mysticlee

In the past week I've been updating my spreadsheet for placement of attachment points on the yards and masts. I came across an issue with the standing rigging. The original model plans called for eight stays fastened for each of the port and starboard sides of the fore and main mast. I knew when I started the model in 1977 that that was wrong (as are many other details shown in the plans), and instead reverted to the standing rigging configuration as shown in my copy of Eagle Seamanship (the cadet's bible for learning all things Eagle). It names 14 stays as follows: Shrouds (6) Cap Stay Topmast Backstays (3) Topmast Cap Stay Topgallant Backstays (2) Royal Backstay The diagram in the book shows that the royal backstay and one of the topgallant backstays originating from the same point, and so in my ignorance at the time, I mounted 13 eyes on the model for the attachment points, as shown in the below pics (port-side fore stays on the left, port-side main stays on the right). Of course, I've confirmed in both old and recent photos that there are indeed 14 stays, each with its own attachment (i.e., a turnbuckle attached to a stanchion fastened to the deck through the waist pin rail). What to do? I can see three possibilities: 1) Add an eye either at the aft end of the row, forward end, or somewhere in the middle of the row of eyes. Not a problem for the foremast stays, there's room at the aft end to add an eye with the same spacing as the others. But there's no room at the aft end of the row of mainmast stays, and adding a stay in the middle would, I think, look ugly (that's my technical term for irregular spacing). In the alternative, adding an eye at the forward end of the mainmast stays would put that stay (the first of the six shrouds) forward of the mast...that would be noticeable and certainly not like the actual ship...but relatively easy to do. 2) Double up two stays on one eye (either two at the aft end of the row, or two somewhere in the middle). This would mean two turnbuckles mounted side by side, which would probably mean one or the other would be at an odd angle and not in line with the stay. Again, ugly. 3) Use modeler's discretion and include only two of the three topmast backstays (all three terminate at the same point under the crosstree, so one fewer wouldn't be a problem). Easy to do, not ugly, and not noticeable to the average person. It would be "our" secret. I'm leaning toward option 3). Any thoughts or suggestions? Lee

I've been taking a break from deck fittings to start planning for the masts and yards. The Eagle is a modern steel hull ship, and the yards and masts are also steel, although my model will use wood for those structures (painted spar color). Metal sheaves are used in several places where wooden blocks would be used on wood-hull ships. The picture below shows part of the upper topsail yard and yardarm, with a sheave mounted to the yard to direct the sheet from the topgallant sail above, down and through the sheave, and across the bottom of the upper top yard toward the center. Also note the smaller metal sheave for the upper topsail clew, directing its line also across the bottom of the upper top yard, below the sheet line. I thought I'd try modeling the sheet sheave using brass sheet metal. I cut a 1/8" strip from a sheet of .005" brass, and cut lengths 1/4" long. On each piece, I cut 3 tabs on each end, leaving a 1/8" square within the tabs. Then I cut the outer tabs on each end, leaving a diamond shape with a single tab on each end. I filed the points to a rounded shape, bent the tabs 90 degrees, and cut the tabs short, leaving a little less than 1/32". Using a common pin, I stamped a depression on the inside of the piece, and soldered a short length of 24 gauge wire in the depression. The wire post is inserted in a hole in the yard until the sheave is snug against the yard. This leaves a narrow slot that will accept the sheet line (or chain, as is used for lower yards, if I can find small enough chain), which curves around the wire post. See the pics below for the construction sequence, and showing the sheave test fitted to a dowel similar in size to the modeled yards. The final two pics show the first sheave I made. On all the subsequent ones I cut and filed the tabs a bit shorter to narrow the opening. I made a total of 16 sheaves, two for each of the course, lower top, upper top, and topgallant yards, and ditto for both the fore and main mast yards. The royal yard does not have this sheave, since there is no sail/sheet above. The sheaves will be painted spar color along with the main part of the yard. For the smaller sheave shown in the first pic above, I'm thinking to use a similar technique, but with a second piece as a backing, and tabs only on one end. I'll drill a hole through both front and back pieces, inserting the wire through both, solder the wire on the outside of each disk, and trim/file the wires flush. I'll use a thin spacer (such as wood veneer) in the gap during drilling and soldering. I'll leave tabs long, bend them outward, and shape them into a strap to attach to the yard arm (or in other cases to a line for attachment elsewhere). There's also a double sheave below the center of each yard that redirects the sheet line from each side, downward to the deck. I'll model that sheave similarly. That's all for now. Happy modeling! Lee

