egkb

I thought you might like to see a few more pictures of the (slow) progress on my Sherbourne. The pictures were actually taken about a month ago, and my wife and I are now at our cottage, so work won't resume on her until the autumn.
 
I've now finished the shrouds apart from the ratlines, which I'm leaving off for access until later, and have in place some of the running rigging, including the burtons, top rope, boom topping lift, and throat and peak halliards for the mainsail. The latter is bent to the gaff and brailed into the mast:
 

 

At last a Spanish ship!
 
Here I am being from Madrid close to the MNM and I am building one from Her Majesty Service ship... Shame on me!
 
Here´s a link with some photos of the San Felipe completed http://www.modelismonaval.com/galeria/category/75-san-felipe-de-san-martin and here is the homepage of the museum. You can sail on it in english and you can ask for plans. Send me a PM if you´re interested on and I´ll explain you how to get them. Link to the museum: http://www.armada.mde.es/ArmadaPortal/page/Portal/ArmadaEspannola/ciencia_museo/prefLang_en/
 
And here´s a link with a video (youtube) with a very good music from Master & Comander:
 
Good Good Luck with this endevour!
 
Daniel.

Not much progress to report, but I think I know how I am going to handle the repair.
 
As you can see below, the jibboom has broken off cleanly at the mast cap. 
 

 
As a result, all of the fore stays etc. are now rather slack.
 

 
I am going to replace the jibboom and all of the fore stays - a couple were not particularly great anyway.  When i do that, I should be able to get a nice uniform tension on them all, and also increase slightly the tension on the back stays (rear most shrouds?)

Buildlog will follow.

Arrrgh, just wrote a bunch of stuff and lost it with an accidental 'page back' hit ... time to start previewing at the end of each sentence, lol.
 
Ok, let's try this again.  What I have discovered in my limited experience with waxing lines for rigging is as follows;
 
Thicker lines - best if the wax is melted into it as the run through method won't infuse the 'core' of the line with wax, thus the 'stiffening effect' won't be as pronounced.  By melting the wax into the core of the line (and squeeging the excess as much as possible) it becomes 'stiffer' so that you can achieve the 'taut line' effect without having to put a lot of tension on the line.
 
Thin lines - work well with the run through method.  You can also use the melted wax method but here is where getting rid of the excess becomes more important as thin lines show the excess more (flakiness, lumps, etc.).  One technique I borrowed from Batik is to have an iron set to low and a bunch of newsprint sheets.  Run the line between newsprint sheets under the iron, the weight of the iron should be enough to squeeze excess meltwax from the line and it soaks into the newsprint to prevent it from 'reapplying' itself to the line.
 
Synthetic lines - I've used both methods on nylon lines and found that the same principles apply, the thicker the line the better to use the meltwax method.  Another thing I did with the thin lines to 'seal' the wax was run the waxed line through a cloth pad but I applied more force and ran it fast to generate friction heat.
 
The type of wax is important too.  I avoid Parrafin wax (basic candle wax) because it has a low melt point, is very 'grainy' when cooled and is usually mixed in huge industrial vats with all kinds of chemicals added.  Often with cheap Parrafin you're find a high glycerin content or the traces of perfumes from a previous batch.  
 
Beeswax is my preferred fave because of it's 'natural' origins (not Organic, if anyone tries to sell you 'Organic' honey or beeswax at a marked up price laugh at them ... bees don't create 'organic' stuff by definition).  Beeswax also has a higher melting temperature and is finely grained, which makes it more supple when cool.  Plus it smells good (aromatherapy) and it has a nice colour which tints white lines ever so slightly.
 
Microcrystalline wax (a.k.a. Jeweller's wax) is also a preferred one for me.  It comes in white or dark blue - Don't use the dark blue stuff as it is formulated for sculpting jewellery 'castings'.  Microcrystalline wax has a high melting point, is (as the name implies) very fine grained and it's supple when cool, like beeswax.  This kind of wax is often used in very fine Batik work.
 
So to summarize, I used both methods and found them to be good - once I figured out the specifics.
 
Hope this is of some help.