Jeronimo

..............
 
 
                to soon
 
rekon54

hello progress of the model  
 
                 
rekon54
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T e i l  4

Remco, truly stunning, just when one thinks it cannot get better, someone, (yourself), takes it to another level. Well done
Regards 
Martin

Darn, Remco. Every time I think you can't improve your work any further, you take things up yet another level!

Thats a great picture Greg, to bad Annapolis is not on my route to the office. It's a bit heavy on the details added on the cross piece and bitt's for my liking. So I wasn't planning to do a mold and just make a test on a piece of scrap to see if it could be done. The result is shown here, I did it on the good piece anyway when I found out it worked out 
 
 



 
I think more subtile than the Annapolis model and better matching the rest of my KF.
 
Remco

I finally found my way back to my workshop. Real life, other projects and a bit of modelers block got in the way. I finished beam 11 with the hanging knees and now I moved to the bow section to built the fore platform.
The footwalling already has it's final finish so the bare wood looks light in contrast.
 

 

 
Two more platforms coming up...
 
Remco
 
ps Ben, nope I'm not a brain surgeon, nor something alike  ;-)
 

Hello everyone for the kind words and comments.
 
These are the last pictures of the
LE BONHOMME RICHARD 1779  Part 2.
 
Regards Karl
 
 
 
T e i l  24

Hello everyone for the kind words and comments.
 
These are the last pictures of the
LE BONHOMME RICHARD 1779  Part 2.
 
Regards Karl
 
 
 
T e i l  24

Hello everyone for the kind words and comments.
 
These are the last pictures of the
LE BONHOMME RICHARD 1779  Part 2.
 
Regards Karl
 
 
 
T e i l  24

T e i l  18

T e i l  10

T e i l  9

T e i l  5

Hello everyone for the kind words and comments.
 
These are the last pictures of the
LE BONHOMME RICHARD 1779  Part 2.
 
Regards Karl
 
 
 
T e i l  24

Amendments of Cathead-rope
 
Karl

Hello everyone for the kind words and comments.
 
These are the last pictures of the
LE BONHOMME RICHARD 1779  Part 2.
 
Regards Karl
 
 
 
T e i l  24

Hello everyone for the kind words and comments.
 
These are the last pictures of the
LE BONHOMME RICHARD 1779  Part 2.
 
Regards Karl
 
 
 
T e i l  24

Hello everyone for the kind words and comments.
 
These are the last pictures of the
LE BONHOMME RICHARD 1779  Part 2.
 
Regards Karl
 
 
 
T e i l  24

T e i l  11

Amendments of Cathead-rope
 
Karl

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Amendments of Cathead-rope
 
Karl

HMS Victory
1:96 Scratchbuild Project
Part 18 – Eye Splices and Strops
 
 
Cyanoacrylate Glue
 
CA glue is one of my least favorite substances to work with. Its difficult to remove from skin, it runs where it is not wanted, its difficult to apply in measured doses, excess can be impossible to remove, it sometimes adheres where desired, but always adheres where not desired. However, I do not believe Victory’s complex rigging, at this scale, could have been modeled very well without it.
 
I once spilled quite a bit of a bottle of this stuff on my workbench. Believe me; that will never happen again. Below is a picture of the simple holder that I always use when using this glue.
 
 

 
I do not use the applicator tip on the bottle because dosage can’t be controlled with it and it immediately plugs anyway. I use a homemade brass wire applicator like the one next to the bottle above. A close up picture of the end of this is shown below.
 
 

 
To make this, a piece of .030 inch brass rod is slit down one end with a fine blade on a jeweler’s saw, the end is then de-burred and shaped as shown above. The idea is to get it to work like an old style drafting pen, holding a limited amount of liquid. A bit of trial and error is necessary to get the amount it holds right, but it is capable of delivering a very small amount of CA, which is what is needed for rigging at this scale. The applicator is just dipped into the open CA bottle. Two or three of these are needed because they quickly get gummed up. When that happens, I drop them into a tall closed jar of acetone and take out a clean one ready for use. Keeping the jar tightly closed is important. Acetone is hazardous to health and flammable, and the vapors in the closed jar help dissolve the glue above the liquid level.
 
