Thukydides

I had some time this morning to tidy up the lines so here is a minor update. I belayed the squaresail lift to one of the cleats on the mast. I also tied off the lanyards for the horse. I currently am using two clamps hanging by some spare rope to keep the squaresail yard lift under tension to set the shape of the rope. Next up are the bowlines for the squaresail yard. I really should have added these before I raised it, but I will do them now and let them hang loose so they don't get in the way.

That is a lot of belaying pins

You should still do them off model. Just you are limited by the fact that you have to run the ropes through the rings on the guns. I did some posta on my method in my alert log. I like the base, she is looking nice.

Don't you have ring bolts? I am pretty sure some come with the kit.

It might be easier to do the breaching ropes off the model. Then you can attach them and the cannons to the ship. Also make sure they have enough length for the cannons to recoil.

Thank you, I appreciate the compliment. I would say that with the exception of the painting where I have some prior experience I brought to bear, everything else is just a matter of going slowly and carefully and reading lots. I have had the benefit of many fine alert build logs to follow. I truly believe that if you take your time you could do as good or better than I did for much of this build. I personally thing better rope makes a huge difference. Though you sometimes can't see the details per say, it is noticable. For example my lashings look much nicer when I use actual rope as opposed to thread. Also nicer blocks also help.

Thanks Glenn, The issue with the squaresail yard is it is on the horse so not directly on the mast. The spreadsail yard I did pin to the mast to help hold it in place.

Log #80: Raising the Squaresail & Spreadsail Yards Thank you everyone for all the encouragement. One of the nice things about this stage of the build is it feels like every time I sit down to work something small has been added to the model. So there is progress to see. I am continuing to pick away and slowly add to the rigging of the model. I made a small adjustment from my previous plans as I realized that all of ropes for the yards all need to belay down to the base of the mast. Consequently I am planning on raising them all and letting any braces hang loose until I no longer need access to that area. First up was to raise the spreadsail yard. This yard I pinned to the mast (though I didn’t use any glue) to help hold it in the correct place and allow me to put tension on the ropes. I also got the pendant for the topsail yard done. I belayed the fall for the spreadsail yard lift down to the bits and coiled some rope in the same way that I did for the inner tie. You may also notice from this picture that I have fixed the anchor cable in place. This was done with spots of super glue at various positions. I have decided in the end not to include any of the spare yards I made as they didn’t look aesthetically pleasing and the only place that made sense was the first shroud. However, my less than optimal job on the ratlines means that putting a straight yard against the first shroud accentuates the fact that it is not straight. Next was the squaresail yard. This rises on a horse and so I used one of the kit thimbles to serve as the guide. It is a bit over scale, but I didn’t feel like trying to find another solution so I left it as is. And below you can see the spreadsail yard with everything attached ready to go on the model. The horse caused me a huge amount of trouble as I kept making small mistakes that necessitated doing it all over again. In the end it took 5 attempts to get it right. The horse was made with a 0.6mm rope and I used the 0.2mm rope I have for the rose lashings for the seizing. I used 0.35mm rope for the lanyards. The deadeyes should really be a bit smaller, but I just used spare kit ones. I still need to figure out how I will ensure the yard creates tension on the square sail yard. It currently wants to lean to one side which I won’t be able to fix till I add the bowlines and the clewlines for the topsail run in front of it. The problem with this yard is it would be held level by the sail, but there is no easy way that I can see to hold it steady. I had previously considered adding the reef lines and then attaching them to the spreadsail yard as that is the approximate location they would attach to the sail. I will make a decision on this later.

Congrats on another fantastic build.

I like the idea of a ship in a bottle trapped by the ice. Sounds like a really cool project.

Fantastic. Wonderful work as always. I really enjoy how realistic you make the sails look.

Log #79: Rose Lashings I received some more rope in the mail. Ben made me some extra small rope for the lashings. With this now in hand I can finally finish the spreadsail yard. To help with the lashing I cut the end off of a safety pin and bent it till the ends pointed straight. I then used it to weave back and forth over and under for the lashing. Once I had three loops on each side I began winding the rope around through the gaps between them to create the rose lashing. after the final loop I brought the ends up through the lashing. Then finally I tied knots in the ends and used a very small amount of super glue to secure the knots before cutting the ends. I could get no clear answers on how the ends of the rose lashing were secured and so I decided to go with replicating the illustration in Lees. This was the better of my two attempts, the other doesn’t look quite as good, but from normal viewing distance it looks good enough that I decided not to redo. And with that I am finished with the spreadsail yard. I do still need to add the topsail sheet blocks, but those can easily be slipped on at any time and so I may wait on them a bit. I plan to pin this yard to the mast, but first I need to add a few more ropes that will run down the base of the back of the mast as once the braces are in place it will be hard to access that area.

