wefalck

Black vs. brown is really a question of period (and region perhaps). From about the 1840s on large quantities of coal tar became available from the production of city gas and coke for steel making. So from the middle of the 19th century on black became more dominant. 
A dark brown might be a good commercial compromise, as it can be ‚tarred over‘ on the model with black ink.
 I never use CA or PVA for stabilising knots. A fast drying varnish is preferable, as the stabilisation is reversible using a drop of solvent. I am using the kind of varnish that is used to prevent silverware or brass from tarnishing. It stays a bit flexible.
 I also use this to coerce ropes into the desired curves.
 I make my own rope from polyester fly-tying thread and did not have serious fraying problems, when soaking the end in the varnish. Similarly, I soak the area of a cut before cutting. One needs to use sharp blades or scissors in order to avoid squashing the rope, which leads to fraying.

Black vs. brown is really a question of period (and region perhaps). From about the 1840s on large quantities of coal tar became available from the production of city gas and coke for steel making. So from the middle of the 19th century on black became more dominant. 
A dark brown might be a good commercial compromise, as it can be ‚tarred over‘ on the model with black ink.
 I never use CA or PVA for stabilising knots. A fast drying varnish is preferable, as the stabilisation is reversible using a drop of solvent. I am using the kind of varnish that is used to prevent silverware or brass from tarnishing. It stays a bit flexible.
 I also use this to coerce ropes into the desired curves.
 I make my own rope from polyester fly-tying thread and did not have serious fraying problems, when soaking the end in the varnish. Similarly, I soak the area of a cut before cutting. One needs to use sharp blades or scissors in order to avoid squashing the rope, which leads to fraying.

Black vs. brown is really a question of period (and region perhaps). From about the 1840s on large quantities of coal tar became available from the production of city gas and coke for steel making. So from the middle of the 19th century on black became more dominant. 
A dark brown might be a good commercial compromise, as it can be ‚tarred over‘ on the model with black ink.
 I never use CA or PVA for stabilising knots. A fast drying varnish is preferable, as the stabilisation is reversible using a drop of solvent. I am using the kind of varnish that is used to prevent silverware or brass from tarnishing. It stays a bit flexible.
 I also use this to coerce ropes into the desired curves.
 I make my own rope from polyester fly-tying thread and did not have serious fraying problems, when soaking the end in the varnish. Similarly, I soak the area of a cut before cutting. One needs to use sharp blades or scissors in order to avoid squashing the rope, which leads to fraying.

Just a thought: if you use a ‚hot knife‘ to cut the rope after laying it, you have done the cutting and the melting at the same time.
 
BTW: did you mean 275 F or 275 C ?  I have a hot-air soldering iron that can be adjusted from 100 C to 400 C and should try it, while rope is still on the rope-walk.

Black vs. brown is really a question of period (and region perhaps). From about the 1840s on large quantities of coal tar became available from the production of city gas and coke for steel making. So from the middle of the 19th century on black became more dominant. 
A dark brown might be a good commercial compromise, as it can be ‚tarred over‘ on the model with black ink.
 I never use CA or PVA for stabilising knots. A fast drying varnish is preferable, as the stabilisation is reversible using a drop of solvent. I am using the kind of varnish that is used to prevent silverware or brass from tarnishing. It stays a bit flexible.
 I also use this to coerce ropes into the desired curves.
 I make my own rope from polyester fly-tying thread and did not have serious fraying problems, when soaking the end in the varnish. Similarly, I soak the area of a cut before cutting. One needs to use sharp blades or scissors in order to avoid squashing the rope, which leads to fraying.

Just a thought: if you use a ‚hot knife‘ to cut the rope after laying it, you have done the cutting and the melting at the same time.
 
BTW: did you mean 275 F or 275 C ?  I have a hot-air soldering iron that can be adjusted from 100 C to 400 C and should try it, while rope is still on the rope-walk.

Just a thought: if you use a ‚hot knife‘ to cut the rope after laying it, you have done the cutting and the melting at the same time.
 
BTW: did you mean 275 F or 275 C ?  I have a hot-air soldering iron that can be adjusted from 100 C to 400 C and should try it, while rope is still on the rope-walk.

I was quite surprised about 4 months ago with the prevailing thought about only using linen or cotton for scale ropes. This has been the requirement of Museums and collectors for quite some time.  Synthetics are frowned upon.  But I think there is some movement and acceptance starting with these folks. 
 
