wefalck

Good ! So, hopefully you will be back here in the not too distant future 🙂

Checked on 'hansard' yesterday, as confusing 'u' and 'n' is quite frequent, but none of my dictionaries knew this vernacular term from Normandy ... learned something

Well, when I wrote the above article, I had a minimal toolkit, just a pair of pointed tweezers and fine sewing needles. My smallest blocks were 2.5 mm long, if recall correctly. You can fiddle a wire through the bore in the block and attach then the wire firmly to something on your worktable, e.g. a pin driven into it. In this way the block doesn't jump around. You then form the fake splice away from the block and pull it down to the block as close as you can. Secure the splice with a drop of varnish and cut the loose end as close as possible, then roll the splice between your fingers after having detached the block from the wire loop. No magic, just quiet patience.

I agree with the others: a job well done !

He's got a screen printing facility for which apparently he wants quite a bit of money. While screen printing in principle is a good technology, today there are probably digital technologies that do the same job with similar accuracy for less money ... just contact him, discuss and decide ...

The gentleman, who runs http://www.schiffsmodellflaggen.de/ is in his nineties and only sells remaining stocks, as he wants to close down his business. Hence, not everything may be available anymore.

It's OK, didn't have time to make an excerpt myself. Most commercial 'rigging threads' I am aware off are glorified sewing threads and they do not separate very well into individual strands. This doesn't matter too much: with a sewing needle you stich just through them, which is good enough. Once I am happy with the position, I dab the 'splice' in a bit of matt varnish and roll it between the fingers - this makes it look like the real thing.

I actually never understood the concept of a 'first' model, where one gets bored after a while and cuts corners. Either you toss this into the bin (with all the effort wasted) or it will be there as a constant reminder of not having done it right. When I built my first ship-model as an adult, which was semi-scratch), I had literally no source of advice, but went to the library and found books on how things were done in detail on real ships, I used this is guidance. And I tried to reproduce the bits and pieces as well as I could with the tools and materials that were available to me 40+ years ago. Today, one can get well-founded advice easily, access to tools and materials is to much easier now (though certain types of materials have disappeared from the market since), so that the need to 'cut corners' out of ignorance is greatly reduced. It's only one's lazyness and impatience to battle with ... and this is sad for those who genuinely want to help and provide the advice they wished they had in earlier times ...

If you download this article I wrote in 1980, on the second page there is a sketch (no. 13 and 14) for how to make fake splices and how to tie in blocks: https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/tips/FALCK-SM-5-80.pdf This was written at a time, when there was no Internet to ask questions, but one had some books on full-size practice and then deducted some useful practice for modelling.

And keep in mind, that with blocks, no knots are needed anyway, just 'fake' splices that are easily achieved with an ordinary sewing needle ...

Perhaps getting some proper 'model rope' will help. These are somewhat stiffer and keep in shape - apart from looking like the real thing. There are European sources (e.g. Morope) or from 'Chuck' here on the forum, if you are in Northamerica.

The point is to be cautious with 'sources' and to understand that for certain questions there are not definitive answers, but only probabilities ... it is a good idea to understand this as early as possible in order not to run into unresolvable issues.

Almost certainly no specific ones, as this was an artisanal job for the shipyard and to be maintained on board a ship.

Gregory, have a look at how the hooks are put into the eye-bolts. They are the wrong way around. This gives the impression that the rigg has been restored at some point. Ooops ... posted this at the same time as you, Allen.

Historical insight determines what needs to be done - not convenience ...

