cdrusn89

I have the mizzen shrouds in place and the lanyards strung but not yet "secured". I probably should have thought of this before but with all three masts in place (but only one with any 'adjustment" ability left without major rework) I should check to see if they are aligned. Given the cross section of the fore and main masts it seems unlikely (IMHO) that they could have been pulled out of alignment during the shroud installation but... So I got my laser level out to check. I lined things up so the head of the figurehead and the center of the foremast were aligned. Then, since the level is just below the level of the model I added pieces of card stock with lines perpendicular to the bottoms to see how the main and mizzen masts looked. If the laser was level with the model the main mast would show directly but that would involve stacking boxes of something to get the laser higher and the card stock seemed easier. Main mast The line is actually directly behind the mast but I had to take the picture from the side to avoid getting in the way of the laser. Mizzen Mast Everything looks okay so I can proceed to tie off the mizzen mast lanyards and return to my favorite activity - ratlines and such.

Now that I have "experimented" with rigging the lower shrouds on the fore and main masts I believe (IMHO) that I have "arrived" at the procedure that works (for me). Too late to go back and "fix" the fore and main but the next time I encounter shroud cleats I will remember (I hope) what I learned here. I explained (briefly) the pre-made seizings process in post 379 and that is where I will start. I made up sets of seizings in three sizes .047", .050" and .065". The mizzen shrouds are .025" Syren line served for a length of about 2" in the center where the shroud will pass around the mast. As I explained previously the pre-made seizings diameter (the diameter of what they are wound around) should be slightly less that the combined diameters of the lines to be joined. The .047s are to join the unserved part of the shrouds and the .050s are for the served part at the mast head. I use a piece of wood (tongue depressor) with double sided tape on it to hold the seizings so they don't "get lost". For each shroud I will need two .047s, two .065s and one .050. I used 1.5mm pieces for one of the .047s and the .050 and then 1mm lengths for the rest. First is the 1.5mm .050 which forms the loop that goes around the mast head. I try and get the loop in the center of the served section. This (of course) goes over the mast head and the ends lead down to the channels. I have found it a good idea to secure the joint between the two shroud lines before proceeding further. Don't ask me how I know but manipulating the shrouds while adding the deadeye can cause the seizing to slip down the shrouds and that can mess up your carefully preserved deadeye alignment. With the shroud end ready for deadeye installation the other for four seizing are added in this order 1mm .047, both 1mm .065s and last the 1.5mm .047. Then the shroud is led around the deadeye on your carefully constructed deadeye "holder" and the 1.5mm .047 is glued in place while the bitter end is under tension. Care is needed to keep the bitter end aft of the standing end. Now the first of the 1mm .065s is brought down above the deadeye seizing. I modified the shroud cleats so that the surface that lies on the shrouds is tapered a bit at each end. Unmodified on the top. Keeping track of which side faces out I insert the shroud cleat between the shrouds and the seizing which has been sized for this purpose (after a number of false starts). Then the second 1mm .065 captures the other end and the shroud lines are adjusted so there is no slack, A drop of thin CA glues the assembly together. I am leaving the remaining 1mm .047 "adrift for the moment as I want to get the shroud bitter ends all aligned once the deadeye lashings are in place. So here is the forward most shroud temporarily lashed in place with the shroud cleat. Hopefully the tension from the line secured to this cleat (which runs forward) will help get the deadeye better aligned as it wants to twist the forward edge inboard. My intention is to belay the lashing with half hitches above the shroud cleat and below the last .047 seizing.

I guess no additional ratlines are required for those who choose to go through the "lubbers hole". They would certainly be a challenge to tie if the futtock shrouds were in place.

Starboard side Main Mast ratlines done (except for trimming the ends). On the main I started at the bottom and worked up (obviously) one row at a time in sequence (no skipping) starting from the aft edge until about row 15 when I noticed a tendency to distort the shrouds. Then I switched directions (work from aft then work from forward as I moved up. When I got to about row 20 the aft two shrouds were so close together that the two knots were starting to force the shrouds apart so I skipped the inner (#7) of the two. A row or two more and I had to do similarly at the forward end skipping shroud #2. Now for some fun rigging the mizzen upper deadeyes and then on to the port side main ratlines.

Mizzen mast shrouds in place and templates for upper deadeyes fabricated and in place. I have been alternating between main mast ratlines and working the mizzen shrouds.

Mizzen mast in place (but not glued) and Burton pendants installed while I start on the Main mast ratlines.

