Bob Legge

Ed,
Instead of twisting wire, I have knotted yarn of the approximate thickness, which came rather close to the desired result. Come to think of it, it's what may turn out what I need for my current build

I have also been battling with the subject of very small chains (actually chain rails in 1:160 scale) and found a (for the moment at least) reasonably satisfactory solution by twisting together two strands of wire of the scale thickness of the wire from which the chain would have been made - as you did, but then twisting two strands of these twisted wires together in the opposite direction. Looks reasonably close to a twisted chain ... no pictures yet, as I did only some experiments.

Wefalck, I was so intrigued by your idea that I immediately tried it with 36 gauge copper wire.  Here is the result:
 

A little out of focus using only my iPhone, but very credible - and with a little work.... worth some further exploration.
 
Rob, it depends on the size of the sail.  The topsails run to triple purchase tackles - at the deck for the lowers (or singles), at the top for the uppers, which have short travel.  The topgallants run down to a simple whip from the deck, the royals and skys go directly to pins.
 
Ed

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 306 – Fore Topgallant Yard 2
 
While the spanker rigging was going on, I also worked on rigging the fore topgallant yard.  In the first picture most of the ironwork has been fitted as well as the fore royal sheet chains.
 

 
At this scale these chains are well under the size of any available chain by a factor of more than 2.  As with other small chains shown earlier, these were made by twisting a doubled loop of wire by approximately the correct number of turns for its length – assuming one turn per 2 links - an imprecise process for sure.  The next picture shows a closer view of the chain and the sheet block under the center of the yard.
 

After erecting the yard and completing its rigging, I decided to replace this chain with a slightly heavier version. I will show it in a later post.
 
In the next picture, the yard's halyard - a somewhat larger twisted wire chain - has been passed through the topgallant mast sheave with a pin inserted to hold it in place.
 

 
The chain may be seen just behind the mast in this picture.  The position held by the temporary pin is set to suspend the yard just above the topmast cap.  The chain halyard runs down behind the mast to a tackle shown in the next picture.
 

The tackle is long enough to allow the yard to be hauled up to its full height.  In the next picture, the yard with all its bench-installed rigging has been mounted on the mast. 
 

 
The halyard, slanting out due to its stiffness (see arrow), has not yet been connected at the sling band. Bunt and leech lines were routed down the mast before erecting the yard and may be seen draped from their double blocks above.  The wire chain sheets are doing their own thing.  Twisted wire behaves exactly opposite actual chain, which drapes beautifully in graceful curves.  Wire chain has to be carefully shaped to do so.  This will be done later after the loose ends are connected to the royal clue lines. 
 
In the next picture, the halyard chain has been connected to the sling band, the bunt and leech lines are rigged and the clew lines are connected to the chain sheets below.
 

 
The royal sheet chains described above, were the first to be connected after the halyard, so that these could be used to pull down the yard.  The next picture shows the halyard and its eyebolt as well as the two chain sheets hauled down below the sheet block.
 

The thin chain sheets (later replaced) may be seen in front of the mast in this picture.  Each leg is connected to a rope line that runs down to belay on the main rail, port and starboard.  The bunt, leech, and clew lines run down inside the shrouds, through shroud fairleads and belay on those rails as well.  The next picture shows these lines running through the top fairleads.
 

 
All these fairlead holes are starting to fill up.  The arrow in the picture points to the halyard chain.  The main rail pins are also filling up as shown in the next picture.
 

Finally, a view of the model in its present state.
 

Ed
 

Congratulations, a superb model.
Bob.

Thank you to all for very nice and kind comments🙂.
Last week I took part in the C-class World Championship and here is the result:
 

Part 2  Searching the perfect knife
 
When a  new model ship builder begins, one of the first tool we buy is an Exacto which is the standard. Peoples  get accustom to this tool and a great % prefer to work with the Exacto.
 
Is there another step for the search of a better knife? Yes, it is possible to find a same style knife with a better handle and also with a better blade. To classify the blades, Exacto has a standard knife blade and the next step would be a razor blade. Swann Morton provides a good answer in both categories of the knife, the blade and the handle. The blade is much sharper, this means that less work and pressure are required to cut, so the advantage is that this tool can be control much more easily. This search of the knife is a multi layered adventure. Now that we get the blade, Swan Morton went another step ahead with the handle. Working hours with a small metal blade becomes painful for the hand. Handle 5A is covered with  soft acrylic giving a greater comfortability to hold the tool.
 
Is there a third step in that spiral? Is it possible to get a better handle and a better blade? Is there aspects which can be modify for a better version? The answer is yes to all these questions.
These small medical blades are razor sharp. They are ideal for small works. But they have a major weakness; this tool is not made to resist in torsion and for this reason, the blade is very easy to break. The easy way to fix this problem is to add a strong spline to that blade. Of course that blade will be made in one part, we will not solder the spline to the Swan Morton blade. Now for the choice of the steel, how about a multi layered steel, as in the famous Japanese Katana saber: Damascus steel. The shape of the sharp edge will be straight , not in a curve way.
 