Thanks for the complement, John, and for reminding me of their technical name and nickname. We called them the navigator's balls when I sailed. Today on the Eagle, they're painted red and green (port and starboard respectively). And thanks to all for the likes on preceding posts. Lee

Next is the binnacle forward of the main steering. The 1972 photo below (showing two of my classmates manning the helm) shows the binnacle as it was then (now, all but the hood is boxed in with cherry wood). The size of the binnacle is distorted in this photo due to the angle and perspective. I used actual measurements from my visit to Eagle last fall to craft my binnacle. The body and stem are wood, the balls are round ball head pins, and the support bar is brass. The top hood will be painted brass color, the support bar black, and the rest white. I'll add a base ring before mounting on the model.

The Eagle's aft steering (called the Captain's Coffin) is shown below, along with my fabrication. The grid platforms match those I made for the main steering. I fabricated the benches using a block of basswood for the lower part, and pieces of veneer for the sides and back. The benches will be stained to match other bare wood components. I'll add cushions later (using material TBD).

The Eagle's main steering consists of three ten-spoke ship's wheels on a common shaft, with a large support between the forward and middle wheels (which houses the gears), and a small support between the middle and aft wheels. Cadets man the steering, standing on grid platforms on both sides. A small section of grid platform aft of the wheels connects the two side platforms. The pics below are from last fall; the wheels and platforms have not changed over the years (although the aft platform was moved out of view in the right picture below). I had two issues in constructing the ship's wheels and platforms. First, what to use for the wheels? The ideal model wheel would be 18mm in diameter (including the spokes, equal to 6 feet at my model's scale), and would have 10 spokes. And I needed four of them (three for main steering, one for aft steering). The wheels that came with my model are brown plastic, about 13mm diameter (much too small), six spoke, and ugly. I was excited to find the laser cut ship's wheel kit at the Syren Ship Model Company website...10 spokes, wonderful detail, but alas, 15/16" diameter (about 24mm). Unfortunately, being 33% larger than my desired size, I had to look elsewhere. After finding only a few other possibilities, I ended up buying 20mm wheels made by Amati (unfortunately, larger than I wanted, and only 8 spoke, but they're the closest I could find. The second issue was how to fabricate the grid platforms. Again, I found nice boxwood grating kits at Syren, with 3/64"/1.19mm gratings. That grating size would have been larger than desired, but I would have settled for that, had their grids been thinner. Instead, I found .8mm x .8mm laser cut cardboard grating at ModelNet (UK), still larger than desired, but the absolute smallest I could find. While I was waiting for delivery (several weeks), I drew and printed a rough pattern, and planned the dimensions for all of the grids (include two needed for aft steering). Once the grid material arrived, I cut sections to the appropriate size, and attachd strips of veneer for the edging. I used small pieces of dowel for the feet. I glued the three sections of grid together with PVA, and reinforced the joints underneath. Shown below are the pattern and grids. I made the wheel supports from pieces of sheet metal around a wooden core. As a compromise (designer's choice), I omitted the large openings that show on the actual supports, and the fore-aft dimension of the smaller support is a bit larger than actual. The larger support will be painted a brass color (If I get ambitious I may re-make it using brass metal), and the smaller support will be painted spar color. The borders of the grid platforms will be stained to match other bare wood components. I may stain or paint the grids too, as long as I can do so without filling in the holes in the grids. Testing on a few scraps will tell me what can be done.

