jdbondy

Are these meant to be for wood? Since it's on the Otto Frei web page, I imagine they are more meant for metal, specifically jewelry and watch making.

I am making extensive use of fly tying thread on my 3/16" scale model of the Pride of Baltimore 2. It's been most useful for 2 things: as serving line to give a natural fiber line an appearance more resembling of standing rigging, and for seizing blocks. So far I haven't used fly tying thread for the actual rigging itself, as its appeareance wouldn't be natural enough (plus I see the comment above about it being too stretchy, which I believe). But nothing beats it so far when it comes to seizing blocks or serving line. To secure seizings, I am currently using Flexament, also a fly tying product that seems to be doing a great job of securing the seizings to the underlying natural fiber line. I initially tried doing this with flat topcoat, but it did not provide a reliable bond. Attached is a picture showing a seizing of fly tying thread being tied around a line that has been previously served with fly tying line, exemplifying both of the things I use it for!

Corian for soldering jig. Ingenious. Beautiful work so far; I feel guilty for not having followed this build to this point!

I wouldn't have dared to bring the dremel in that close! Probably would have just slowly cut bits and bits out of the rail using a blade. Glad it worked out! Nice log! My first visit here.

So here’s the problem with this after-the-fact blogging. I created replacement life rings to replace these horrible looking Britannia rings using pearwood, but since this was done in September 2012 and now it’s July 2017, I can’t really remember how I even got to this point! I don’t remember if I had purchased the Sherline lathe already, or if I just improvised with the Dremel. The inner edges of the donuts are clearly not concentric with the central holes. Obviously, the pieces had to be pared down in thickness as well as having the inner and outer edges beveled off. However I did it, here’s what it came to look like: The pieces are being primed and then painted with CN orange. They turned out very clean! The white bands were cut from index card stock, and enough of a space was left for white thread to be run within the white bands. A much better look than painting the Britannia fittings. Next problem: A long time ago, I fabricated the deck furniture associated with the hatch just aft of the foremast. I had built coamings into the deck to accommodate this piece of furniture. Problem was, as I examined the dimensions of the furniture on the plans, I realized that I had built the furniture piece to accommodate the shape and size of the coamings I had installed. And I had installed the coamings so that their OUTER edges corresponded to the size that the furniture needed to be. So when I built the furniture, it was significantly too small. That meant that not only did I need to build a new hatch, I needed to remove the old coamings and make them larger. The new furniture is taking shape on the left, and the old furniture is to the right of the coamings. The old coamings have been removed. Fortunately, this redo meant that I could use pearwood instead of stained basswood, improving the look of the grain of the stained surfaces of the hatch. Using flat topcoat, the pearwood surfaces are made to look very similar to the other stained surfaces of the adjacent lockers and hatch, but with much tighter grain that gives it a much more in-scale appearance. I have noticed that on other peoples’ build logs for the Pride 2, there has been discussion about what to do for hinges for the fire lockers. My solution was to essentially grave a line that simulates the seam between the hatch and the rest of the locker lid. For the hinges, I printed areas of black onto decal sheets, then cut very small triangles from the black decal sheet. These were then soaked and applied to give the impression of dark hinges. That's a good stopping point for now, I think...

Time to make the deck look pretty with some furniture. The kit includes pre-cut basswood brackets to hold the windlass. These were lightly stained and coated with flat topcoat to give an appearance that nicely matched the thin wood strips that made up the “feet” of the windlass. Those I made out of thin pearwood that was also coated with topcoat. The windlass provided with the kit required extensive cleanup using files and sandpaper to get rid of ridges and to make the teeth more regular in appearance. Strips of metal wire also had to be applied to the drum of the windlass in order to simulate the whelps. The windlass was painted oxide red, with careful painting of the whelps and gears. The Samson post was built using strips of pearwood cut on the table saw, and the remainder of the windlass was attached to the Samson post. This black component came with the kit as a Britannia casting, and it also required extensive clean-up followed by fine sanding with sandpaper to smooth its surfaces. Then it was primed and painted black. Four U-shaped brackets and two linking rods had to be created to complete the connections of the windlass. For the U-shaped brackets, I created a jig involving a stiff brass wire taped to some clamps. The U was held in the clamps while the ends of the wire were bent around the stiff wire and trimmed to length. The U brackets were secured to the parts of the windlass around thick wire posts that were installed in the appropriate points. I remain very pleased with how this assembly has turned out. Next it was on to the catheads. Not exactly deck furniture but I figure I am going to try to keep things in the actual order that I did them. The cathead and its supporting bracket were cut from pearwood, primed, and painted. The assembly included notching the end of the cathead to accommodate the anchor’s restraining line (I’m sure there is a name for it…anchor painter?), and drilling a hole in the side of the cathead to accept a supporting rod that is also drilled into the bulwarks. This rod was of course painted black.