I used the thin grade of CA on all the rigging work. All you really want to do with this is get the rope fibers to stick to one another in a knot or a simplified mimic of a splice. CA was never depended upon by itself.
 
 
Eye Splices
 
There are relatively very few actual knots in Victory’s rigging. Almost everything is fastened together with spices of some sort, usually eye splices. These were then fastened with seizings or lashings. So, there were very many eye splices to be made.
 
For the very largest lines like the main and forestays, actual splices were made for the model, but that was impractical for anything smaller. So the following process, or some variant of it was used for virtually all the splices.
 
In the first picture below, the rope is untwisted enough to insert a needle, with an eye large enough to take the rope, through the strands. For small, unmade rope, the needle is merely pushed through the center of the thread fibers.
 
 

 
The short end of the rope is then threaded on to the needle (which can be pulled mostly through to save rope), and the rope is pulled through itself as shown below.
 
 

 
In the next picture the loop has been placed over a piece of stiff wire the size of the desired opening in the eye splice. The short end has then been pulled up tight and the long end has been twisted to tighten up the rope.
 

 
The short end is then lapped over the long leg and the splice touched with a small drop of CA as shown below.
 
 

 
Before the CA has had a chance to completely cure, remove the splice from the wire and clamp it in pliers to give the splice some shape as shown below.
 
 

 
The next picture shows the final result after the short leg has been clipped off with scissors. I use small sharp embroidery scissors for this clipping. They, too, need to be cleaned in acetone from time to time to remove CA.
 
 

 
Eye splices from large sizes down to the smallest, 1½ inch (.007 diam.) rope were made this way and have withstood rigging tension without any failures.
 
Stropping Blocks
 
There are very many different types of block strops on the model – too many to cover here. Many required some innovative application of the techniques discussed below. Some of the larger blocks, like the jeer blocks, were done completely differently and much more authentically.
 
The following process, or some near variation was used for the great majority of blocks.
 
First an eye splice is made in the rope as described above. For very small lines I just tied double overhand knots to make the loop around the wire post and wet that with CA. In the picture below, an eye has been put in the rope by the method above. Because the stropping process requires at least three hands, the surgical clamp shown below is an essential tool.
 

 
With the block held between the fingers by the surfaces with the sheave holes, the rope is pulled tight so the splice is down on the top of the block. The rope is then pinched together just below the block with the fingers. The strop is then clamped to the sides of the block with the surgical clamp as shown below.
 
 

 
In the next picture the clamp is laid down so the bottom of the block is up. An overhand knot, simulating a splice can then be tied across the bottom. This is then pulled tight and touched with CA.
 

 
In the picture below the finished block has had the excess rope clipped off and is shown attached to another line with a seized overhand knot, one of the many different ways used, depending on the line.
 
 

 
Another method, used on larger blocks is shown below.
 
 

 
Instead of the simulated splice, a seizing is put around the rope to form the eye. The eye is then put over the wire as before and the overhand knot in the thread shown above is pulled tight and pushed right up to the wire.
 
 

 
A second overhand knot is then added. Perhaps we should call it “an underhand knot,” because it is tied from below to avoid a knot-like appearance. This can be followed by another overhand knot on the top, and so on, depending on the size of the block and how large a seizing is appropriate. A small drop of CA is then applied to the seizing. If the drop of CA is too large in this step, the rope won’t bend around the top of the block. The bottom splice is then applied with an overhand knot on the bottom as shown below.
 

 
I think we’re getting close to the end, but not quite yet. The next part should wrap it up.
 