While tying off the lanyards on the Main Mast and with the shroud cleats in mind it might have made sense to either raise the entire set of main mast upper deadeyes so the after 3/4 of them would be above the railing or just raise the aft ones although I do not believe I have ever seen upper deadeyes that were not at a constant heigth. As they stand mine are near the upper limit (three times the deadeye diameter) but unless the after cleats are little used working them with the railing in the way would have. not been any "fun".

Foremast lower rigging (lower shrouds, futtock shrouds and associated ratlines) completed - well almost completed - need to trim off those ends. The other side looks similar but the site will not download that photo for some reason. On to the Main mast

And here I thought ratlines were a pain. At least that is the same pain over and over and over. Futtock shrouds are another whole level. I cut the futtock shrouds extra long as I really had not figured out how I was going to get them installed when I started. As it turned out that was a good thing. One thing for those that follow - the eye in the PE-57 hooks provided need to be drilled out (I used a #68 drill bit) to get the .5mm line through (or my paint job is really thick - not likely since it was sprayed on). I followed the kit plans for how the futtock shrouds are located - from the futtock plate down around the futtock stave and then up along side the lower shroud and then secured to the lower shroud with seizings. Lennarth Petersson's book shows the futtock shrouds wrapping around the futtock stave and being seized to the lower shrouds below the futtock stave. For the fore mast the second, third, fifth and sixth lower shrouds are where the four futtock shrouds terminate. Here is the second (from the bow) futtock shroud in position. The green arrow points to the futtock shroud, the orange arrow to the third lower shroud. The extra length of the futtock shroud allows me to run the end up into and across the top and then hang a weight on the end to keep it in place while I secure it to the lower shroud. I use Syren .008 brown line to "seize" the futtock and lower shrouds together. Here the orange arrow shows the line that will be used to join the lines I used a simple overhand knot and kept the line just above the stave. A drop of thin CA secures the knot (and the two lines together). A second knot is added just under the ratline The ends of the "seizings" are trimmed off and the futtock shroud is cut off just above the ratline - I use cuticle shears to cut lines in these areas as they are easier (for me) to control and their sharp point makes getting into tight places (like here) easier. And when the futtock shrouds are all in place - MORE RATLINES!

Here are the fore mast port side shrouds complete - at least for now - still have to add the catharpins. Hopefully next time I can get the ratlines without so much slack.

If I had it to do over again I would add the cleats as I was tightening the shrouds. The drawing shows the cleats just above the upper deadeye so they should not interfere with the ratlines. The one down side that I see is that if you are using a ratline spacing template behind the shrouds the cleats may make getting that situated satisfactorily more difficult than not having them there.

And now for the shroud cleats. This is my first model with this interesting "feature". I assume these replace the typical pin rails along the bulwarks but seem (to me) to produce a "forest" of line coils hanging down in the areas where men would be working - and hurrying (hopefully) to their "battle stations". That said I should have recognized that it would have been easier (I think) to install the shroud cleats when the upper deadeyes were attached to the shrouds. I would have used larger pre-made seizings for the upper two and seized both the bitter end of the shroud and the shroud cleat at the same time. As it is the shroud cleat does not have a smooth surface to attach to since the upper seizings stand off a bit from the shroud lines. At the moment I am inclined to glue the shroud cleat to whatever surface I can find and then add some .008" lashings. Hopefully this will be strong enough to support the tension that these cleats must care. Hopefully the ratlines will distribute the loan across the entire shroud set so the running rigging tension does n ot distort the shrouds. time will tell. Here is the first cleat on the fore shrouds. This one was probably the easiest since it has the least access obstructions.

Port side of Fore Mast ratlines "done". Not as disagreeable as I remembered but then this is only about 15% of the ratlines required. Hopefully I will get better with more "practice" as I see several places where the line should have been shorter. These are all clove hitches now that I have a detailed picture to go by. Somehow pictures (which I got from NRG) seem to help more than words. I am hoping the gentle curve of the forwardmost shroud is an optical illusion because of the camera angle.

Knowing that ratlines are "in my future" and recognizing that it as heen 4-5 years since I had to rig ratlines like these I decided to "try before buying" as i am loath to mess up the shrouds that seem to have been so difficult for me to get "right". So I built a mock-up of the fore mast and the first five shrouds using the same shroud lines as on the model (no serving) to give me something to practice on. For some reason the cropped version of this photo will not upload so forgive the cluttered background. I used Gutermann Tera 60 Color 131 polyester thread to rig the ratlines. It is very close to the line provided in the kit but I feel more comfortable with 600m of line as I anticipate using it liberally. So I rigged three rows of ratlines on the mock-up. Here they are with the 6mm template behind. And with the template turned around Not too bad. However I noted that dilute PVA does not seem to hold very well with the polyester ratlines and polyester cotton (exact proportions unknown) shrouds. On the upper two ratlines I resorted to thin CA once I was sure I had the ratline where it was supposed to be. I am going to do a few more ratlines using the Syren .008" tan line for the ratlines to see if the dilute PVA will work any better. The line is thicker than the .1mm that is supposed to be in the kit but I measured the line diameter with the calipers (okay I am squeezing the line between the calipers but...) the Syren shows .0045" (considerably less than the advertised .008), the Gutermann that came with the kit measured .0035 and the Tera 60 Gutermann used here at .0040. So given that there isn't much difference in squeezed diameter I may go with the Syren simply becasue I have more experience using it.