Few words about the handle. I did demonstrate by building a 74 guns at 3 different scales that the bigger the piece that you hold, the more control you will have  and a greater quality part will be resulting.  The same principle applies here. So this means if we increase the size of the handle,  this will result in much more control of the blade.
 
With the parameters to guide us, let's find a knife with a comfortable handle in the hand with a good quality steel with razor sharp edges.
 
The following part is not part 3 but part 1, sorry, I wrote it before.
 
After few days of trials, I am very please with the results, the blade is as razor sharp as the scalpel blade and with more control. Finally, one last aspect. This knife is heavier than the scalpel and this additional weight is beneficial for the control of the tool.
 
last photo: blade profile

I have finished the base.  I am not totally satisfied with it but it will do for the time being.  The base is marble and the edges were roughened up.  The pedestals are turned from pear and drilled to accept a threaded rod which screws into a captive nut in the keelson.  Thanks everyone for following this five year epic journey.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

With a nod to Monty Python, "and now for something completely different..."
 
The sheets control the sweep of the boom.  The boom is also fitted with an inhauler and outhauler that attach to the clew of the spanker sail.  In the absence of sails, the outhauler is stopped at the gooseneck, runs aft over the boom to a sheave near the end, back under the boom to a cleat near the foot, with the remaining line coiled on the roof of the cabin.  The line and boom sheave may be seen in the above photo and the inner end in the next.
 

I'm sure you've placed the spanker outhaul belaying cleat exactly where is shows it's supposed to be on the plans you are following. I'm simply curious if you might know why the cleat is placed on the boom so that it is over the cabin house where hauling it (the direction of the hauling would be forward when tightening the outhaul) would seem to put the seaman hauling it in a most inconvenient position, perched on top of the cabin. This would be particularly so where there is no purchase on the outhaul and tightening it would be done, on the wind at least, by letting the boom luff, and the cleat on the boom consequently swinging further forward over the cabin top, to port or starboard as the case might be, hauling in on the outhaul, belaying it, and then sheeting in the spanker boom?  I would have expected the cleat to be on the boom directly above, or slightly aft of the leading edge of the skylight so a seaman could have his feet on the deck and really put his back into hauling the outhaul and belaying it.
 
Please understand it isn't my intent to pester you. I just find that there is much to learn from the way they rigged these clippers which were pretty much the highest stage of development of rigging technology. There's always a sound reason for everything they did on these vessels and there's so much to learn in discovering why the things we know they did were done.

To build a model ship has  in a way, similar procedures used  in the industry: one of these is: INSPECTION. 
 
The first step is done by eye but when the ye is not able anymore to discern the imperfections, we need to magnify the details to better understand where  further work will be required for a better result. The easiest way to concentrate on the model ship exclusively is to take photos. A camera is ruthless, she does not forgive mistakes and shows them. Sometime it is even difficult to accept the thuth in front of us.
 
Actually I am sanding the arch of the model ship. When I do not see any more details to ''sand'', I take few photos which will easily reveal where the corrections are needed. Fortunately, a day will come where no more modifications will be require. I can still see some spots which need to refine the curves. That will be the next step.

 

Air gaps have been sanded into the back, drilled for fixing bolts, test fitted to the side

Regard
Paul
 
PS thanks all for the likes
 

100% chance of rain all day today guess where I will be all day
Made a centering marker out of some pieces if boxwood I had in the stash after reading on another log somewhere about them

Also found a use for the spare handle I made for the wife

Regards
Paul

I've decided to go with the shorter masts and yards. I've made six masts overall - the first two taken directly from Age of the Dromon which I decided were wrong, then the longer ones, which looked too long. Because I didn't want to shorten those ones to find out if shorter ones looked better I then had to make two new ones. And I've ended up with two that will actually go into the ship.
 
Here's the second (or sixth!) mast under construction.

 
I've shamelessly copied the concave joint of the mainyard of Woodrat's Cocca/Nave Tonda to join the two spars of each yard. 
 




The're glued together but I've yet to add rope lashings.
 
Steven

Bob, I really wanted to get off of this.
 
You said:
My copy of Crothers' book has the forward end of the span fastened ahead of where the vector line of the pendant crosses the boom, of that I am sure.  No matter, though.
 
With the span running through a block on the pendant, the vector of the pendant will always fall between the two legs of the span regardless of where the ends of the span are fixed. 
  
