Bob Cleek

Two pins, actually. Drive them at opposing angles so they hold better. Your rigging lines will belay to these cleats and you don't want the tension on the lines pulling them off. Simply gluing them in place won't provide sufficient shear strength to prevent pulling them off. 
 
As for finish, it may well depend upon the period in which your prototype was built. Generally speaking, wooden cleats are left bare because this provides the better friction to hold the belaying hitches in place. They may also be oiled, in which case they'd be very dark brown or black at a scale viewing distance. Sometimes, too, though, they may be painted the same as the surrounding area or white for visibility at night. There aren't a lot of hard and fast rules on cleat colors. This is an area where the modeler gets to exercise some artistic license in the absence of any reliable historical record for a given vessel.

I can't answer the first question, but you should definitely drill and pin them.

Shellac's solvent is alcohol. I'm living proof that alcohol fumes are not toxic.    

Indeed Bob!😁
I was referring to methylated spirits.

Ditto for refinishing pianos and other aged French-polished furniture.

I think you are basically asking how to paint, because once basic painting is mastered, spray painting is just another way of putting the paint on the piece you want to paint. Total mastery of painting is a broad subject well beyond the scope of a single response on an internet forum. I'll just offer some general advice I've found helpful. No doubt others will chime in to disagree and then you'll be more confused than ever before!  
 
You have to learn to walk before you can run. Spray painting requires a command of basic painting techniques to do well. None of the common challenges and problems encountered spray painting can be overcome without a basic understanding of coatings and their applications. The most important thing to master with spray painting is control over the amount of paint you are applying to the surface. Too much paint will result in runs, sags, and "curtains," which will ruin the job, require wiping off the uncured coating with solvent and re-prepping the surface or waiting until the paint is fully cured and then resanding to perfect fairness.
 
First, I would not advise that any serious modeler use rattle can spray paint for much of anything, except perhaps a sanding basecoat. The quality of the nozzles on rattle can paints, while remarkably good considering the manufacturing tolerances required, aren't good enough for the finish perfection scale modeling requires and are primarily designed for spraying large areas, not small ones. Besides, if you need just a small amount of paint, you're stuck buying the whole rattle can which, like as not, will "die on the shelf" before you get around to using it again. They are also an expensive way to buy paint. If you are interested in spraying paint, the sooner you acquire an airbrush and learn to operate it, the better. It's not rocket science and the cost of a basic quality airbrush and small compressor will be quickly amortized in paint cost savings. If you can't afford an air brush, then learn to paint with a quality bristle brush. An experienced painter can achieve the same results with either application method. (The airbrush is more forgiving in covering large surfaces, but others may have found otherwise.)
 
It is essential to learn how to properly "condition" your paint to achieve perfect finishes. This is done with thinners, "retarders" (that slow drying and so permit brush strokes to "lay down"), and "accellerators" (which speed drying to prevent runs or "curtains.") There are also additives that will achieve the finish desired from high gloss to dead flat and anywhere in between. The consistency of the coating is a major determinative of the quality of the job. Learning to condition paint is a process of acquiring "hands on experience." If you know someone who knows how to paint, getting some one-on-one instruction would be helpful.)
 
Learn how to work with the medium you choose, be it solvent/oil-based paint or water-based acrylics. Learn to use sealers (shellac, etc.), sanding base coats, and finish or "top" coats. Learn how to mix colors from a basic pallet. (Study the "color wheel.") There are hundreds of pre-mixed colors available in tiny bottles with high prices. Use these if you wish, but realize that tubed paste artists oils or acrylics are the basic building blocks of all those pre-mixed colors and if you "roll your own" you will save a lot of money and rarely find yourself running from hobby shop to hobby shop (often far and few between) or waiting days for the arrival of an internet purchase to find more of that particular color you just ran out of which may or may not be still available.
 
