keelhauled

Hi Denis, 

she's looking great.  You are a model building machine!!  Once again making me look bad with my lack of progress 

best

Marc

Dennis,

You are a ship building machine!!!

I've been binge reading your build. 

What a Beautiful build!  nice attention to detail. 

thanks for the fun! 

Marc

Hi Moab, 

that sounds right.  My friend uses lemon oil first, then applies the Tung oil a couple of days later (furniture).  Just another idea.  

Fore and Mast Stay re-rigging adventure.........or don't do work on the ship late at night 😖 Make sure that your read all the way through the post!

So, first day back in the shop since my travels.  I was looking through Underhill's Masting and Rigging the Clipper Ship and Ocean Carrier and saw a diagram of rigging the stays and the top the "correct way" (through the lubber holes) and the  "incorrect way" (over the top) of doing so.  I remember thinking "novice mistake."  Later in the evening (about 10:00 pm)  I was sitting looking at my model and noticed that both my fore and main stays were rigged over the top! 😲  

I jumped on my computer and brought up the photos that I took on the ship two weeks ago and other photos that I had.  Yep, the stays are through the lubber hole.  So I spent the next three hours re-rigging the two says.  As you can expect very tedious work, un-bonding glue, removing the seizing, trying to save the fully served stays, etc.  Shortly after 1:00 am, the stays were both now rigged through t he lubber holes and tensioned in place just waiting glue.  I wanted to let them sit tensioned over night before gluing.  I was now happy, but exhausted. Success!!

Before turning in, I wanted to make sure that I knew where the main stays were seized near the fore mast.  As I was looking through the cutty photos, one caught my eye.   

This one

I blinked several times.  Is that stay going over the top?!  I checked out another couple of photos of the foremast.  Yep, over the top, not through the lubber hole!!!  I had checked photos.  How did this happen?  I raced to pull up photos of the  mainmast.  Here is the photo of the mainmast.

I must have pulled up photos of the mainmast thinking it was the foremast and must have been influenced by Underhill.  I couldn't believe it.  Still can't.  The fore stay is over the top and the main stay is through the lubber hole. 

Thank God that I hadn't glued anything.  I went to bed very unhappy.

I thought that I'd point this difference out to you, so that you don't make my mistake in rigging [Edit: not a mistake! see the update]. I was correct for the fore (l'm sure that I must have checked and double checked at the time) and incorrect for the main (I think that I was so concerned about the run of the stay and the running of the blocks at the spider band on the fore that I wasn't paying attention).

Another factor-  I was tired.  I'm lucky that I didn't damage anything.  I did fix a mistake, but I also created one that I now have to go back and fix.

I broke TWO of my rules:

1. DON'T PHYSICALLY WORK ON THE SHIP OR WITH POWER TOOLS WHEN YOU'RE TIRED!!!

2.  CHECK, CHECK, AND THEN CHECK AGAIN, BEFORE CHANGING ANYTHING THAT I'VE DONE IT THE PAST.  I've usually researched it well during that time.  Most of the time my second guess is wrong and what I've done is the past is actually correct.

Best

marc

Here's an update!

I just finished re-rigging the  fore stay to over the top and was putting away the physical photos that I took in 1990.  These were sitting on my workbench from last night.    There was one of the foremast and my eyes popped out!!!

Here is the photo of the foremast. 

you can clearly tell that it is the foremast from the fish pendant and you can see the main and mizzen behind.

Yep, the fore stay is going through the lubber hole.  So, I've just spent the time to move the stay from over the top to through the lubber hole, to back over the top again, just to see an image of the stay going through the lubber hole.  

I feel vindicated that I did see the stay going through the lubber hole of the forestay and wasn't mistaken.  However I'm not very happy that I've gone made the change, changed, and changed it again.  I'm going in circles!!!!!  

In most of the photos that I find including Longridge from the 1920's the fore stay is over the top.  I actually think that it looks better through the lubber hole and I must have originally had it in this configuration when I determined the height of the cleat, because the line is better.  However, since most of the photos have the stay over the top and I'm concerned about the damage being done to the serving of the stay with each re-rigging and the risk to damaging other parts, I'm going to leave the stay over the mast.