I would recommend to ignore instructions in kits - sometimes they are good, sometimes they are bad, but in most cases they provide simple solutions that are often far from what the real thing would have looked like. The guys of old knew what they were doing and their methods have been tested and refined over the centuries. So, within the limits of materials availability and your own capabilities, it is always a good idea to follow prototype practice as closely as possible. Perhaps also a word of clarification: 'seizing' means to attach something with a thin rope, similar to sewing. This is not normally done with blocks at all ! What you are interested in is 'stropping', which consists of making a loop of rope and putting it closely around items such as blocks or also spars. These strops are usually tightened with the help of 'seizing', but the seizings go around the rope, not around blocks or spars. I am not an expert on 18th century rigging, but have the strong feeling that the kit instructions are not quite correct. The masts on such 'long-boats' are rigged only temporarily and were easy to strike. In the 18th century wrought-iron bands with eye-bolts were not very commong and I would not expect such fitting on a relatively thin mast as that of the long-boat. It would have been more likely that the mast was provided with shoulders at the locations, where the standing rigging would attach and where any blocks would attach. A spliced strop would fit tighly around the mast and block forming a figure of eight, being tied down in the middle with a seizing. It is quite easy to form such strops from rigging thread (or better real 'rope') using a fake splice, i.e. pushing the ends through each other with the help of a sewing needle. The fake splice then is secured with a drop of varnish. With a much thinner thread you tie the strop to a figure of eight going around the block and the mast. The whole thing then is secured again with a drop of varnish. Such an arrangement would also prevent the eye sticking too far out as in the kit instructions.

Normally, if you have an iron band around a spar it would have one or more eyebolt attached to it (the method depends on the period). Blocks stropped with a rope would have an eye formed with that rope. This eye would be formed around a metal cringle which goes through the eye of a hook. This hook would be hooked into the eyebolt on the mast and the hook is secured with a 'musing', which is twine wound around the neck of the hook and its tip (which slightly bent up to prevent the twine from slipping). In the second half of the 19th century the hook would be replaced by a shackle (this only became an option once threads had been standardised). At the same time (internal) iron stropped appeared, which also would be attached with shackles.

I am fixing things such as the hanks and knots with a dab of solvent-based varnish. A drop of solvent allows you soften this, if you need to move the part. As to the serving machine: - you could add wooden stay at the top to keep the sides spread and/or - use a kind of serving mallet, i.e. a short piece of brass tube to fit over the rope to which a 'handle' is hard-soldered; cut/grind away about half of the tube opposite the handle; the serving yarn is wound a couple of time around the handle for friction - this device allows you to keep the tension on the serving yarn, while not pulling on the rope to be served - there are other somewhat more sophisticated version her on the forum, check out e.g. 'archjofo's' log.

What are 'turbo' carvers ? Any picture or link ?

Looking at the sail, I am wondering, why you have both ends of the reefing points at the same side of the sail ? Was this indicated so in the kit instructions ? Normally, they would go from one side to another, secured in the middle by a kind of not and or sewn onto the sail on one side. Below is an image of a slightly larger boat type (also with painted sails) from the lagoon in Venice in the Naval Museum there:

Enamel as on pots is something different from 'enamels' as in paints ... Enamel as on pots is a layer of glass. It is applied as a layer of a glass-powder mixed with some flux on the bare metal, which is then heated in a furnace to the melting temperature of the glass. A technique thousands of years old. I believe 'enamels' as in paints are named so because they form a hard and smooth layer resembling real enamel.

I would look into a BlueTooth connection, as a cable in practice is rather cumbersome on the worktable ...

As usual great attention to detail and the real shapes of things !

Re. the bottom of the archipelago ... I am a geologist, after all, who studied in Kiel I tried small paint rollers on paper sails, but it does not work very well, as it leaves a slightly rough surface - foam is better than fleece. However, spray-painting is the best solution. At the beginning I used the frame-method or suspended the paper from its corners. Today, I cover a piece of cardboard with clingfilm and lighly tape the paper onto this - make sure to not wet the paper too much, as then the back will not look nice, with paint accumulating at certain points due to capillary effects. In this way I also make 'built' sails, i.e. sails composed of individual paper strips to simulate the cloths and doublings.

I gather the bottom of the archipelago would be glacial till with a lot of pebbles of various sizes on the surface, so a grapnel would be a good choice.