 I was hired by a major well known museum in Europe (I wont mention their name) to make several thousand feet of rope for them.  They were going to use it to restore a contemporary model....and also to rig a newer model.  But they told me they have now decided that polyester scale ropes are being used from this point forward because of its longevity and its crispness and beauty.  It really lays up like real rope.  They have (like all of us) been unable to find good quality linen  or even cotton that isnt fuzzy or lumpy or that requires custom dying.   This makes it very time consuming and expensive to make in large quantities with sometimes inconsistent results.  The custom dying opens up a whole host of other issues for them.
 
So anyway,  they specified polyester rope made the same way I make my other rope which they have purchased many times before.   But this time they also specified the brand and color they wanted for the polyester thread I was to use.  They created a new standard for themselves.  I did have some adjustments to make and it took some time to get used to working with material that is a bit more "stetchy".
 
It does unravel like mad.....just like morope....BUT they are aware of this and use a conservatoires glue that is used to stop fragile textiles from fraying and deteriorating on it before they cut it.  They seemed to have a whole plan set up for now accepting the use of this material.
 
Below is a photo of some of that rope I made for them.  Its beautiful and I like its appearance and handling more than the rope I sell.  I even considered switching to it for all of my rope from Syren.  Come Jan 1st, the prices for linen and cotton as a commodity are increasing pretty drastically (about 20%) because of the Trade wars now underway.  DMC has even decided to STOP production of many sizes of their Cordonnet Cotton thread.  That is a shame.   But then I thought model builders wouldnt get used to how it unravels.....it really unravels if you dont glue or burn the ends.   Just thought I would share this with everyone.  There are actually two colors they specified for all running rigging.   Both are in the photo.  No fuzz and no lumps and it laid up the best I could have asked for.
 
But for those of you who have a ropewalk....you can order 
 
Gutermann Mara Thread...color 2899 for running rigging and color 696 for standing rigging (very dark brown).
 
But you need to go to the industrial division to get the sizes which arent available retail.
 
You will need Mara 120 .....Mara 70.....   Mara 30.... and Mara 15..... thread in these colors to make it but they have so many colors to choose from.  Unfortunately there color charts do NOT accurately reflect the true colors of the thread when you get it so beware of this.
 
I experimented after making the rope and found that if you knot off the ends and place them on a cookie sheet,  place them in the oven at 200 - 275 degrees for 7-10 minutes.   You must watch closely and set the stove on the lowest setting because polyester has a low melting point.  The rope looks the same afterwards and wont unravel at all.  In addition,  when your wife finds out you did this and gets mad....another method I used when experimenting was to use my hair dryer and a very hot setting and heat up the rope for a minute or two.  Dont be afraid to get close to the rope when you are doing this .  This method works very very well....because its easier to watch whats happening and not melt your rope.  But you can only do smaller quantities at a time.
 

 
I was able to replicate all of my current sizes of rope ranging from ,008 to ,080 in diameter using various strands of the thread sizes shown.  I even managed to make a huge cable for them 3mm in diameter.  It was just a matter of experimenting with the number of threads and either 3 strand or 4 strand.  Once you have your recipe established for each size you can easily replicate the sizes with great consistency and accuracy.
 
Because there was some interest in this topic I started a new one rather than post it in another members build log.  I will take some more photos of the packages I still have remaining to show the size variables and give you guys a better idea of what the rope looks like.
 
Feel free to ask me any questions.  Happy New Year !!!
 
Chuck

Schynlicht.

My honorable colleagues.
While I was pondering over whether or not make the deck-house removable, I made some small pieces. Windows of the deck-house.

It doesn’t seem to be too difficult to find Gütermann Mara over here in Europe in the detail trade. You mentioned color 2899, Chuck, but which is the other one ? In fact, Gütermann have a whole range of yellowish greys in their color-chart. 
You seem to have been using mainly their heavy sizes, what are then the final rope diameters ?
Tempering the rope in the oven sounds like a good idea. Have to try this with my micro-ropes made from polyester fly-tying threads 👍🏻

In the meantime my attempts continued on the ropewalk. The following pictures show the last results. For these ropes, which have different diameters of 0.8 mm to 1.5 mm, I used linen yarn from Bockens NeL 60/2 or 120/2. I am so satisfied with the result. It is important to improve one or the other, but this will come with the further exercise and the associated experience.


Ultimately, I'm still working on the color and the conservation of the ropes and the final decision, which material should be used for the cordage of my corvette. After the ropes made of linen yarn did not look too bad in the meantime, I tend to be more interested in this material at the moment.