Frankie, I appreciated the description as well. It confirms what I was trying to do with my model's rendition of the furled headsails. I created a flaked sail, attached hanks, and threaded them onto the headstay. Then I wrapped the flaked sail with a separate piece of cloth to imitate the skin and secured that underneath the sail, between it and the jibboom. Then I tied everything down with furling lines. I was even able to simulate the reef knots.

Here is one for you:

Sorry if you have already addressed this earlier in the log. But can you tell me more about the cutting tool you are using on the lathe? That looks really small.

Or are you referring to Gilmer Wood Company?

Bob, I think (opinion) it would be difficult to finish the interior of this particular kit model since it is a plank on bulkhead model. I think if I had wanted to build out the interior, I would be doing a scratch build using plank on frame technique, building the hull up from a keel and frames. I suppose one could cut out portions of the bulkheads to create space for interior detail, but that could weaken the structure of the hull. Interesting idea, though... Jersey City Frankie, the CT article is not really online or available by link. But let me know if you would like me to message you a pdf of it. Better yet, become a subscriber to the Nautical Research Journal!

This one image from 2011 is worth some commentary. I reached the point when it is time to assemble the chainplates with their deadeyes. By this time I knew what these looked like in real life. So I was kind of disappointed in the instructions for the model, which said to strop the deadeye with wire, then twist the tails together, then solder them to a flat strip of brass that would form the chainplate. Really? We can’t do better than that? I wish I had pictures of all the trial and error steps I went through in attempting to fashion a chainplate that actually resembled the real thing. I can’t seem to find any. But looking at my photos of the real ship, I could tell that the chainplate itself is wrapped around a pin that is longer than the chainplate is wide. Then wire is stropped around the deadeye and around the ends of the pins that protrude from the chainplate. Fortunately, it was possible to use a certain thickness of brass strip that was pliable enough that it could be wrapped around a short length of small brass rod. The ends of the rod were flared with taps of a hammer so they would more securely hold the stropping wire. Then the wire had to be wrapped around one end of the rod and brought together securely before it was then wrapped around the deadeye and then wrapped around the other end of the rod. I learned that I could force the stropping wire to conform to the rod by wrapping a smaller wire around the stropping wire, then twisting it so that it forced the stropping wire to conform to the pin. I cannot even remember how I then did the other end, as the “bitter ends” of the stropping wire had to be brought together in the same way on the other side of the chainplate. I guess I wasn’t documenting things as thoroughly back then. Oh, and when I had all that figured out, the chainplate had to be bent to the proper shape to fit the chain wales, and holes had to be drilled in the bottom most tip of each chainplate so they could be pinned to the hull. In order to pin the plate to the hull, I had to figure out how to take a segment of wire of the right diameter and peen its end so it could be used as a sort of nail. Lots of trial and error, as I said. But the most memorable thing was that I was visiting with friends from the NRG about this moment of discovery. I was a pretty new member of the NRG at that point. His comment: “This is what we at the NRG are here for. At a certain point in a modeler’s career, he says, ‘I know I can do better than that.’” It seemed I had reached that point. The blue tape was put on the wale planking to keep from scuffing the yellow paint while I manipulated the chain wales. So here is what things look like as I put on one set of the chainplates and deadeyes. Other chainplates are on deck, waiting for their turn for installation. Next up: more deck furniture.

The article is actually about the use of CT scanning for evaluating ship models. (An MRI would rip a historic ship model apart!) It's in the Nautical Research Journal, Volume 56 (2011), issue 4. Hope you enjoy!

Some day I hope to be able to machine parts like this...are you formerly a jeweler or something??

Nice work! Were the indentations on the strap done with a jeweler's punch or did you just drill a superficial indentation? The point in the centerline of the bracket appears to have a protruding bit like a nail head. What did you do there?