Remember that painting anything is 90% preparation and 10% application. Especially in modeling, surfaces should be perfectly smooth (or textured as required) and perfectly clean before the paint is applied. And if you use brushes, learn how to clean and care for them so they don't become "dust applicators" that ruin what otherwise would have been a perfect job. Cleanliness is essential. Store masking tape in zip lock bags and never lay a roll of masking tape down on its side. The side of the tape roll will pick up every bit of dust it contacts and ruin the tape for producing the perfect razor-sharp lines sought in modeling. (Buy quality 3M "fine line" tape or Tamiya masking tape. These tapes will produce the sharp lines required for modeling. Household "painter's tape" is not suitable.) Use a "tack cloth" to remove sanding dust from a piece before painting it. Store your tack cloth in a zip lock plastic bag, too. Try to paint in a dust-free area. While often easier said than done, painting on a dusty  workbench where you've just sanded the piece in a room with dust hanging in the air is not advisable. 
 
Unless you are completely familiar with the coating material you are using, (meaning you used it recently,) always, always, always test your materials and surfaces before committing to painting the workpiece. Paint can thicken or even lose its ability to "dry" while sitting on your shelf. (The modern synthetic coatings can be quite finicky in this respect.) Colors will often appear different when "dry" than when applied. Sometimes coatings are incompatible and disasters will result when they come in contact with each other. By making a test strip using the same surface, including undercoats, to be painted and the paint you want to apply to it, you can determine what the results will be. Failure to do so can result in a hull that is coated with a dirty, fingerprinted, sticky mess that refuses to dry and must be laboriously stripped off down to bare wood before another attempt can be made. 
 
 

What Eberhard and Jaager said! Absolutely. Canned pre-mixed shellac is readily available and inexpensive (although I've heard tell that it is harder to find in England for some unknown reason, so you may have to buy dry shellac flakes and mix it up in alcohol yourself.) Denatured alcohol, with which it is thinned, if necessary, and for clean-up, is also readily available and inexpensive. (Use the forum search engine for "sealing" and "shellac" and you'll find lots of details on its use as a sealer.) Thinned shellac (what they call two or three pound "cut," a mix ratio of two or three pounds of flake to a gallon of alcohol, (you'll need much less than that mixed at a time for modeling use) is the consistency of water and soaks right into the wood without raising the grain. I often simply dip a part into the can and let the excess drip off back into the can. It dries very quickly. I have no problem with losing detail at all. Were there a problem with the thickness of the application, the excess shellac, even if dried, could easily be wiped off with a cloth soaked in alcohol. Dried shellac-sealed wood can be rubbed or sanded easily. Any oil- or water-based paint can be applied over dried shellac. I really don't think there is a better wood sealer for modeling purposes, all things considered. Others prefer using other types of commercial sealers, but nobody I know uses diluted PVA for the purpose.

A very clever trick with the twisted wire with "link" openings formed by a pin. I've never seen that one before. it looks to be a very credible representation for very fine chain.

What Eberhard and Jaager said! Absolutely. Canned pre-mixed shellac is readily available and inexpensive (although I've heard tell that it is harder to find in England for some unknown reason, so you may have to buy dry shellac flakes and mix it up in alcohol yourself.) Denatured alcohol, with which it is thinned, if necessary, and for clean-up, is also readily available and inexpensive. (Use the forum search engine for "sealing" and "shellac" and you'll find lots of details on its use as a sealer.) Thinned shellac (what they call two or three pound "cut," a mix ratio of two or three pounds of flake to a gallon of alcohol, (you'll need much less than that mixed at a time for modeling use) is the consistency of water and soaks right into the wood without raising the grain. I often simply dip a part into the can and let the excess drip off back into the can. It dries very quickly. I have no problem with losing detail at all. Were there a problem with the thickness of the application, the excess shellac, even if dried, could easily be wiped off with a cloth soaked in alcohol. Dried shellac-sealed wood can be rubbed or sanded easily. Any oil- or water-based paint can be applied over dried shellac. I really don't think there is a better wood sealer for modeling purposes, all things considered. Others prefer using other types of commercial sealers, but nobody I know uses diluted PVA for the purpose.