Ed
 
Yep, I agree, Ed. We really have flogged the poodle on this one.  However, "in the interests of full disclosure," you are absolutely correct. My bad. It's been a while since I got my "gentleman's C" in geometry, so I had to look it up. What I should have said is that the angles formed by the bridle legs running from the pendant blocks should be obtuse and not acute.
 
Crothers' running rigging diagram is what I meant.  T'was I, as well as the angle, that was obtuse!
 
Beautifully executed work, Ed!
 
 

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 304 – Spanker Boom 2/Gaff 1
 
Done with rework, back to moving the ball forward - hopefully.  This post describes completion of the boom rigging.  Gaff rigging seen in these pictures will be covered in a later post.
 
The first picture shows the corrected topping lift spans as well as cosmetic repair to the boom at the old band position.  The foot ropes and the boom sheets are also shown in this picture.
 

 
The three lines running vertically to the gaff in this picture will be described later.  The boom sheets are luff tackles with lead blocks, one on each side of the boom just aft of the wheel enclosure.  Each consists of a double block shackled to the boom band, a single block hooked to a deck eyebolt, a second lead block also hooked to a deck eye, and finally a cleat in the deck to belay the fall.  The next picture may show this more clearly.
 

 
The sheets control the sweep of the boom.  The boom is also fitted with an inhauler and outhauler that attach to the clew of the spanker sail.  In the absence of sails, the outhauler is stopped at the gooseneck, runs aft over the boom to a sheave near the end, back under the boom to a cleat near the foot, with the remaining line coiled on the roof of the cabin.  The line and boom sheave may be seen in the above photo and the inner end in the next.
 

 
The inhauler is a very short line on the no-sails model.  It is stopped at the end in a block strapped to the gooseneck and belayed just below on the spider band, where most of this line will be coiled on the model.  This line would also be secured to the clew and run out by the outhauler when setting the sail.
 
The next few pictures show fabrication of the gaff.  In the first, the spar has been shaped by the usual methods. The 40' spar is 9" at its maximum diameter, which occurs 1/3 in from the outer end, as on the boom.  Five inch thick wood blanks have been cut to form the jaws of the yoke that will secure the gaff to the spanker mast.
 

 
The jaws were first glued and clamped to the sides of the gaff, then shaped.
 

 
Cross bolts were then added using black monofilament.  In the last picture an iron band around the jaws has been fitted and the necessary blocks have been lashed to the spar and to eyebolts in the band.  After the addition of lashing eyes on the jaws and clipping of the excess block lashings, the gaff will be ready to go up.
 

 
Ed

Good morning.

Spent some time today working on the foremasts yards.  Making the parrel bands and lots of eye bolts.
 
I'll begin to start installing the foot ropes and stirrups next.  Once done I'll rig the yard blocks.
 
I decided to add the sales after I finish up all the workings of the yards....just don't want to fight all that after the sales are set.
 
Here is where I am today.

Now it gets attached to the yard band...the entire thing gets a coat of my world famous *It covers a multitude of sin* black paint.....and there I go.
Ready to begin again and rigg more yards.
 
Rob

Some fashioning with the grinder to turn the little piece of metal into a functioning sheet block.
Drill a hole for the pin....which will secure it and attach it to the yard.
 
Rob

Great idea Rob; I look forward to seeing how these turn out.
 
cheers
 
Pat

That ridge with a little help from my 3D brain...bent over on itself..is the ticket.  Now to cut several to work with.
 
Rob

Yeah...I'm feeling much better thanks everyone.
 
I spent some time making more sheet blocks and at this scale 1/8" wide...these little buggers are fun.
Here are some images of the process.
It all begins with the necessary metal...and that turned out to be file folder clips....one uses for medical records.
 
Just a little ingenuity, cutting and drilling....and using the natural pre-machined bends of that material....I fashioned the very things I needed.
 
Rob

Forecastle planking completed, I had to go a bit further than I wanted and the wife wanted as I want to show the 9lb chase gun
All has had three coats of sanding sealer scraped with a blade between each coat 

 
 
 

I noticed a little anomaly on the cheerful photo earlier and went to have a look at the Hull sitting in ordinary awaiting further work

There seems to be some sort of reaction going on along the seams, the whole Hull was flattened with five or six coats of sanding sealer, I used dark glue between the planks as I was going to leave natural at the time but then decided to paint using acrylic, the seam lines have risen since then??? Whilst I like the look, I'm not sure how or why its occurred
Regards
Paul 

The chase port needed cutting out, still needs the sill adding in and filing square, tested with 9lb gun and carriage 
At this time I believe the carronades were fitted on the inside principle so I have made the  6"x6" blocks to use as spacers ready for when bulwarks are built up


I have added a piece across the rear beam to infill ready for the balustrade which I'm going to try and do in ebony, hence the clips holding the front finishing piece
Regards
Paul