A set of storage bins are mounted on the railing along each side of the aft foredeck, overhanging the narrow part of the waist deck between the galley, scullery, etc., and the railing, ending forward at the ladders up to the foredeck. In 1972, the bins on the starboard side were shorter than those on the port side. The pics below facing aft, starboard on the left, port on the right (the latter pic showing only part of the bins) are from my Europe cruise in 1972. I modeled these with basswood. Each set of bins is one piece of wood, with lines scored to divide the sections. The lids are low-tech, pieces of card stock cut to shape. All will be painted white (they look white in the pics, that's just the lighting), and eventually affixed to the railing.

The Eagle has four ladders (staircases for landlubbers): two (port and starboard) from the foredeck to the waist (main deck), and two (port and starboard) from the waist to the mizzen deck. The pictures below that I took on the Eagle in August 2024 show a closeup of the starboard aft ladder. As best I can tell from pics I took in 1972, the ladders have not changed. A plug for the Eagle permanent crew: I was given topside access to the Eagle one day in the fall last year, before normal visiting hours, to take as many pictures as I wanted. Many thanks! I had the good fortune of a friend giving me a box of 50 sheets of furniture veneer samples. The pearwood sample was a nice color with very straight grain. I used it for constructing the steps, stringers, and railings. The support bars are made from 24 gauge wire soldered together. The bars were glued to the wood components using CA. The pics below show the steps being built, and the completed steps test fitted at the aft end of the waist. I'll be finishing the wood with stain and (probably) poly later, along with all other bare wood fixtures. I made use of the veneer in a few other fixtures, as I'll show in upcoming posts.

Thank you Kenneth! The Eagle sails with two motor surf boats housed on davits. The model of motor surf boat has changed over the years (generally about 30 foot), but I was able to identify the model that we had in 1972. I used multiple photos to determine the size and configuration of the davits and boats, and crafted them from basswood as shown below. The davits are not quite finished; I still need to add the hand-crank handles. The davits will be painted with Coast Guard spar color, as will the interior of the boats. The boat hulls will be totally white (no racing stripe!), with black trim along the rub rail. The rudder is temporarily fitted in the picture below, and the propeller and shaft are not shown but have been fabricated. I'll be adding eyes fore and aft on the boat deck for the lifting points. Another little detail was the ship's bell. I had several photos of the bell, both from 1972 (shown below) and current; it has not changed over the years. I attempted to make a bell from a piece of copper grounding wire. It was looking decent, although not how I really wanted it to look. About that time, a friend offered me a ship's bell from another model of very similar scale, so I used that instead, and made the support pole and bracket. The bell will remain brass, while the pole and bracket will be painted spar color. More to follow!

Oops! Didn't mean to attach the above picture! It's one I took during the 1972 Eagle cruise to Europe. I'm using this and many others I took as a guide to the ship's configuration as it was then, as opposed to how it's configured now (several notable differences).

The barque Eagle has steel masts and steel yards, and metal bands are used at various attachment points (which are either eyes or tabs in most cases). Examples are shown below. On the model, the diameter of masts and yards range from 7/32" (on the masts) to 3/32" (on the royal yardarms). The widths of the various bands will scale (actually, wider than proper scale) to as small as 1/16", or maybe 3/32". I'd like to fabricate bands wherever there's an attachment point (as opposed to omitting the bands entirely), so the question is how to fabricate? I searched on the forum and found modelers using several techniques such as soldered brass bands on larger models, and other materials glued on smaller models (including car detailing tape, masking tape, electrical tape, circuit layout tape, paper, etc.). Considering the size of my model, I wanted bands that would look relatively realistic, easy to fabricate and install, and reasonably easy to drill through (with a #78 or 0.016" bit) without distorting the band. I tested two materials. First I used 1/16" wide strips of heavy bond paper, affixed to a 1/8" test piece using PVA glue, then drilled and installed two test eyes. These were easy to make, although gluing required some fiddling to keep the bands straight. Drilling through was easy enough, although the end of one of the bands lifted when I drilled. See below. I'm wondering if a coat of shellac before drilling would hold the band together. This might possibly be an acceptable method, especially once it's painted Coast Guard spar color (as all of the masts and yards will be, except white for the yardarms). Next, I tried fabricating a band using a strip of aluminum flashing (because I had some available). I didn't glue it in place for this test, but I would use CA if I end up using this method. This looks a lot nicer, although the metal may be thicker (i.e., stands out more from the mast) than it should be. Bending the strip into the proper size circle was tedious (and would be even more so for the smallest size I need), and drilling was more difficult (these tiny drill bits don't drill through metal very well). I'll try testing a few other materials to see if I can improve on the results above. And I'll continue to document other fittings that I made over the past seven months.