Deviating from actual brushes, there are other ways than the bow-pen of applying ink and paint in a controlled way. After the bow-pen came what is called in German a funnel-pen (Trichterfeder, not sure of the correct term in English), essentially a funnel-shaped device that fits into a pen-holder (it's the fourth from the left in the picture below). A spring-steel wire allows the tube to be cleaned from clogged ink/paint. The line-width is equal to the outside diameter of the tube. It is the predecessor to the fountain drafting-pen.
 

Image taken from https://www.typotheque.com/articles/from_lettering_guides_to_cnc_plotters, a nice summary of the subject.
 
While designed for use with inks, rather than pigmented paint, I know that it is still being used by porcelain-painters to apply lettering and in that realm still available commercially. I got a couple of them, actually. I would not use them with acrylics, as these just dry too fast, even though the airbrush-ready paints from bottles might be tempting. I think there is also white pigmented ink that dries more slowly. And, btw, normal pens as pictured above are also useful to apply paint to reasonably flat surfaces - but again acrylics don't work very well, unless mixed with a retarder.
 
Further deviating from brushes and looking beyond the plate: women use little foam brushes to apply make-up. I got myself some through ebay (not wanting to steal them from my wife) and they are useful to apply paint to objects, particularly raised features, kind of 'rubbing on' the paint. I have used their big DIY brothers a lot.

It doesn’t seem to be too difficult to find Gütermann Mara over here in Europe in the detail trade. You mentioned color 2899, Chuck, but which is the other one ? In fact, Gütermann have a whole range of yellowish greys in their color-chart. 
You seem to have been using mainly their heavy sizes, what are then the final rope diameters ?
Tempering the rope in the oven sounds like a good idea. Have to try this with my micro-ropes made from polyester fly-tying threads 👍🏻

It doesn’t seem to be too difficult to find Gütermann Mara over here in Europe in the detail trade. You mentioned color 2899, Chuck, but which is the other one ? In fact, Gütermann have a whole range of yellowish greys in their color-chart. 
You seem to have been using mainly their heavy sizes, what are then the final rope diameters ?
Tempering the rope in the oven sounds like a good idea. Have to try this with my micro-ropes made from polyester fly-tying threads 👍🏻

That is some great looking rope you have made there.  I am also someone that has been biased by tradition and try to only use natural materials for my rope.  Silk is OK but it is too shiny for me and very slippery so it tends to unravel after you make it.  In some instances it unravels quite a bit like morerope.  But I suspect you have experienced that too especially on the larger ropes.
 
I was quite surprised about 4 months ago however with the prevailing thought about only using linen or cotton for scale ropes.  I was hired by a major well known museum in Europe (I wont mention their name) to make several thousand feet of rope for them.  They were going to use it to restore a contemporary model....and also to rig a newer model.  But they told me they have now decided that polyester scale ropes are being used from this point forward because of its longevity and its crispness and beauty.  It really lays up like real rope.  They have (like all of us) been unable to find good quality linen  or even cotton that isnt fuzzy or lumpy or that requires custom dying.  The custom dying opens up a whole host of other issues for them.
 
So anyway,  they specified polyester rope made the same way I make my other rope which they have purchased many times before.   But this time they also specified the brand and color they wanted for the polyester thread I was to use.
 
It does unravel like mad.....just like morope....BUT they are aware of this and use a conservatoires glue that is used to stop fragile textiles from fraying and deteriorating on it before they cut it.  They seemed to have a whole plan set up for now accepting the use of this material.
 
Below is a photo of some of that rope I made for them.  Its beautiful and I like its appearance and handling more than the rope I sell.  I even considered switching to it for all of my rope.  But then I thought model builders wouldnt get used to how it unravels.....it really unravels if you dont glue or burn the ends.   Just thought I would share that while you are making your experiments.  There are actually two colors they specified for all running rigging.   Both are in the photo.  No fuzz and no lumps and it laid up the best I could have asked for.
 

 

I dont want hijack Johanns topic but to answer.....No I dont have any plans to offer it.  Being a one man factory, its tough enough to make what I already offer.  I couldnt possibly stock another 8 sizes in another material or color.  I just dont have the time.
 
But for those of you who have a ropewalk....you can order 
 
Gutermann Mara Thread...color 2899
 
But you need to go to the industrial division to get the sizes which arent available retail.
 
You will need Mara 70.....   Mara 30.... and Mara 15..... thread in that color.
 