Time to get back to the big boat. According to the pictures I have taken and saved, the next thing to get my attention was the display base for the model. A long time ago I had purchased pedestals to mount the model on, while the kit shows the model mounted on building ways. I purchased a piece of red oak from the local Rockler, with a plan to “ebonize” it according to an article I had seen in the Nautical Research Journal. The piece of wood had to be heavily sanded to eliminate cut marks on it from a thickness planer. I also borrowed a router from a friend to cut out the molding on the edge. Good practice for my general wood working techniques. After sanding, the base was filled with Wunderfil, re-sanded, re-filled, and…you get the idea. Be sure to wear gloves when putting on black Transtint dye! The stand I am working on bears permanent black marks on it from this process. The grain really pops out while the wood is wet from the stain. Fortunately that becomes less conspicuous once the wood dries. It was by this time that I had found a source for boxwood and pearwood. The pieces above are straight grain pearwood that were cut from a piece I obtained from the Gilmer wood company in the Pacific Northwest. I believe others on this forum have mentioned this source before. These pictures of such nicely cut strips of pear also remind me that it was at this time that I obtained a Byrnes table saw, and a thickness planer too! Wow, not even Christmas. The pearwood strips were attached to the base with small pegs embedded in the pearwood, with corresponding holes drilled in the base board. Pure trial and error was involved in shimming the top surface of each piece so that the keel would sit squarely on each support. Pegs were put in the top of two of the pearwood pieces to provide attachment points for the hull. Work on the hull itself includes placement of the chain wales, crafted according to the plan sheet. Notches are cut out of the edge for the chainplates, and a strip of wood will be put in place over them once the chainplates are in place. Pin rails have been placed on the port and starboard sides, and a pin rail is also in place at the bow (at the very edge of the picture). I know, this red lettering looks terrible. It’s made of transfer letters obtained at a model railroad store. Fortunately, they sanded off very easily and I simply repainted the surface with another coat of yellow after doing so. The lettering above it is carved into the piece of basswood that replaced the planked portion that I stripped off. The carving was done at my dentist’s office; he kindly offered me the use of one of his high speed drills with appropriate cutters. The carved out areas were filled with gold paint and the excess was sanded off, then glaze painted over the whole thing. This is what the real thing looks like. Lucky for me, there is a black strip of wood separating the wood varnished area from the yellow strip, so I used that to cover up the gaps at the edges of my transom. I wish I had felt confident enough about my carving to have added the pointy bits at the edge of the letters. Hey, at least I was able to learn what those pointy bits are called: serifs. Now it makes sense when I use that “sans serif” font in Microsoft Word! The Baltimore Maryland lettering was redone using decals that I printed myself. I was able to figure out how to type text along a curved line in MS Word, to get the arc I needed. Then I had to learn how to use a color printer and decal printing paper to generate the decals I needed. That is not a terribly reliable process when one is using a bottom-of-the-line color printer. And I found that if you go to a print shop and try to print to decal paper, they generally don’t like it because decal paper can gum up their printers. Now, this is a few years back, so things may have changed since then. So here is the hull, awaiting reinstallation of the re-done transom and its associated knees. The model is on a wood workers bench that I bought from Grizzly. And faintly in the background is the other big toy that arrived in this time frame: a height-adjustable work bench. We use these a lot at my various places of work, to take the load off our backs and keep us from sitting the entire day. Truly a luxury, because generally they aren’t cheap. More recently, I think I have seen that some members of the forum have been able to find less expensive versions through Ikea. I hope that’s true, because this hobby isn’t forgiving on our backs and necks. Anything we can do to help those matters is worth the effort. Especially when it comes time for doing rigging! I have been working on the model for about 4 hours today, and it’s time to take a break before I break something. Figured I would come back to my retrospective build log. The photographic record indicates that it was time to make propeller shafts and brackets. The prop shafts were easy; it was the fabrication of the brackets that was difficult just to think about. I could easily picture how long the legs of the brackets would need to be, but it was difficult to get a sense of where they would sit on the hull, and how in the world to make the ends of the brackets rest flush against the hull, where there was a huge amount of hull curvature going on. And how to get the brackets into symmetric positions on opposite sides of the hull? A lot of time was spent just thinking about how I was going to do all this. Others that have built this model have omitted the propeller assemblies, for the reason that they wanted the model to resemble a schooner of its time, and propellers would detract from that. I was building my model to accurately resemble the contemporary ship, in particular as we saw it in Boston in 2009, so the props needed to be there. This first picture above shows some experimentation with attaching a bracket arm to a skid plate that will rest on the hull, and with a small nail soldered to it that would anchor the skid in the hull. The problem is that the skid is nice and perpendicular to the bracket, and that wouldn’t allow the bracket to sit perpendicular to the hull centerline. The other problem was the close proximity of the two solder joints, so that creating one would cause the other to melt. This picture shows the bracket arms soldered to brass tubing that accommodates the prop shaft. From here it was simply a matter of trial and error in cutting the tips of the bracket arms at various angles to accommodate the angle of the skid plates, then trying it against the surface of the hull to see if the bracket would sit perpendicular to the hull centerline. This picture nicely illustrates the problem of the angling of the skid plates. These were my successful pair. As I said earlier, making the prop shafts was simple in comparison. The only problem was that if I followed the plans and put the brackets where they were supposed to be, then the base of the prop shafts where they were supposed to be, the length of the prop shafts caused the shafts to not be parallel to the centerline. So I gradually shortened the prop shafts until each sat relatively parallel to the centerline. This might have been one of the toughest jobs of the model. I am happy with how it came out, but I wish my metalworking skills were better.