Yeah, it was a slow afternoon and I had time on my hands.  

Just some opinionated general observations to add to the good advice above, offered for what it's worth. Others' mileage may vary:
 
Since the internet and especially the Covid pandemic, we've begun living in the age of mail order. That has opened up much wider and more easily accessible sourcing options than we ever had before. However, the catch, particularly for those living outside of major metropolitan centers where a few "brick and mortal" shops struggle to survive, is that the costs of shipping and handling are added to online purchases and these added costs have risen exponentially in recent times. That fact has to be factored into the equation. "Amazon Prime" and "free shipping and handling" are significant considerations in making online purchases these days. 
 
You can rely on any of this forum's sponsors for the best of whatever they sell. They've all been thoroughly vetted and their customer service is top notch. You won't go wrong looking to them for specialized ship modeling products and their prices are very reasonable. If I needed an airbrush, I wouldn't consider looking any further than USA Airbrush Supply or for after-market blocks any further than Syren Ship Models. This is a no-brainer for me.
 
If the online outfit advertises itself as a "hobby" anything, you are often better off going directly to an online supplier of professional supplies of the same type and see if you can do better. A "hobby shop" can get away selling lower quality tools and supplies at a higher price to a broader spectrum of customers, while a professional supply house will soon die on the vine if the professional customers aren't satisfied with product quality and service. Approach hobby outfits like Model Expo and Micro-Mark with caution. These two online retailers have an excellent selection of products for the modeler, but in many instances they are priced significantly higher than other sources catering to professional clients in allied fields. (It's a good idea to get on their mailing lists, though, because they often offer great discounts on clearance items.) This is particularly true with respect to tools. For example, Micro-Mark sells a pair of crudely scaled six-inch proportional dividers made by Tacro for $140.00, but you can find models of the finest rack-and-pinion adjustable, Verniier decimally-scaled ten-inch proportional dividers ever made, used and in good shape, for half that price or a higher-quality set of seven-inch dividers than the Tacro six-inchers for as little as $25 on eBay. The same goes for surgical and dental instruments. The "hobby shops" sell poor-quality tweezers, forceps, scissors, hemostats, scalpels and blades, and so on at higher prices than the mid-range quality stuff the medical and dental supply houses are offering on eBay or Amazon.
 
There is a wealth of model-building tools and materials that can be found in higher quality and lower prices from professional jewelers' supply houses. This is where to look for pliers, cutting tools, files, tweezers, rotary tools and burrs, soldering supplies, and such. A couple of the most popular are Rio Grande (https://www.riogrande.com/) and Otto Frei. (https://www.ottofrei.com/ ) Cheaper files can be had from hobby supply houses, but, for example, cheap files are a waste of money. The same goes for pliers and cutters. When buying tools, the cheapest quickly becomes the most expensive when you have to buy another to replace it.  
 
Medical and dental supply houses are also a great source for ship modeling tools, although many of these companies sell "to the trade only" or in large lots to institutional purchasers. eBay is a good place to find used medical instruments useful in ship modeling, but caution has to be exercised because there are a lot of Asian manufacturers unloading poor-quality instruments on eBay. The upside of this is that they are often so inexpensive that taking a chance is worth the gamble. Carnegie Surgical Co. sells a range of professional quality ear polypuses, a type of forceps for working in very confined spaces that I consider to be an invaluable rigging instrument) ranging in price from around $100 to $250. Micro-Mark sells a 12" ear polypus for fifty bucks. eBay, on the other hand, has tons of different versions ranging from ten to twenty-five bucks (and up) that are quite acceptable for modeling use because we aren't going to be using them deep inside a patient's ear canal. The same applies to tweezers. If you're looking for an 8" or 12" pair of tweezers to reach inside the shrouds on your square-rigger, eBay is the place to buy them.
 
