Thukydides

Log #86: The Cat Falls & Topgallant Backstays I continue to pick away at a bunch of outstanding lines and small projects on the model. I tend to work on whatever inspires me in the moment from my list of potential tasks. First up on this list were the topgallant backstays. Now it is not clear to me if these actually would have been fitted on alert and in some logs people have decided to omit them. Steel does include them in the list of ropes, but that is a bit later, but they don’t appear on the hawk and this is another case of Goodwin’s commentary not matching his drawings. In the end I decided to include them as this is the arrangement both the kit plans and Goodwin depict and I have already somewhat committed to following them up to this point. Also I feel the top of the model looks somewhat “naked” if the topgallant stays are not included. Steel calls for 2 in rope which equates to 0.32mm diameter at our scale. I used 0.35mm rope seized with fly tying thread. The kit depicts these stays simply tied on to the channels. Goodwin is not clear on how they are attached. I decided that I would treat them in a similar manner to the running backstays, just hook them onto the channels. I also decided that I would start work on the cat falls. Steel calls for 12in double block which equats to 4.8mm at our scale. I decided to use a 5mm block. To make the blocks I scratch built the hooks using the brass pins from the kit and the iron strapping was done with the black paper in the kit. I then painted all the iron in a similar manner to how I painted the ironwork on the anchor. The rope is stated to be 3in cir, 0.38mm at our scale. However, I decided to round up to 0.45mm for the rope. I felt the 0.35mm rope looked a bit small compared to the 5mm block and I wanted to differentiate these slightly larger ropes from the other smaller ones near them. I have not decided quite yet where to tie off the cat falls so for the moment I have it wrapped around one of the posts for the swivel guns. And here is the current state of affairs (taken before I attached the cat falls).

The links work fine for me too except for the 4th one. I would suggest that you probably need to change that one.

Looking good. Good to see you back at it.

Great job! She is a beauty. Particularly given you flew through this build :). I am getting close to the 3 year mark on Alert.

PVA should work just fine then.

Great job, you are doing very well not just for a first time builder. Are you using polyester or natural rope? For natural fibres pva works really well, but it is less good on polyester. It depends on the rope, but you may want to try a few test versions to see how it holds before attempting it on the model if you have polyester rope. I find matt varnish or diluted fabric glue work better for polyester.

I often wish that authors like Lees etc were a bit more explicit about where they get their sources from when they make these sort of statements. It would make it much easier to parse how reliable the statements are if he regularly said "based on Steel" or "based on models viewed", etc... More footnotes equals more good :).

Welcome to MSW

Thanks BE, yes I did consider going with an aftermarket version, but I thought if I was going to replace them I might as well just draw up scratch ones in cad as then I could get the scale perfect instead pretty much right (I know a bunch of people with 3d printers). In the end I thought this solution was good enough for the current build. @jpalmer1970glad to know I wasn't the only one who had trouble getting the paint to stick. I am going to handle them very carefully from this point on.

You can also find Steel's 1794 book online and transcribed here https://maritime.org/doc/steel/

Log #85: The Anchors Thank you to everyone for you kind comments and encouragement. I have spent the past couple weeks making a brief detour from the rigging, but before getting to that I did clean up a few lines. First up were some blocks with hooks for the topgallant backstay tackle and the topgallant yard halyard tackle. I am getting much better at these now I have my process down and can produce them pretty quickly at this point. These ones only took about 15 minutes to make all in. I then secured the topgallant yard halyard using one of these hook blocks and another block attached to the halyard itself. I belayed the falls to the bits and then ran the coil over the nearest cleate. With that out of the way I decided to take a break from rigging and look at the anchors. As I have one of the earlier versions of the alert kit, mine came with the cast metal anchors and I can see why Chris has moved away from these. They are easily one of the weakest parts of the kit. I debated for a while as to whether I should just chuck them and draft and 3d print some new ones, but in the end I decided to try and work with them. As I have previously noted my goal with this build has been to stay pretty close to the kit and I though with a bit of work I could make them look ok. The main problem as you can see from the right hand anchor in the above picture is that they lack detail and the molding process has resulted in some flash and warping. I decided to try and file them down to remove the excess material and make them look closer to how they appear in the illustrations in Steel. I also decided not to use the PE ring from the kit and instead made one out of paper clips which I wrapped around a drill bit to shape them. I then added the puddening to them with 0.35mm brown rope and seized them with 0.2mm beige rope. The seizing rope was a bit too big, but my only other option is the white fly tying thread I have and I thought the contrast would not look right. You can see in the above image one of the biggest problems I struggled with, getting the primer to stick to the anchors. Despite washing and filing most of the surface off of them, I could not get the primer to hold well. Then I was on to the anchor stock. The kit version did not look enough like the real thing so I scratch built some new ones out of the offcuts of the 3mm laser cut sheet. I used the drawing in Goodwin as a template which I photocopied and resized (with some trial and error) and cut them all to the rough shape before carefully planing and sanding them to the correct size. Then I got to test out my recent acquisition of a mini drill press to drill the bolt holes. With the holes drilled I used black monofilament fishing line to represent the bolts. I put these through before glueing the stock to the anchors to make sure I could get them through properly. Once everything was in place I just used a sharp craft knife to cut off the ends. I then added iron straps using shrink tube and painted the straps and the anchors. I will not go into detail on the painting as I have previously described all these techniques when I did the straps on the boom jaws and when I painted the cannons. Here is the final results. In the end I am pretty pleased with how they turned out and they look reasonably like the real thing.