Ed Tosti

HMS Victory1:96 Scratchbuild Project
Part 17 – Stays
 
 
The stays were principle structural elements of rigging that pulled forward on masts, and the bowsprit to prevent their falling backwards. Offsetting the pull of the stays was the counteracting stress from the shrouds and backstays, and all of these lines kept the masts erect. The picture below shows the fore stay and its smaller backup, the fore preventer stay after installation on the lower foremast. They are tied together with bridging so that strength of either one is not completely lost if it is severed.
 
 

 
Both these stays are secured around the bowsprit, which itself is being pulled down by its own stays anchored in the knee of the head, and also by the double banks of gammoning just visible under the marines walk platform.
 
Stays were put over the masthead after the shrouds and were looped over them at the back as shown in the next picture. These loops were formed with a large eye splice that was stopped below the masthead by a large bump in the stay called a mouse. I described how these were made on the model in the section on serving. All these upper parts of the stay were served.
 

 
At the lower end of the stays are collars, also served, lashed together to from loops into which are seized very large hearts, some open ended, some closed. Between these hearts, one on the stay and one on the collar, a lanyard is wrapped in several turns. This was used to put tension on the stay much in the way deadeyes were used to tension shrouds.
 
A close up of these details is shown below, of both the fore and fore preventer stays, as well as the bowsprit bobstays. Cleats can be seen on the bowsprit to keep the stay collars from sliding backwards.
 
 

 
The order of installing all this rigging on the model was, first the bowsprit gammoning – two banks of 11 turns each. This was followed by the bowsprit stays, the lower foremast shrouds, and finally, the lower fore stay and its preventer. This same order was observed in the final tensioning of these lines. After all the tensioning, the bridging was installed.
 
The next picture shows a closeup of the collar of the mainstay.
 
 

 
This collar has an eye splice in one end and is served all over. The other end is passed through the grating of the marines walk, through a hole in the port knighthead, underneath the bowsprit, back up through the starboard knighthead and a second hole in the grating, and finally through the eye splice. It is then secured back on itself with lashing. A large heart is then lashed into the collar to take the lanyards connecting it to the mainstay. In the above picture a temporary line is used to as a main stay stand-in to help set this up properly.
 
The following picture shows the final configuration for the mainstay and its preventer.
 

 
The mainstay is the largest line in the ship, except for the anchor hawsers. In addition to being served at its upper end, it was also wormed over its full length, before serving. This worming can be seen in the upper left corner of the above picture. By the time this stay had been fully tensioned up on the model, there was not much room left between the hearts. Before the model crew puts more tension on the stay, they’re going to have to re-seize the lower end of the stay to its heart, a bit further back. I like this picture because it contrasts some of the largest lines in the ship with some of the very smallest.
 
This next picture shows the main topmast stays, which are looped around the topmast shrouds in much the same way as the lower stays. These are of course, smaller.
 

 
These topmast stays, as well as the lower mizzen mast stays, run through blocks on the next forward lower masts, or in the case of the fore topmast, through blocks on the bowsprit. The picture below shows this general arrangement. In this case, how the lower mizzen mast stays are routed through large locks strapped to the lower main mast, then down to the deck.
 

 
It can also be seen here that the main and preventer topmast and lower mizzen mast stays are not parallel or bridged. After passing through their respective blocks, they are lashed to eyebolts in the deck, just behind, in this case, the main mast. The connections for the main topmast stays are shown below, between the bitts and the main mast.
 
 

 
I mentioned earlier that my overall order of rigging was first forward to aft, then bottom to top, then standing before running. This meant that all running rigging in this picture was installed before the topmast stays were lashed down. Lashing these stays was the only work that was made significantly more difficult because of the rigging order used. Each lashing took about an hour of work with tweezers, long needles, surgical clamps and a lot of patience. In return for this inconvenience I got unobstructed access behind each mast for all its other rigging, which I believe saved a lot more time overall.
 
In the next part, I will discuss two of the most common rope configurations on the model –eye splices and block strops – and how they were made.
 
 
Ed Tosti