I experimented after making the rope and found that if you knot off the ends and place them on a cookie sheet,  place them in the oven at 275 degrees for 7-10 minutes.   Then rope looks the same afterwards and wont unravel.
 
Chuck

Assembly.
I haven’t installed the deck-house on its place, I still have to cut the doorways.

Yes, this absence of straight lines for reference would be a real challenge for a cartesian mind and hand like mine ... quite strange actually in a country that was dominated by rational thinking and calvinist religion.

This topic has been discussed already several times on this forum and I apologise for posting again the two pictures below that show what the coppering really looks like (albeit reconstructed):
 

 
 

DON FERNANDO II E GLÓRIA (1843) in Lisbon
 
Two observations:
- plates overlap top-down and fore-aft, meaning that the process started at the keel and worked upward, and back to forward
- the nailing causes depression - there are no protruding nail-heads; the reason is that the plates were fastened on a layer of felt soaked in tar.
 
Assuming that they are pressed/stamped, you can improve those plates from the kit by gently rubbing them on the side with the protrusions with a piece of round hardwood on a cutting mat. This pushes the protrusions back and leaves slight dimples. One has to play a bit with the amount rubbing and the pressure applied. They are then to be fastened with the side that showed the protrusions inside, i.e. the other way around from what most people would do.
 
Incidentally, the copper-green colour, as shown on the second picture, only appears when the ship is in dry-dock for prolonged periods. The 'service colour' is a dull copper-brown, as on the first picture.
 

Yes, this absence of straight lines for reference would be a real challenge for a cartesian mind and hand like mine ... quite strange actually in a country that was dominated by rational thinking and calvinist religion.

Deviating from actual brushes, there are other ways than the bow-pen of applying ink and paint in a controlled way. After the bow-pen came what is called in German a funnel-pen (Trichterfeder, not sure of the correct term in English), essentially a funnel-shaped device that fits into a pen-holder (it's the fourth from the left in the picture below). A spring-steel wire allows the tube to be cleaned from clogged ink/paint. The line-width is equal to the outside diameter of the tube. It is the predecessor to the fountain drafting-pen.
 

Image taken from https://www.typotheque.com/articles/from_lettering_guides_to_cnc_plotters, a nice summary of the subject.
 
While designed for use with inks, rather than pigmented paint, I know that it is still being used by porcelain-painters to apply lettering and in that realm still available commercially. I got a couple of them, actually. I would not use them with acrylics, as these just dry too fast, even though the airbrush-ready paints from bottles might be tempting. I think there is also white pigmented ink that dries more slowly. And, btw, normal pens as pictured above are also useful to apply paint to reasonably flat surfaces - but again acrylics don't work very well, unless mixed with a retarder.
 
Further deviating from brushes and looking beyond the plate: women use little foam brushes to apply make-up. I got myself some through ebay (not wanting to steal them from my wife) and they are useful to apply paint to objects, particularly raised features, kind of 'rubbing on' the paint. I have used their big DIY brothers a lot.

Another update - at last!!
 
Thank you all for your good wishes.  The treatment went well and I am currently 'all clear' with my next check in April next year.  Following the good news we took off for a holiday in South Australia - looking at the sights; checking out the maritime scene and photographing birds.  We had a really great time and arrived home very relaxed and ready for whatever the world decides to throw at us next!
 
My time in the museum since we got back has been limited, and even when I've been in I've been diverted by other things, so the 'Meteor' has only progressed by the addition of a couple more frames down aft.  This is by far the slowest build I've ever been involved with and the slow progress is beginning to frustrate me.  I'll bring the hull home next week to do a bit of serious fairing.  Too much fine sawdust being sucked into to ventilation system isn't good for the museum, but I'm reluctant to bring the model home as carrying a delicate model back and forth on Sydney's peak hour trains isn't good for the mental equilibrium!  This time of year is good as the trains are far less crowded over the holiday period.
 
Here are a few photos of the tiny amount of extra work done.
 
John 
 

 

 

Yes, have used pro arte prolene brushes for years, they seem to last quite a bit.

I gather on my side of the pond, but on the other side of the channel, it is called coach-lining, because it was originally applied to horse-drawn coaches and then spread to railway coaches and engines and finally to commercial vehicles, both steam- and IC-powered ones. It finally went out of fashion in the early 1950s I think. To me it always looked quite 'exotic', as only perhaps bicycles and motorcycles had such lining or stripes, say on the fenders, in continental Europe. At least German steam locomotives were painted black all over since the 1920s, a typical field of application in the UK.