Looking very nice. The rigging is my favorite stage (apart from the ratlines) for this reason. You start to see the ship come to life. Every block and line you add makes a difference.

Model shipways also has some new blocks which are made from pear and look quite similar to the ones that Vanguard used to supply. Not as good as the Syren blocks, but they do have the smaller sizes you are looking for.

The model is looking good Chris.

Your rope work is an inspiration Johann.

It is not hard to cut the lengths. All you need is a craft knife. and to measure carefully. If you go slowly and carefully you shouldn’t have any problems. As a first time builder I can say I ran into many much harder problems than cutting scale length planks :). I would recommend you plan out the planking pattern and maybe even draw it on the false deck to assist.

You could also try a middle road and wait till after the lower shrouds and ratlines are on. They are are the main reason why you would want unimpeded access to the area. Also they are pretty strong so if you bang them a bit there is not as much risk you will cause damage unlike single lines that are going everywhere later in the build. Though I would fit the PE associated with them before doing the shrouds. Just another option

I like the modifications you are making, they do add some visual interest to the ship.

That is a fantastic display. The root ball really adds to the overall look.

You could definitely do this. There is a cheerful log somewhere (I can't remember which one now, I think the name started with a j) where they did this which might give you ideas. It would be a nice way to make your model a little unique. Back when I was thinking about doing speedy as my second build I did have some thoughts on doing something like this.

Welcome to the forums. That is a nice looking model you have there.

Great job, the flag looks really nice. You should be proud of her.

She looks fantastic BE. Another great build.

No actually there wasn't it is fairly soft and I just pushed it down and it held its shape. It is not particularly strong and I had to use some super glue to hold it in place in the eye splice. As I mentioned I am not sure I would recommend the method. If I was going to do it again I would probably use a harder plastic and heat or just go with brass. I should also say that the pictures are not of the actual thimbles I made as they were too small to really get on camera. So I cut an example thicker slice just to document the process.

Log #84: The Topgallant Yard I continue to slowly pick away at the mainmast. Things are getting really delicate now as there is so much to catch an errant hand on. I have pretty much run out of 0.25mm rope and so had to order some more. As I need this for the topsail bowlines I have two wait before I can finish up the topsail yard. In the meantime I continued to work my way up and next up were the pendant for the topgallant sheets. I had originally planned to use one of the kit provided thimbles, but when I put it on the model it looked completely out of scale so I decided to improvise. First I took a plastic tube I had on hand (I believe it came from a water balloon) and cut off a small piece. Then I used a sculpting tool to press out the sides to make a thimble. I then held these on a pin and painted them black. I cut a piece out of each to make them smaller and open on one end so they bended like a teardrop. Then I sized around them. This was quite a fiddly process and in the end I probably should have just looked harder from some metal I could do this with, but in the end I got them to look ok. Here they are on the model. Next up was the topgallant yard. This was straight forward with an eye splice that I served over to hold the yard. I used 0.25mm rope based on the steel table. The line runs through a sheave in the topgallant mast and down to the base of the mainmast. Here there was a bit of a canundrom. The kit calls for it to be attached to a 4mm double block which then is paired with a 3mm single with a hook attached to the deck (note this double plus single arrangement is also what Peterson describes). However this doesn’t make a lot of sense to me as all the other yards only have two single blocks and they are much bigger and heavier than the topgallant. Furthermore the 0.25mm line looks tiny on the 4mm block. If I had a 3mm double I probably would have used it but in the end I decided to just use two 3mm single blocks. This is also consistent with the Steel table as it only seems to list single blocks for the topgallant halliard. You can see below the upper of these two blocks. As I ran out of 0.25mm rope I can’t finish the tying off of this line until I get the extra I ordered in the mail. And here is the model in her current state. I am getting close to the end now. Just a few more lines to tie off on the mainmast and then I will be on to the bowsprit.