Let’s talk about ship’s boats. In particular, Chasseur, the lapstrake planked ship’s boat on board the Pride of Baltimore 2. This is what she looks like in real life. Before I was ready to jump back into the pool of working on the big hull of Pride 2, I decided to re-examine what I thought I would do with the ship’s boat. When I started the model, I had been thinking that I would never be able to outfit such a small model boat (less than 2 inches long) with all the details she was worthy of, like a false keel, ribs, stringers, thwarts, etc., and so I pictured building the bread-and-butter hull out of the parts provided by the model, sanding it smooth, painting it, and covering it with a tied-down cloth cover so that no one would see that it was an unfinished interior. 2 things changed my mind. One was seeing the interior of the actual boat when we visited Pride 2 in July 2009, and seeing how beautiful all that detail was. The second was realizing that on the practicum I had bought for the Pride 2 from Lauck Street, there was a particular segment devoted to the building of ship’s boats, in particular ones fashioned from bread-and-butter technique (as opposed to building the hull up around a plug, a more accurate and cerebral technique). It made me realize that I was probably capable of adding more detail than I thought. I don’t have any pictures of the boat before this image, which shows that the false keel and ribs have been added, and part of the flooring is installed. Of course, what had to be done to get to this point was to use the drum sander attachment of my Dremel to grind off all the interior ridges of wood left behind by the bread-and-butter technique, then use sanding paper or files to reach all the nooks and crannies in the bow and stern of the model. I never reached the degree of sharpness in those areas that I desired, but at some point I decided to just move along. The interior surface was then stained. I did not put on a topcoat because I knew I had to glue the ribs in place, and any coatings would interfere with that. The ribs were an interesting step. At this time in my re-emerging modeling career, I did not think about using anything other than basswood. And I didn’t have any fancy table saws or thickness sanders. So the strips of wood were all hand-cut and hand-sanded down to a thickness that just seemed like it was right. They were probably between 1/32” and 1/64” in thickness and about 1/16” in width. They were super-pliable without running the risk of creasing them. Gluing them in place was purely a rack-of-eye kind of thing, making sure to install them vertically and perpendicular to the keel. The first ribs were placed in the midships, and all subsequent ribs were set parallel to those. The ribs were put in so that they bridged the boat completely from gunwale to gunwale, and then later the central portions were cut out to accommodate the false keel. This picture shows that the floorboards have been finished. The sheer has been cut to its proper profile, and two internal strakes have been added as well as a toprail. The oarlocks were very carefully cut out and reinforced with a thin veneer of wood surrounding each one. A lock for the tiller has also been cut into the stern rail. I think that if I had found my source of boxwood and pearwood by this time, I would have done these details with those woods. But I think things turned out well, and the grain of the basswood is not distracting. You can faintly see the layers of the bread-and-butter buildup technique in the transom. The interior is now all stained out. A breasthook has been added. You can tell on these images how tough it was to get into the corners of the bow and stern. But I was very pleased with the overall effect. The roughness shown in the images disappears at scale, and when viewed in close up I think it gives the interior a rustic, Wooden Boat School-type appearance. I think it was about this time that I purchased a macro lens for my camera (Nikon D80). That thing gets plenty of use!! Staining out the area of the gunwales and rubrails. A second rubrail would be applied. Again evident is the horizontal lines of the bread-and-butter buildup technique. Those hull lines disappear once the hull is fully primed and painted. The white paint on the hull was airbrushed on. The seats and thwarts are made from styrene sheets. Finally, I constructed 4 oars as well as a rudder and a tiller. The blades of the oars are admittedly oversized. I could not bring myself to hand-paint or otherwise apply the ship’s name to the transom. Call me a coward! Next time, back to the big boat.