As a footnote, there was once a time when you could get lots of used medical and dental instruments from friendly medical professionals. Forty years ago, I worked in a large state institution that had a big dental clinic and I was friends with the chief dentist there who was an avid HO train modeler. He kept me supplied with all sorts of worn-out instruments: probes, dental chisels, drill burrs, forceps, pliers, and the like. (I still have an oddly shaped pair of pliers designed to extract molars which comes in handy now and again.) Sadly, a combination of the trend to disposable instruments which are more cost effective because autoclave sterilizing and sterile repackaging labor is no longer needed and heightened "biohazard" prevention protocols now mandate the controlled disposal of used instruments. Few doctors and dentists consider it appropriate to deviate from the biohazard disposal protocols and save a "goody box" of used instruments for their modeling friends. If you are lucky enough to find one who will still provide you with some, go for it!  
 
Finally a word about paint.  Ship modeling very rarely requires exact color matches. What we do need is quality paint with good archival qualities and a high content of good pigment ground finely that will produce good opacity. Most all the pre-mixed modeling paints marketed as such will meet these requirements... at a very high price. Bottled modeling paints are very convenient if one needs to get an exact color match and for this reason they are the favorites of armor, aircraft, and railroad modelers who need the exact shade of field gray used by the Wehrmacht in early 1943 or the exact shade of boxcar blue Conrail paints its boxcars. Ship modelers don't have the problem of that level of color accuracy and I don't think we have to pay five bucks an ounce and another five bucks in shipping and handling for a bottle of generic black, white, or bottom paint brown (which is the same as "boxcar red.") So I'd urge anybody who doesn't want to go broke collecting a couple of hundred one ounce bottles of modeling paint to display on their shop shelf while the paint dries hard in the bottles to learn to mix, condition and use quality tubed artists' oils or acrylics. Tubed colors have a shelf-life measured in decades, come in as many pre-mixed colors as anybody could possibly want, and, if one learns to mix their own colors, can provide any color in the rainbow out of five or seven tubes. (Black, white, red, blue, yellow, and for convenience maybe a brown, and a green.) There are many YouTube videos on how to use artists' tubed colors in both oil and acrylic for brush and airbrush application in miniature work which are well worth a ship modeler's time to watch. (Many are by the guys who paint fantasy gaming figures and miniature soldiers.) There is also an excellent instructional chapter on mixing your own colors for painting ship models in volume two of Ship Modeler's Shop Notes which can be purchased from the NRG. Tubed colors, as well as varnishes, thinners, and flattening (matte) additives and coatings are available on line from artists' supply houses, or locally from arts and crafts stores much easier than modeling paint is locally available at local hobby shops if you can even find one anymore. Painting and finishing ship models seems to be an aspect of the craft which is often given short shrift yet it is one of the most important factors in the final appearance of a model. There's a lot more to it than just applying paint straight out of the bottle. Once the relatively simple skill of mixing your own paint is mastered, you're free from all the limitations and inconveniences of sourcing pre-mixed modeling paint and can enjoy the benefit of saving lots of money over the course of a modeling career. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Shellac is also a traditional cement used by jewellers and watchmakers. The latter use it in molten form to stick (temporarily) metal parts together. Dipped in alcohol, the parts separate.
 
A while ago, I got myself shellac-flakes and dissolved a lot of them just in a few millilitres of alcohol to make a cement with honey-like consistency. It grabs quite well, but it takes quite a while for the alcohol to evaporate. When working with it, the 'open' time is quite infinite, giving you lots of time to adjust parts. As any excess can be wiped off with a brush dipped into alcohol, it makes for a neat cement.

