Jared

I am pleased to report that I have completed the mounting of all yards on the mizzen mast, along with the yard lifts and halliards. The rigging of the top-most 3 yards was considerably easier than the lowest 2 yards. I still have a few rope coils to add to a few of the belay pins. My plan is to next mount the yards, lifts and halliards on the for the main mast and then the fore mast, starting in about 3 weeks. Thanks for looking.

I tell you you can't let your mind lapse on this build. I just realized the mizzen topsail yard lifts should have been black, not white. Fortunately the fix was quick and easy: a dab of black paint. I have now mounted the mizzen topgallant yard and installed that yard's hoist.

Thanks George. At times I wonder how I got this far! The rigging really make this model so beautiful.

Progress on my Flying Fish has been slow this past month, due to the difficulty of the work involved with the rigging of the lower mizzen yard and mizzen topmost yard. There were a few times I felt like giving up as the rigging challenges seemed overwhelming, because of the small scale and really tight spaces I had to work with. However with a lot of thinking I came up with some tricks and compromises which allowed me to complete the following: 1. Beginning with the mizzen lower yard, I secured the chain sling and the lower mizzen yard lift. 2. The mizzen topmost was then mounted and the standing lift installed. 3. Rigging the mizzen topmost halliard was the most difficult due to its complexity and the very tight spaces. I had to remove the gin blocks from the model to allow me to run the fine chain though them. To help rig the chain I used fine 0.01" dia thread attached to a fine needle to help me fish the fine chain (see photo) through the gin blocks and eyebolt on the top center of the mast. (I decided to skip creating a gin bolt on the mast). Another simplification I did was to tie a square knot to secure the halliard to the belay pins. The belay pins supplied in the kit are too short to allow rigging around the bottom part of the belay pins. As a rope coil is secured to the belay pins, this hides my simplification. I have attached several photos to help the viewer see how the lines are rigged. Unfortunately with the depth of field limitations of the camera lens and numerous outer lines already on the model, it will be difficult to really understand it all. Thanks for looking.

Excellent work on this George.

It happens to many of us. I abandoned my Flying Fish for about 8 years before pushing myself to get back at it challenges.

A lot of fine demanding work clearly went into building this. I think it looks great!

Wondeful fine work.

Sorry for my 2 month absence. After completing the standing rigging I needed a brief mental rest and time to think about how I would complete the fragile yards with their fittings and tackle the running rigging. This week I built the mizzen topsail, topgallant, royal and skysail yards. They have not yet been permanently attached. Making and soldering together the small trusses on the topgallant and topsail yards was very challenging. Fortunately the yards are painted black, which does a great job of hiding less than stellar workmanship 😬. I have been following the earlier advice to apply super glue into all drilled holes to try to strengthen the spars at these weak points. For these 2 yards I am using straight pins to help secure them to the masts. The last images are of the unpainted and painted mizzen royal yard and the unpainted skysail yard. On all of these yards except the mizzen skysail, I intentionally left a small gap between the vertical and horizontal pairs of eyebolts at the outer ends to reduce the risk of breakage from drolling at this fragile area. Because skysail yard is just to frail, I will omit the eyebolts altogether and simply tie the running rigging to the yard ends.

Sorry you had to spend so many hours interviewing and all for nought. Their loss!

Such beautiful craftsmanship. Well done!

Nice metal work!

Thanks Rob for this great tip.

I am well fixed with all the small tools for rigging. Thanks. Having fragile spars being evenly supported is a must when fitting them with eye bolts and the like. More importantly knowing where both hands are at all times in relation to the pertruding mounted spars is key.

Get a KOTTO Third Hand Soldering Tool. 4 great hands that I find very helpful.. On Amazon.