Thanks Tigersteve. The pace of posting may slow down some now. I have lots of pictures over many years, now it's a matter of putting the story to the pictures.

In 2008, when my older son was about 8 years old, the model finally came off the shelf. The hull and deck were fully planked, and it was for the most part completely painted. Coamings for the deck furniture were also in place and painted. The mast steps were also already in place. I think our story will start with the (mostly) assembled hull and proceed with bringing it up to date, installing deck furniture, creation of a base and ways, and finally getting to what I am now working on, the rigging. This first picture is how she looked after emerging from cryogenic storage. As mentioned, the deck has been planked up, and the bulwarks and rail are in place. I will always just have to accept that the curve of the rail is abnormally bumpy, and does not have a smooth flow to it. This is especially true in the area of the foremast pin rails. Other things worth noting about the model: the interior surfaces of the bulwark planking is painted a relatively bright yellow and not a cream color. This would be redone. Within the coaming for the midships cabintop, pieces of wood protrude that were used for clamping the hull in a vise back when it was being planked. These would of course be removed. I made the temporary cradle out of scrap and out of some of the wood sheet that defined one of the bulkheads. The fancy pieces of the transom have not yet been installed. This showed the strip planking of the transom, which would be removed and replaced with a sheet of basswood. The stern knees would also be removed since I had painted them, while in real life the stern knees are not painted. Back before the model went into hiding, I spent a lot of time building the aft cabintop, and was very proud of it. Even so, I know I could do a better job if I were building it today. I could have elected to rebuild it and make it more accurate given what I learned about the ship from photographing her in Boston in July 2009 (more below), but I felt that I would leave it as a testimony to my modeling skills as they were in the late 1990s. This is how things stood in the spring of 2008. I was very excited to be able to get back to work on the model. Our boys were old enough that we felt we were not constantly under water looking after them, and in addition, my wife had agreed to let me take over the guest room and set it up as my workshop! During this same time, I also found Bob Hunt’s Lauck Street Shipyard, and was happy to see that one of his courses had to do with building the Pride of Baltimore 2. I sent off for the practicum, and I still refer to it from time to time. Fast forward to April 2010. In that span of time, relevant things that happened including getting to see the actual Pride of Baltimore 2 in Boston. I thoroughly bored my wife and kids as I wandered all around the ship, taking pictures of anything I thought might be important. Captain Jan Miles was not there but the crew was very helpful. At this time, my older son was 9 years old (now 17!). During that time I also went to my first NRG convention, in Annapolis, MD. Being at the meeting and being around other people who were passionate about model ship building really galvanized my motivation to get working on the model more consistently. I also filled this time by building the ships boat. This was made a lot easier by going through the practicum about how to build ships boats. It was a nice, small project that enabled me to get back into the swing of things. I will cover that in a later post. Back to the big boat: this image shows that I have repainted the starboard bulwarks using a cream color that has far less yellow. Matching the color was greatly helped by having photos of the actual boat. There are pieces of cardstock that are protecting the planking while the repainting is done. I do remember being very happy how clean the repainting turned out. This is an inboard view of the port bulwarks where they meet the taffrail. I have stripped the planking from the taffrail and removed the stern knees. There is a strip of bulwarks planking under the stained rail that is unpainted; it was a shim that was put in to fill the gap created by the rail as it rises to meet the taffrail. This is an outboard view of the same area. I don’t know why it felt so intimidating, but that fancy piece caused me a lot of worry as to how I would go about creating that piece. Plus it had to be beveled on its inboard surface to accept the transom planking. Fortunately, the piece of wood used was quite thin, and it was easy to get it to bend to conform to the planking. While at the NRG meeting in Annapolis, I got the idea of putting my model through one of our CT scanners at work. This would lead to publication of an article about using CT scanning to study historical ship models, including 4 of the historic models in the Rogers collection at the USNA museum. Maybe that explains the big time gap in my photo documentation! But I digress… I think my next post will be about the ship's boat.