Thanks guys for the information and what has confirmed that I already thought that there are better products out there than pva glue. I am currently using a product called Bulls eye Seal coat which I am informed is Shelac,at least that is what it says on the Tin. Interestingtly enough it does not go off or at least it hasn,t yet ,when I left the top off a small bottle overnight. I like the sound of Bobs idea of dipping small parts into it then easily wiping off any excess. I have some ethenol and methelated spirits without the purple stuff so I  can thin it down so will quickly run out of areas,if that makes sense. Anyway I have also used this diluted on rigging knots and lines and I believe it to be a stronger hold. 
          Thanks again guys for help and patience . You will make a modeller of me yet. At least I hope you will. best regards Dave

Just some opinionated general observations to add to the good advice above, offered for what it's worth. Others' mileage may vary:
 
Since the internet and especially the Covid pandemic, we've begun living in the age of mail order. That has opened up much wider and more easily accessible sourcing options than we ever had before. However, the catch, particularly for those living outside of major metropolitan centers where a few "brick and mortal" shops struggle to survive, is that the costs of shipping and handling are added to online purchases and these added costs have risen exponentially in recent times. That fact has to be factored into the equation. "Amazon Prime" and "free shipping and handling" are significant considerations in making online purchases these days. 
 
You can rely on any of this forum's sponsors for the best of whatever they sell. They've all been thoroughly vetted and their customer service is top notch. You won't go wrong looking to them for specialized ship modeling products and their prices are very reasonable. If I needed an airbrush, I wouldn't consider looking any further than USA Airbrush Supply or for after-market blocks any further than Syren Ship Models. This is a no-brainer for me.
 
If the online outfit advertises itself as a "hobby" anything, you are often better off going directly to an online supplier of professional supplies of the same type and see if you can do better. A "hobby shop" can get away selling lower quality tools and supplies at a higher price to a broader spectrum of customers, while a professional supply house will soon die on the vine if the professional customers aren't satisfied with product quality and service. Approach hobby outfits like Model Expo and Micro-Mark with caution. These two online retailers have an excellent selection of products for the modeler, but in many instances they are priced significantly higher than other sources catering to professional clients in allied fields. (It's a good idea to get on their mailing lists, though, because they often offer great discounts on clearance items.) This is particularly true with respect to tools. For example, Micro-Mark sells a pair of crudely scaled six-inch proportional dividers made by Tacro for $140.00, but you can find models of the finest rack-and-pinion adjustable, Verniier decimally-scaled ten-inch proportional dividers ever made, used and in good shape, for half that price or a higher-quality set of seven-inch dividers than the Tacro six-inchers for as little as $25 on eBay. The same goes for surgical and dental instruments. The "hobby shops" sell poor-quality tweezers, forceps, scissors, hemostats, scalpels and blades, and so on at higher prices than the mid-range quality stuff the medical and dental supply houses are offering on eBay or Amazon.
 
There is a wealth of model-building tools and materials that can be found in higher quality and lower prices from professional jewelers' supply houses. This is where to look for pliers, cutting tools, files, tweezers, rotary tools and burrs, soldering supplies, and such. A couple of the most popular are Rio Grande (https://www.riogrande.com/) and Otto Frei. (https://www.ottofrei.com/ ) Cheaper files can be had from hobby supply houses, but, for example, cheap files are a waste of money. The same goes for pliers and cutters. When buying tools, the cheapest quickly becomes the most expensive when you have to buy another to replace it.  
 
Medical and dental supply houses are also a great source for ship modeling tools, although many of these companies sell "to the trade only" or in large lots to institutional purchasers. eBay is a good place to find used medical instruments useful in ship modeling, but caution has to be exercised because there are a lot of Asian manufacturers unloading poor-quality instruments on eBay. The upside of this is that they are often so inexpensive that taking a chance is worth the gamble. Carnegie Surgical Co. sells a range of professional quality ear polypuses, a type of forceps for working in very confined spaces that I consider to be an invaluable rigging instrument) ranging in price from around $100 to $250. Micro-Mark sells a 12" ear polypus for fifty bucks. eBay, on the other hand, has tons of different versions ranging from ten to twenty-five bucks (and up) that are quite acceptable for modeling use because we aren't going to be using them deep inside a patient's ear canal. The same applies to tweezers. If you're looking for an 8" or 12" pair of tweezers to reach inside the shrouds on your square-rigger, eBay is the place to buy them.
 