However, I did want you to be aware that historically the fore stay has been rigged both ways. 

Moab,

regarding the raised grain, did you acclimate the wood before applying the tung oil?  Also conditioning with a diluted oil, let the piece sit, sand and reapply helps.  However, like you, my experience with tung oil is with furniture. 

very nice!  Can't wait to see it come together!

Marc

In case you're interested, this is the product that they are using on the Cutty to Tar the standing rigging.  

I'm with you there Dennis!!

I was in London for the last two weeks for work, but I took a couple of days of leave.  I was able to go to the Cutty twice! It took me 15 years to get back, so I spent about 10 hours total walking her decks.

I'm a very happy man!

Druxey is right.

 My anchors were sealed with nail polish then painted with enamel (I didn't do this to seal the anchors for corrosion, but because I thought that the black enamel paint would be less likely to scratch to the metal during rigging).  The anchors split open with the corrosion.

thanks Dennis!!  I never seem to get as much play time as I'd like, but I guess I'm not alone in that!

Hi everyone, 

I've been traveling quite a bit for work, but I have made progress.  I rigged all of the main mast stays and the lower main shrouds.

As part of rigging the main mast stays in place I rigged the main stays that I intend to fly.

You may also notice the levels on the turn table, across the waist of the ship as well as deck abeam and fore and aft as well as a plumb bob hanging in the back next to the wall.  I was continuously checking the alignment of the masts as I went along.

You may remember that I was concerned about the sheet blocks and main mast shrouds intersecting at the fore mast.  There isn't much room for the two to exist with out being fouled. Here is a photo showing that after the shrouds and blocks were put into place they just clear.  The dental tools are making sure that the glue on my seizing isn't adhering to the sheets.  I'll get a photo of everything in place next time.  I ended up rigging the block first and then the shrouds.  It would have been almost impossible the other way around.

I started rigging the shrouds on the mizzen.  In these photos I'm checking the tension of the shrouds and the alignment of the mizzen mast. To make sure that it is straight I have levels and plumb bobs.  in one photo my camera angle is off making it look like the  mast isn't straight and in the other photo my flash makes it look like there are two plumb lines, but hopefully you get the idea.

Here is some shots of the lanyards and cow hitches being rigged

I just started rigging the ratlines on the mizzen tonight.  

best

marc

There's no substitute for a very high quality tool.  From the feel of handling it to the precision and fit that they exhibit and in which they engage the work. 

Marc

Very impressive work!!

Nice work Henry, 

she's looking great!

Yep, I have a constitution with wonderful corroded anchors.  someday, I need to get the case off and replace the anchors, which are attached to the ratlines.  what a bummer!!  Thanks for showing what happens with this metal in an air tight case!  It's heart breaking to put all of that care into the build to see this happen to your model.

Ditto, Bob!!!

Welcome aboard!  I agree with Mark, a build log would be great!

best

Marc

Wow.  what a beautiful build!!!

Great Work Chuck!

Hi Ric,

thanks for the compliments.  I'm happy to help you any way that I can!  

As far as the plans - my recommendation is to get Campbell's plans and Longridge's books and put the plans in a drawer somewhere.  The kit plans are wrong in numerous ways- I've listed many here.  I ended up not using 90% of the kit.  The pumps, anchors, bells, figurehead, maple strips, walnut strips, the side pin rails (huge mistake!) and some mast fittings are about all that I kept.  Everything else was build and rebuilt from scratch, including the deck houses (although I did keep some decoration of the panels).

Best

Marc

Thanks Dennis!

I'm sewing hanks on the stay sails tonight.  I hate this particular job; not sure why.  I have to finish the main stay sail hanks and bend those sails then I can get back to the stays.  It's been about a year since I realized that I needed the main stays in place to go any further on the fore mast rigging. However, it's still progress, just in different places!