Ladies and gentlemen, there is no more postponing it. Time to start my building log. About 20 years late, but hey, better late than never. I am taking great pains to make sure I properly title this log, ccoyle, and I hope to do you proud. In 1995, when I was beginning my residency training, I invested about $130 in the Model Shipways kit for the Pride of Baltimore 2. I had built some simpler models and would complete at least one other before cracking open the Pride 2 box. But it was exciting to know that it was there waiting for me to wrap up my other projects. It would be the first serious fully rigged model I would build. Looking at the 6 sheets of plans really got the imagination going. Exciting, yes, but also terrifying for a young model builder to look at. The details are overwhelming. Just the bowsprit netting seemed to suggest that I would never be able to complete it! It is now 2017. My wife and I now have two boys who are 15 and 17 years old. Since 1995, the internet has come into existence and so has Model Ship World. So this building log will involve a lot of “retrospective” posts. At the current time, the foremast is installed and rigging of the foremast and bowsprit is proceeding. But I figured it is never too late to begin a builders log even if it is retrospective. I am doing pretty good photo documentation as of a couple of years ago; the documentation of the early phases of building the model is more scant. I actually started building the hull in 1997, and worked on it feverishly leading up to the arrival of our first son in 2000. Once he arrived, the hull got put away, relegated to the top shelf of a closet. There was just no time. But fortunately, I did think to take some pictures of the hull as it was being built. I recently uncovered these prints, and had to scan them into the computer in order to be able to attach them. How far we have come… These pictures date from about 1998-1999, when we were still living in an apartment during my training. In retrospect, I am amazed by how intuitive the planking process was. About 8 years later, when I went to my first model building symposium, I listened to a talk about planking technique and remember thinking, “Hey, that’s the way I did it!”. I wish I could remember how many weeks it took me to plank the hull. But I wasn’t keeping track of the time I spent on the model. I don’t remember what source I used to learn about nibbing planks and stealer planks. I think they were described in the kit’s instruction manual. This wasn’t my first planked hull, but it was the first time I applied those techniques. There is a gap in photo documentation between finishing the planking and painting the hull. The bulwarks planking and rail also get added during that time. The transom was also planked, but that would get pulled off later in favor of a sheet of basswood with the ship's name engraved in it. I built a cradle out of scrap wood to stabilize the hull for the process of planking the deck. I have no picture documentation of that process, but it proceeded very logically, even more easily than the hull planking. The coamings for the cabintops and hatches were installed prior to planking. Better hurry, that baby’s coming! No more modeling for a while after he gets here… But before it got put away, I was fortunately able to install the foc’s’le hatch and the aft cabintop. I also installed the deck hatch aft of the cabintop. The last of the attached images is how things looked once the model got placed in cryogenic storage on the top shelf of the closet in the house we moved into when I finished training. Hey, I got a lot done, in retrospect! Next post: the model gets resurrected after a long hibernation...

I am in the thick of rigging my Pride 2 model, and I like not having the mast glued in. I have already had to "de-rig" the foremast one time, and it's comforting to know that I can do that if I realize I forgot to do something to the mast that is easier off the boat.

I have been very happy with Flexament cement for securing fly tying line. It's like a diluted rubber cement.

I agree with Mike Y that a height adjustable table (sit-stand table) is indispensable. In my work, we have motorized height adjustable at all our workstations for ergonomic reasons. The ones we use are expensive, on the order of a couple of thousand dollars. I invested in one for my shop; I'll send a picture later. I'm glad to see that Ikea is offering a cheaper alternative; I'm surprised that there aren't more options out there.

My first plank on bulkhead kit was Bluejacket's America, the smaller one at 1/8" scale. On their web page it is shown as planked on only one side. I planked both sides fully, then painted it. I did not try to follow any strict rules of planking. I just used the kit to get a sense of how the process of planking worked.

Mikiek, I know exactly what you mean. I have some Unithread 3/0 and I cannot use it because it unravels into many tiny threads. But it's not much smaller than any of the natural fiber threads I am using, so I don't have much of a use for it anyway. If you got some Unithread 6/0, you shouldn't have the same problem. It does not fall apart into smaller threads. You will find that the 6/0 is not round; it is more flat in cross section. Seizings made with it will be slightly irregular in surface contour because of this, but you would have to be looking close. What I like even better is the Veevus 16/0, an incredibly tiny thread that is still slightly flat in cross section but so small that it doesn't matter. I am building in 3/16" scale, and the seizings made with the Veevus are incredibly fine and smooth. I am still working out when to make a seizing with 6/0 versus when to use the 16/0.