Fore Mast lower shrouds tied off and lanyards trimmed. It looks better than my first attempt. I think I got the upper deadeyes about as lined up as I am capable of. Main Mast is next. I am thinking about starting the ratlines before I move on much more on the Main so I am not faced with six sets of ratlines one after the other. ratlines are NOT my favorite activity.

For the main mast I decided to build two "jigs". Not much extra work as long as you decide you want two at the beginning. Same technique as on the fore mast although now I can move from side to side as I work fore to aft.

I got the fore mast lower shrouds lanyards rigged and the deadeyes came out reasonably even. I have not tied the lanyards off yet they are tensioned by weights hung on the lanyard end after it exits the last hole of the lower deadeye. You can't see that because they do not seem to want to line up with the lower deadeye - they want to twist with the forward edge moving outboard. Probably due to the twist in the shroud line. Not sure what, if anything I can do about that except try and remove as much of the twist as I can once the shrouds are in place on the mast. I an attempt to try and get some of the twist out I used tongue depressors on each side of the line of upper deadeyes than clamped them together. If I leave them like this while I work the shrouds/deadeyes on the other masts they may "take"but only time will tell. I may decide to rig a sheer pole to try and make them line up better.

They are called ZIP seizings and I found them on here:http://www.shipmodeling.ca. At the time the site was free now it is $45 for a lifetime subscription. I have used them almost exclusively for the last ten years or so. I do not want to deprive the site of their revenue so here is a brief description of how I use ZIP seizings. The first step is to determine what size line you need to join. As a general rule I size the seizing to just under the combined diameters of the lines to be joined. In the case of the shrouds on Sphinx where I am using .030" shroud lines I use a ZIP seizing of 0.052" inside diameter. To make the seizing you need a shaft (drill bits work for me) of the appropriate diameter - a #55 is .052" so that is what I used for the shroud seizings. In addition to the drill bit (shaft) you need a small sheet of wood with a brass strip glued on it. Here you see (this is for .078" diameter I use it only for illustration - this would be used for a Main stay using .045" line) the drill bit in the vise and the wooded/brass piece with a (in this case) .078" hole drilled through both pieces. I use .008" Syren line to make the seizing but anything of that general size will work - too small and there is not enough area to hold the glue, too large and it looks out of scale. Put a weight (spring clamp will work) on one end of the line and it wrap tightly around the shaft pushing the wrappings together as you go. I use 25 - 30 loops usually. More and it gets harder to pull the tube off the shaft. With a weight on both ends add thin CA to the line making sure it flows around the bottom so the entire line is covered in CA. When the CA is dry (typically less than a minute) take off one of the weights and use the wooden backer to pull the "tube" of line off the shaft. I leave one clamp attached as the line usually comes off the shaft when you least expect it and I have been unable to locate the little bugger after it hit the floor more than a few times. The clamp reduces the radius of movement and makes it easier to find on the floor. You now have a "tube" of hardened line that you slip (in a manner of speaking) over the two lines to be joined and there is enough friction (if the tube has been sized correctly) to hold position under most reasonable circumstances and dilute PVA or thin CA (depending on the circumstances) can be added to increase the holding power. I built a jig (several actually) to cut the tube in consistent lengths - this is the 1mm jig, I have 1.5 and 2mm ones as well. I use a razor blade to cut the tube. The brass channel is there so the the slot doesn't widen out with use as is likely if I only had the wood there. To thread the line through (actually the second line, the first one is no problem) I dip the end in thin CA and when hardened cut it diagonally to help get the second line through the tube. It takes some practice but IMHO it beats the daylights out of tying three seizings on each shroud. And it is not limited to shrouds. I use them to attach blocks to spars and most anywhere a seizing is needed.

I used a piece of .008" Syren line to attempt a "throat seizing" just above the deadeye and then used a trio of pre-made seizings to replicate what is shown in the drawing. I had to be careful to keep the bitter end aft of the deadeye as that is what the drawing shows and it was not that easy to keep straight with the long bitter end. I finished everything off with dilute white glue and will trim the ends and the "throat seizing" lines after I remove the deadeyes from the jig. Assuming that all goes as planned I will move the jig over to the port side and "rinse and repeat".

