ones.

Hi, I have recently acquired a very well put together Billing Norske Love model boat, which was built by an old friends dad in 1984. He made a very good job of everything up to fitting rigging and sails, I have a few questions about the rigging and sails but will put them in a new thread in the relevant section.