It depends on the period. In the 18th century I think they are mostly made of a wood that looks very dark (can't remember the name). Lots of examples if you go to the RMG site and search for blocks in the collection. I think if you wanted to do working sheaves your best bet would be brass ones and blacken them, though it ultimately depends on your scale.

By this do you mean you just paint the flat of it so that the line shows once you glue them together?

I like the setup, it has some heft to it and fits nicely between the flag lockers. In terms of the use of them, it does seem to be a bit of a mixed bag. There are examples from the 1790s of ships both with and without the ensign. I suspect it probably was based on the views of the commander though I have noticed that earlier contemporary paintings 1770s tend to have more of them than the later ones post 1800s. Now this is just a qualitative assessment based on the limited pool of ship paintings I have been looking at.

great job

That is a lot of belaying pins to make.

Looking good, she does have really nice lines. It is a great moment when you get the shrouds and stays in place, I feel it is the moment they start to look like a sailing ship. Slow is good on the rigging, lots of skills and tricks to learn. By the time you are done you will finally start to know what you are doing 😄.

She is looking good, I like the patina, very visually striking.

I have been working on the other pendant and trying to be more precise, add more twists to the serving line and using even less glue than before. I think I am finally at the point where the flaws are not visible with the naked eye. Once everything is under tension on the model I will give it a coat of watered down matt varnish to make extra sure everything stays in place.

You are making good progress Glenn, great job. I suspect that with regard to the fiddle block it is just a compromise on the part of the kit. For alert the fiddle blocks for the running backstays are also represented in the vanguard kit as two blocks on top of each other. This is one of those things that is not super noticeable unless you are looking for it and so I suspect Chris decided it was an acceptable compromise. This will always be the case with a kit and those of us who care about such details can easily fashion a fiddle block ourselves.

Slow and steady is the way to go, you are doing great. One further minor comment. The ring bolts on deck look like they are sticking up more than they should be. Technically the "circle" should be partially submerged in the deck. At the very least there should be no part of the "stick" showing.

Just as a note though my gun tackle process was fine, I would not recommend following my method for the breeching ropes. I realized after I was done that it would have been much easier to rig the breaching ropes not on the cannons themselves. So don't attach the ring bolts to the carriages, just slip them on the breeching ropes while rigging them and then glue them on the carriages after the fact. That way you can easily do the seizing to the bulwark ring bolts and make sure they are all the same length. I did not do this and regretted it. You could make a jig to do this, see the below drawing illustrating what I mean.

Are you planning on serving your foremost shroud / stays? Also are you planning on serving where the shrouds loop the masthead? I ask because if so it will be much easier to do so off model and then slip them over the top. So if it was me and I were serving things I would build the mast up as I worked my way up. For a much simpler version of this you can see how in my alert log I have been slowly building up the mainmast as I rig my way up it.

Thank Andrew, As with Alan, I appreciate the suggestions. I should give matte medium a try, however I have been using acrylic matt varnish which is essentially the same thing with a bit of resin in it (so a bit stronger). With the polyester rope the issue is that it doesn’t bond to glues as well as cotton rope does and so if you need the bond to have strength then I have found that I generally only trust supper glue or fabric glue if the joint will be under tension. I did a test a number of posts back where I tested the strength of various glues to hold a knot and fabric glue came out the winner. I then just add watered down matt varnish over to remove the shine (to be fair I coat everything in matt varnish once it is fully secured on the model). With larger ropes the visibility of the glue is not a problem as it wicks into the gaps and you don’t see it, but with the tiny ropes it is hard to ensure that not too much glue goes on the surface. The other issue is the amount of bending that happens in a given area. Larger ropes (by virtue of their size) have much more gradual bends as I am working with them (sticking needles into them, getting them into place etc…). In a perfect world if I use the correct amount of glue, at the correct dilution and don’t bend the ropes much afterwards then there is no issue. The white stuff comes from either too much glue or the glue has been separated in some points from the rope leaving an air gap. I have found that with smaller ropes this is pretty much inevitable. The picture I showed was the worst example of the 4 I did just to illustrate the point (also in this particular case the area was going to be covered so I wasn’t being as careful as I would have on an area that could be seen). This is all to say that it is totally possible to use glue and not have it look bad, I have just been removing it as much as possible as particularly on tiny dark ropes which I need to serve, the chances of a slight error leading to a bit of white stuff is really high. Also if I don’t use glue then it is easier to undo work that I don’t think is good enough without having to completely start over.