So I remade the fore mast shrouds and installed them. I have my jig but I only made one so I either make another (would have been easier to make two before I glued the wires in) or take my chances doing all the deadeyes on one side and then the other. I have weights on the port side shrouds and think that will make it easier to tie off the starboard side shrouds without pulling the mast out of alignment. Given the diameter of the mast I think pulling it out of alignment would be "really hard". I am not sure that the smaller diameter shrouds made much difference at the mast head. I still have to trim off the "keeper" on the forward all served shroud.

When I got the Sphinx back on the workbench I decided that the foremast shrouds did not turn out as well as I remembered so I removed them and started over. One of the problems I encountered was my inability to get the upper deadeyes to line up in a more or less straight line. I know this should be "child's play" by now but either i have lost the "touch" or forgotten how I did this "before". I has been four of five years since I had to deal with deadeye/shrouds so maybe I am experiencing a "senior moment" and it will all come back to me - someday. in the meantime I thought maybe I could set up a jig to allow all the deadeyes on one side to be made up at the same time. I made a copy of the part of Sheet 15 that shows the forward channels. If there is a 1/64th scale drawing that shows the upper deadeyes I cannot find it so a drawing with the lower deadeyes will have to do. NOTE - make sure your printer is set for full scale (100% on mine). Don't ask me how I know but using any other scale will not yield satisfactory results which may not be obvious until the entire jig is completed. I cut out the relevant portion of the drawing and extended a line from the lower deadeye bottom hole and the end of the chain plate up to locate where the upper deadeyes would go. I used some spray adhesive to glue the paper to a 1.5mm thick piece of boxwood. I drew a line about 18mm above the top of the lower deadeye and used the intersection of the lines as the location of the upper hole in the upper deadeye. I then drilled a #68 (.032") hole at each point. I cut some short pieces of .032" music wire and one at a time put the wire in the hole and a deadeye over the wire making sure the deadeye was oriented correctly then marked the lower forward hole and drilled this as well. The end result is 14 holes marking two of the holes in each of the upper deadeyes. I then put the wires in the holes and added a drop, or two of medium CA. I cut the wire long enough so it sticks out of both sides about 7-8mm so I can use the jig on either side. I drilled out the holes in two of the lower deadeyes and used more music wire pieces to secure the jig to the channel and mounted the seven 5mm deadeyes for the starboard shrouds. Now I have to make up the shroud lines (serving and all) and see if this is any better (for me) than doing it "by eye".

It has been more than two months since I last posted and I have been busy, just not on building ship models. It all started when the contractor began the bathrooms "redo". Unfortunately the path to the bathrooms leads directly through my workshop so everything came to a standstill during the rip out phase. When the tile removal and drywall work started it quickly became obvious that unless I wanted everything covered with a thick coat of dust I better get everything under cover or somewhere else. So I emptied the workshop benches and shelves into the garage. When the work was finally done I decided that since I had the workshop empty it would be a good time to upgrade things (like lighting and new cabinets), paint, drywall patching etc. which took another week or so. Now things are back in place (I even have some empty space in the cabinets now - I still have some "stuff" in the garage awaiting a "need" to find it a home) and work can begin again.

Fore mast lower shrouds and deadeyes in place and rigged. I have to tie off the lanyards yet but am wondering about the next step(s) after that.. I could go ahead and bit the bullet and rig the ratlines now and then the Carpathians before moving on to the main mast. Or just move on now while I remember the "lessons learned" from the foremast - like to keep the bitter end of the shroud on the same side as the standing end at each shroud - dah! I need to find a better way of determining which side of the shroud wants to face outboard. On more than one occasion I had to reverse that orientation because the deadeye refused to face outboard despite repeated twistings and tension on the lanyards.

Soon you too can join the rigging fun - assuming you are going to rig yours.

Thanks TBlack - will give that a try on the Main Mast. Starboard side of fore mast is done but on this side I did not more or less permanently 'install" the deadeyes. I am going to start rigging the lanyards and hopefully if a deadeye needs to be moved up or down (hopefully only a small amount if at all) I can do that before they are "secured". On the port side I am pretty much stuck with whatever is "there" now. Hopefully I can use more or less tension in the lanyards to even the deadeyes out. So I think I will rig the lanyards on each mast before moving on to the next. Am considering doing the ratlines as well. I am not sure I want to "prolong the agony" but my shoulders do not hold up as well as the used to doing ratlines and this is my first experience with three masts of them.