Best

Marc

Hi Harry,

You and I are on the same page. But, thank you very much about pointing out the brace info.  I have the eyes and tackle ready mounted to the main mast for the braces, but if I didn't and you hadn't pointed it out, I would have had some real issues! Somewhere earlier in the postings I rant about the Mantua treatment of the backstays and incorrect number of deadeyes.  Unfortunately it was too late in the build when I caught it.  It's also why I'll never build another kit.  I have some kits on the shelf, but I'll only use them for parts not the plans, frames, etc.  I'm using Campbell's plans for the rigging. That being said, since the model doesn't have the correct number of deadeyes, I have had to make adjustments.  These are as follows for the main mast (bow to aft):  5 shrouds correct, topmast backstay 3 is missing , capstay present, top mast 2 missing, topmast backstay 1 present, 2nd t'gallent backstay missing, 1st t'gallent backstay present, royal backstay present, sky backstay present.  The deadeyes for the last three stays are raised to a higher level as those backstays are on the cutty.

The rest of the rigging is according to campbell.  Wherever Campbell is silent I go to photos and Longridge, then to Underhill.

Nenad,

Thanks for the complement!!!  I hope all is going well with you and that you are enjoying the summer!

So, I'm currently making hanks from wire and a jig for the main stay sails.  I'm only going to fly two of the three.  They are complete minus the hanks.  Hopefully by the end of the week I can add the sails and actually rig the stays, then I'll finalize tension of the backstays then onto ratlines.

best

marc

Great work!!! super nice model. Your sails look great.  I sewed several sails for my Cutty Sark (some were sown by me, some by a vendor with a CNC sewing machine based on kit supplied measurements) so I know what you're going through.  very nice work. 

The hammocks (bed rolls) are stowed vertically in the crane and nets as you show in your photo.  The will line all of the cranes and nets.  sometimes open for airing out as you have them, other times with canvas covering the entire cranes to protect from rain.

best

marc

Harry, 

Melbourne was cold and extremely rainy and windy!!! A long two weeks of work.

Since my return, I've been working in the dock yard 

I've been serving yards and yards of lines (the Cutty has all of here standing rigging 100% served!!!)  Chuck's serving machine is still holding up fine.

I rigged the spencer  sail to the main mast.  I took photos, but can't seem to locate them neither on my phone or camera! 

It was actually a fun sail to rig, I really liked the brails.  After learning how the operate and I had fun playing with them until finally furling the sail.  One interesting aspect was that it appeared that three brails shared the same pin as the halyard and downhaul.  There are some photos of the cutty and other ships where you can see clearly that two or three lines share the same belaying pin.  I guess it makes total since that the brails would share the same pins as the lines to take in our out the sail that they are attached to, however it makes rigging the model a little challenging.  I was able to belay the lines and then applied coils made off ship, although I wasn't able to attach four coils to each pin, so I chose to attach three to one and two to the other to assess how they look.  It maybe hard to see, but the starboard pin in view has four lines figure eight belayed and three coils belayed to a single pin.  It looks like the photos of the Cutty's pins. Actually mine are neater than the coils in most of the old photos of the Cutty.

a View of the spencer

Here's a photo of the lower shrouds attached and the lanyards temporarily tensioned.

And on to fitting the backstays!

And onto dry fitting all of the main shrouds, backstays, and stays.  All of the backstays and shrouds are completely set up and ready for the lanyards to be set with the cow hitch.  The fore stays are just clamped in place.  I wanted to tension everything up, let it sit for a couple of days to make sure that there wasn't any stretching or adjustments in tension that needed to be made before finally setting the lanyard.  all of the lanyards are waxed and will actually hold the tension, but the lanyard running through the last hole in the deadeye sometimes relaxes slightly while I'm tying the cow hitch,  so when I'm a confident of the tension, I add a little bit of dilute wood glue to the line and hole -just enough to hold the line from moving but easily unglued with alcohol. 

The white tags on the stays have writing reminding me that I need to mount the stay sails before finally rigging the stays.  I spent tonight making hanks for the sails!!

The hemostats are for keeping tension on the lanyards from the other side.  Helps me when I'm adjusting the tension of the line.

Best

marc

very cool!

I know how it is!!!  She'll be there when you have the time