As a footnote, there was once a time when you could get lots of used medical and dental instruments from friendly medical professionals. Forty years ago, I worked in a large state institution that had a big dental clinic and I was friends with the chief dentist there who was an avid HO train modeler. He kept me supplied with all sorts of worn-out instruments: probes, dental chisels, drill burrs, forceps, pliers, and the like. (I still have an oddly shaped pair of pliers designed to extract molars which comes in handy now and again.) Sadly, a combination of the trend to disposable instruments which are more cost effective because autoclave sterilizing and sterile repackaging labor is no longer needed and heightened "biohazard" prevention protocols now mandate the controlled disposal of used instruments. Few doctors and dentists consider it appropriate to deviate from the biohazard disposal protocols and save a "goody box" of used instruments for their modeling friends. If you are lucky enough to find one who will still provide you with some, go for it!  
 
Finally a word about paint.  Ship modeling very rarely requires exact color matches. What we do need is quality paint with good archival qualities and a high content of good pigment ground finely that will produce good opacity. Most all the pre-mixed modeling paints marketed as such will meet these requirements... at a very high price. Bottled modeling paints are very convenient if one needs to get an exact color match and for this reason they are the favorites of armor, aircraft, and railroad modelers who need the exact shade of field gray used by the Wehrmacht in early 1943 or the exact shade of boxcar blue Conrail paints its boxcars. Ship modelers don't have the problem of that level of color accuracy and I don't think we have to pay five bucks an ounce and another five bucks in shipping and handling for a bottle of generic black, white, or bottom paint brown (which is the same as "boxcar red.") So I'd urge anybody who doesn't want to go broke collecting a couple of hundred one ounce bottles of modeling paint to display on their shop shelf while the paint dries hard in the bottles to learn to mix, condition and use quality tubed artists' oils or acrylics. Tubed colors have a shelf-life measured in decades, come in as many pre-mixed colors as anybody could possibly want, and, if one learns to mix their own colors, can provide any color in the rainbow out of five or seven tubes. (Black, white, red, blue, yellow, and for convenience maybe a brown, and a green.) There are many YouTube videos on how to use artists' tubed colors in both oil and acrylic for brush and airbrush application in miniature work which are well worth a ship modeler's time to watch. (Many are by the guys who paint fantasy gaming figures and miniature soldiers.) There is also an excellent instructional chapter on mixing your own colors for painting ship models in volume two of Ship Modeler's Shop Notes which can be purchased from the NRG. Tubed colors, as well as varnishes, thinners, and flattening (matte) additives and coatings are available on line from artists' supply houses, or locally from arts and crafts stores much easier than modeling paint is locally available at local hobby shops if you can even find one anymore. Painting and finishing ship models seems to be an aspect of the craft which is often given short shrift yet it is one of the most important factors in the final appearance of a model. There's a lot more to it than just applying paint straight out of the bottle. Once the relatively simple skill of mixing your own paint is mastered, you're free from all the limitations and inconveniences of sourcing pre-mixed modeling paint and can enjoy the benefit of saving lots of money over the course of a modeling career. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Just some opinionated general observations to add to the good advice above, offered for what it's worth. Others' mileage may vary:
 
Since the internet and especially the Covid pandemic, we've begun living in the age of mail order. That has opened up much wider and more easily accessible sourcing options than we ever had before. However, the catch, particularly for those living outside of major metropolitan centers where a few "brick and mortal" shops struggle to survive, is that the costs of shipping and handling are added to online purchases and these added costs have risen exponentially in recent times. That fact has to be factored into the equation. "Amazon Prime" and "free shipping and handling" are significant considerations in making online purchases these days. 
 
You can rely on any of this forum's sponsors for the best of whatever they sell. They've all been thoroughly vetted and their customer service is top notch. You won't go wrong looking to them for specialized ship modeling products and their prices are very reasonable. If I needed an airbrush, I wouldn't consider looking any further than USA Airbrush Supply or for after-market blocks any further than Syren Ship Models. This is a no-brainer for me.
 
