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Bedford

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  1. Bedford
    Looks like I was right, the SF has made you a better modeller hasn't it? Always remember, because of the lousy instructions and missing steps etc you have learned so much from her. Steve
  2. Bedford
    Hey Robbyn, I had my lady friend here today and we were talking about perfection etc and how she does things to a standard that make her happy. I told her about my Schonner for Port Jackson which we were looking at and the fact that there are imperfections there that I know about but no-one else would ever see because they see the whole thing. I told her about your dilemas and starting, stopping, stripping and re-doing to try and get it right. She said to tell you about the Navajo (spelling?) indians and the rugs they make. Apparently they deliberately include errors in them because "nothing is perfect" Good attitude I think. Steve & Angela
  3. Bedford
    "the boat I am in" Pun intended Robbyn ? It sounds to me like you picked a good kit to start with. You have learned so much from it that you may not have had it come with the best set of plans and instructions in the business. Much you have learned, good builder you will become! I may have mentioned before that my first kit was shy a few blocks but I just made them, it really isnt difficult and only takes a few minutes but I guess you are a bit over it now and no-one would blame you for that, all of us get that way now and then. Having the other boat to go on with is a great bonus, I always had the mind set of one thing at a time so I only ever had one kit at a time but I now have the CW Morgan on hold and my big scratch Schooner I am starting to get into soon ( there is a LOT of thinking and planning to be done there before getting too heavily into it ) as well as the Royal Caroline but I think it a winter job maybe.
  4. Bedford
    Hi Robbyn, I tie the line off as per the real thing, ie up and down around the belaying pin as per the pic you show. I took a piece of brass wire about 1.5mm in diameter and beat one end out flat so it looks like a flat screw driver blade, then filed a groove into the end of the wedge. Hold the line with one hand well beyond the belaying pin and catch the line near the belaying pin in the groove of the tool. You can then use the tool to push the line in behind the bottom of the belaying pin and loop it around it, then catch the line again and draw it across and over the top of the pin and loop it there, repeat a few times then simply tie off by doing an inverse loop over the top of the pin, ie instead of running the tail OVER the line, finish it so it is UNDER the line and pull tight. Leave the long tail until you are finished. This way you can undo and adjust if required as you proceed with other rigging. When you are finished you can then add a drop of glue to each one, once dry trim the ends and then place fake loops over the pins as shown by others above. Hope this makes some sense. Steve
  5. Bedford
    You reckon YOU need smaller fingers, how do you think I get on? When I buy gloves I need to find extra large! Looking good Robbyn and I know what you mean about the end being in sight and feeling a bit sad but there is another waiting for you and another after that and neither will give you the grief this one did! Steve
  6. Bedford
    Wow, it's been a long road to get here but good on you, she looks great ! Steve
  7. Bedford
    Yeah Robbyn it seems to me that you have just had a big break from everything but it was more hectic than normal life. You need a holiday to recover from your holiday. Kick back and take it easy for a while. Go back to her when you feel the desire to do so, that makes it a hobby, not when she calls you, that makes it a job. Steve
  8. Bedford
    That is just beautiful !
  9. Bedford
    Hi there Robbyn, I know what you mean about being over it, my first very nearly became a flying boat several times! Patience and perseverance. I think you have gone all out on this one and it is doing your head in. Perhaaps you need to accept the the first isnt going to be the best and be happy to look on it as what it has been, a huge education. Steve
  10. Bedford
    Magnificent !