It's been far too long since I last posted progress on my Eagle model. Over the last seven months, I've been working on many of the deck fittings, and my amateur modeling skills has made it slow going (learning as I go), but I've been particularly negligent about documenting my work. I'll take the time over the next several days to catch up on what I've accomplished so far. As I showed on an earlier post, I was making turnbuckles from brass tube and wire. I finished 80 long turnbuckles (for the lower shrouds and stays) and 40 short turnbuckles (for the upper shrouds and bowsprit stays). Samples are shown below. One end of each turnbuckle is left open so it can be attached to the corresponding attachment point on the deck. I needed to fabricate eyes for several deck attachment points (other than ones that I had already installed), and I elected to use a different method than I used previously. Having searched in this forum for various techniques, I settled on a twisted stem technique, expecting it to have stronger holding power, and being quite easy to make. I looped a length of 26 gauge brass wire around a straight pin (anchored to my work surface), and hand-wound the ends to form the eye using a wooden handle drill chuck to hold the ends. I made 16 of these eyes, as shown below. I'll cut them to length when I drill the holes, and I'll use CA to glue them in place.

Taking a break from my production line of turnbuckles, I turned my attention to the radar enclosure which is mounted on the foremast (below the fore yard). Using numerous photos both from my archive and from current sources, I determined the size and shape of the enclosure for my model. The radar enclosure in 1972 consisted of a pair of horizontal concentric circles of steel bars about 8 feet in diameter, separated by about 30 inches, and connected by several vertical bars, and about 20 inches below which was a small platform connected to the above circles with additional bars, to support the actual radar sweep mechanism. The current radar enclosure is more oblong and includes an additional support for other electronics. Below is my plan for the radar enclosure, and two photos of the fabricated enclosure, made with 1mm brass rods and wood for the platform, radar sweep and mount. For simplicity, I elected to place the support bars at the front and both sides, whereas the actual enclosure has more bars at different points around the circles. I left the attachment points longer than needed until I determine the exact rake of the foremast. The enclosure will be painted Coast Guard spar color, the radar sweep and its mount will be painted white, and the circular bars will be covered with baggywrinkle which will hide some of the imperfections (I haven't decided how to make baggywrinkle yet).

Follow-up: I tested with a 16.9 ounce (500ml) bottle of water as a weight, 1 pound 2 ounces, and saw no deformation of the eyes. Even 1 pound seems more than the amount of strain that would exist on the model shrouds. To recap, I passed a piece of 28 gauge half-hard brass wire through a 1mm round brass tube (forming the body of the turnbuckle), and formed an eye in the wire at each end. Anybody have any thoughts on how eyes formed this way hold up when tightening up the shrouds, backstays, etc.? Lee

John, thanks for the question, I didn't think this would be an issue. I was hoping since I'm using half-hard wire that it would be stiff enough after closing the eye with fine pliers. Not sure how much strain the eyes would be subject to when tightening the shrouds and all other stays. So I did some testing. First, I closing both eyes with pliers, attached a line to each eye, hung a 5 pound weight on one of the eyes and held the string on the other eye, and tried lifting the weight...one of the eyes bent open. Next, I soldered the eyes on another test piece (not easy, one eye got filled with solder, had to fiddle with it to clear the eye and make it look decent), then repeated the test with the 5 pound weight...it also bent open (broke the solder joint). My sense is that 5 pounds is way more strain than would occur on the model. Before doing the above test, I pulled on attached lines by hand, and the eyes seemed to hold up ok. Obviously, I didn't pull 5 pounds worth. Do you have any idea how much strain I would expect on the shrouds on the model? Any suggestions? Lee