  11. Bedford
    Hi, sorry I have not checked this thread for a while. I enjoyed working with the timbers in this kit although the walnut sections, keel, rudder, masting etc took forever to dry when varnished for some reason. The ply pieces that make up the deck houses are rubbish so I made solid parts and clad them in timber. Two of the ribs are mis-numbered but I forget which ones, you need to stack them on one another and work out the order in which they belong by how they match up. The sail fabric is just callico and I found it quite good, my ex had a good sewing machine with all the accessories needed to sew the sails nicely and I knew about making the top sails so that the curved hem to go around the mast step was on the bias so I could easily make the hem. Sorry, I built her before I joined this forum so there is no build log. Steve
  12. Bedford
    You are brave Robbyn and I admire your determination to get it right, I am sure the new rope will look so much better than the cheap crap that came with the kit. You will be able to rig it with your eyes closed !! In light of this I am sure the Syren will be beautiful ! Steve
  13. Bedford
    I think you have made a good decision Robbyn, if not for the SF, for the Syren, you want to get all the lessons learned before you start that one, although there will be different challenges with her too.
  14. Bedford
    Magnificent, very keen to watch the progress. Steve
  15. Bedford
    Very nicely done, must get myself a rotary table for the mill Steve
  16. Bedford
    See Robbyn, you are now the teacher, I like that cardboard template with the lines on it, I do it freehand but keep checking spacing etc. the needle seems to be a good tool as well. You say your shrouds are quite tight, as they should be, all mine are because I reason that they were on the real thing so as to brace it all. It will work exactly the same way on a model. You will find though that you won't be able to tighten the top mast shrouds as much because the "chainplates" for want of a better term will only be decorative. Model shrouds are nowhere near heavy enough to attach a deadeye chainplate to and tension it. Instead you have to glue the dead eye rope "chainplate" into the tressle so it takes all the strain. You can still apply reasonable tension but not too much.
  17. Bedford
    The thing is Robbyn, forget what the terminology is, forget the crap plans, you are making ladders. One climbs from the deck up the shrouds and onto the tressles or cross trees or if you will, crowsnest. The top mast shrouds, which are the ones above what you are doing now will tie off to dead eyes and via lanyards to dead eyes on the tressle and those dead eyes will have a rope securing them to the shrouds below, these are the uprights of the ladders so you need to be able to climb up the shrouds til you reach the ones that angle out to the tressle, you then climb up them to the outer edge of the tressle so this is where the ratline "ladder" has to go. Make sense? You can climb up the inside and come out onto the tressle through the "lub" hole which is where the shrouds pass through the tressle on their downward journey. If you did this though you would be referred to as a "land lubber" Steve
  18. Bedford
    To be scale perfect, I believe the shrouds should go up to the point at which the top mast shroud lower dead eyes are secured to the existing shrouds, as stated above in more technically correct terms, however, it is a small scale model and it may not be possible to get them looking right all the way up so just do the best you can. The ratlines look spot on !!
  19. Bedford
    Oh Robbyn, Robbyn, Robbyn, the shrouds are the nice part ! There are hundreds and hundreds of knots to be done on the ratlines! In all hoesty though, there was a pic posted a while back when you were asking how the shrouds should go over the mast, it showed how to tie the ratlines Use the knot shown as it will look right and it will be easy once you get the hang of it. I use a long pair of angle nosed tweezers to pull the line through the knot and you end up doing an action not unlike crocheting. You can also use the tweezers to slide the knot up and down the shroud to get it nice and neat, just grab hold of the shroud with the tweezers ever so lightly and then push the knot by sliding them up or down accordingly. Cut the line to about two feet long, run it through the wax then start, I leave a bit at the last knot incase it comes lose so cut about an inch out. keep going up the shroud and when you have used up your two feet of line just use a tooth pick or similar to apply a small amount of pva to the outer knots, don't worry about the inner ones because if the outer ones can't come lose neither can the inner ones. When the glue has had time to set cut all the tails off leaving avery short tail.
  20. Bedford
    You may find the rigging is quite stress relieving, it is repetitive but not difficult, once you have it sorted you can just do it on auto pilot which leaves your mind free to relax but not so much that you can start thinking about other stuff.
  21. Bedford
    Robbyn, I am sure my first shrouds and very similar to yours, I would be well happy with them. Well done. As TMC said "not bad for a teacher" I may have left a bit of qualifying dialogue out of that quote but
  22. Bedford
    Good to see you back on deck. You know it isn't hard to make dead eyes and blocks, I have had to do a few. Use a stanley knife. Use a piece of mast dowel and form the dead eye by drilling the three holes into the end of the dowel and sand the end to the convex shape then trim excess diameter off the dowel with a knife ( careful now ) I lay the dowel on the table and press the knife into the dowel parallel to the end and as far in as it needs to be to give the thickness you need. Roll the dowel so the knife cuts a slit around the dowel. Now when you cut into the dowel from the end to reduce the diameter, you just take a little at a time, the blade will stop at the cut if you don't push too hard. When you have the diameter right sand it a bit if needed and then start filing the groove for the shroud or you can also do this by rolling the dowel under a knife although not as easily, rolling the dowel under the knife again, you will find that the knife will work it's way most of the way through the dowel to cut the block from the dowel, you will need to lightly sand the centre of the block but the knife will leave a very smooth finish on the whole. You can make blocks similarly but in that case you drill the holes across the axis of the dowel and form all but one end of the block before cutting it from the dowel with a modelling saw. I realise this is a bit late as you have already ordered replacements but worth keeping in mind for the next time. Steve
  23. Bedford
    I would stand correction, especially from TMC, but isnt the C in CA based on Cyanide?????? This is a substance to be avoided as much as possible. As for you having your own SYREN call, I guess you must, just look at all the sailors who have become shipwrecked in your build thread, there are heaps of us following your every move I assume the small bright shiny thing you mention is some kind of diamond cutting bit for use in making the Syren I hear what you are saying about not starting the rigging again or stressing too much due to colour but I will make this note. I have been aboard Endeavour, Bounty (the Australian one), Duyfken and Batavia and although I can't be sure of the Batavia's ratlines I can tell you the ones on the other three are NOT tarred. I have climbed some of them. They are an expendible and very easily replaced item and there would have been tons of short off cuts of ropes onboard ships sp why bother tarring them. Also if you think about it, sailing in tropical waters with tarred ratlines would have renderred the sailors hands sticky with tar, surely not a good thing.
  24. Bedford
    You know that feeling you get when you are helping a student and the penny drops, they get it! They appreciate your time! So do I One of the biggest things to remember with rigging is that it is part of a complex machine. It all has to work. The first ship is very confusing but the next will make sense and you will understand how it all works so it will be much easier. Think about what each line does as you attach it, don't stress if you don't understand it, without sails attached it won't all make perfect sense and given the quality of the instructions they will not be accurate anyway, but you will get a bit of an understanding. I have made three ships and the one I am planning now (you've seen the masts) has no plans or instructions, it is all out of my head except for hull profiles. I will rig it to my understanding of rigging and it will work. Remember that the ships were designed by naval achitects, not sailors. I would imagine that as soon as a new ship put to sea some of the running rigging was changed, relocated, to make it more user friendly so even the best plans from original construction could be wrong an hour after she puts to sea.
  25. Bedford
    Just to confuse, sorry, clarify things 1 attach and sieze shrouds to mast 2 insert wire jig into SHIP dead eye 3 wrap shroud around top dead eye 4 locate top dead eye onto the other end of the jig 5 adjust shroud around top dead eye 6 secure shroud in place, if cord is waxed heat from fingers under pressure will suffice. 7 remove jig and sieze top dead eye 8 align dead eyes so the three holes in them form arrows pointing up for the top and down for the ship mounted one 9 introduce the lanyard, tie a knot in one end and pass the other end through the side hole of the top dead eye from the deck side 10 run lanyard through side hole in ship dead eye from the sea side 11 run lanyard through middle hole in the top dead eye from the deck side 12 continue till you have it through all dead eye holes then run back to the top of the top dead eye and tie off around the shroud

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