If the online outfit advertises itself as a "hobby" anything, you are often better off going directly to an online supplier of professional supplies of the same type and see if you can do better. A "hobby shop" can get away selling lower quality tools and supplies at a higher price to a broader spectrum of customers, while a professional supply house will soon die on the vine if the professional customers aren't satisfied with product quality and service. Approach hobby outfits like Model Expo and Micro-Mark with caution. These two online retailers have an excellent selection of products for the modeler, but in many instances they are priced significantly higher than other sources catering to professional clients in allied fields. (It's a good idea to get on their mailing lists, though, because they often offer great discounts on clearance items.) This is particularly true with respect to tools. For example, Micro-Mark sells a pair of crudely scaled six-inch proportional dividers made by Tacro for $140.00, but you can find models of the finest rack-and-pinion adjustable, Verniier decimally-scaled ten-inch proportional dividers ever made, used and in good shape, for half that price or a higher-quality set of seven-inch dividers than the Tacro six-inchers for as little as $25 on eBay. The same goes for surgical and dental instruments. The "hobby shops" sell poor-quality tweezers, forceps, scissors, hemostats, scalpels and blades, and so on at higher prices than the mid-range quality stuff the medical and dental supply houses are offering on eBay or Amazon.
 
There is a wealth of model-building tools and materials that can be found in higher quality and lower prices from professional jewelers' supply houses. This is where to look for pliers, cutting tools, files, tweezers, rotary tools and burrs, soldering supplies, and such. A couple of the most popular are Rio Grande (https://www.riogrande.com/) and Otto Frei. (https://www.ottofrei.com/ ) Cheaper files can be had from hobby supply houses, but, for example, cheap files are a waste of money. The same goes for pliers and cutters. When buying tools, the cheapest quickly becomes the most expensive when you have to buy another to replace it.  
 
Medical and dental supply houses are also a great source for ship modeling tools, although many of these companies sell "to the trade only" or in large lots to institutional purchasers. eBay is a good place to find used medical instruments useful in ship modeling, but caution has to be exercised because there are a lot of Asian manufacturers unloading poor-quality instruments on eBay. The upside of this is that they are often so inexpensive that taking a chance is worth the gamble. Carnegie Surgical Co. sells a range of professional quality ear polypuses, a type of forceps for working in very confined spaces that I consider to be an invaluable rigging instrument) ranging in price from around $100 to $250. Micro-Mark sells a 12" ear polypus for fifty bucks. eBay, on the other hand, has tons of different versions ranging from ten to twenty-five bucks (and up) that are quite acceptable for modeling use because we aren't going to be using them deep inside a patient's ear canal. The same applies to tweezers. If you're looking for an 8" or 12" pair of tweezers to reach inside the shrouds on your square-rigger, eBay is the place to buy them.
 
As a footnote, there was once a time when you could get lots of used medical and dental instruments from friendly medical professionals. Forty years ago, I worked in a large state institution that had a big dental clinic and I was friends with the chief dentist there who was an avid HO train modeler. He kept me supplied with all sorts of worn-out instruments: probes, dental chisels, drill burrs, forceps, pliers, and the like. (I still have an oddly shaped pair of pliers designed to extract molars which comes in handy now and again.) Sadly, a combination of the trend to disposable instruments which are more cost effective because autoclave sterilizing and sterile repackaging labor is no longer needed and heightened "biohazard" prevention protocols now mandate the controlled disposal of used instruments. Few doctors and dentists consider it appropriate to deviate from the biohazard disposal protocols and save a "goody box" of used instruments for their modeling friends. If you are lucky enough to find one who will still provide you with some, go for it!  
 
Finally a word about paint.  Ship modeling very rarely requires exact color matches. What we do need is quality paint with good archival qualities and a high content of good pigment ground finely that will produce good opacity. Most all the pre-mixed modeling paints marketed as such will meet these requirements... at a very high price. Bottled modeling paints are very convenient if one needs to get an exact color match and for this reason they are the favorites of armor, aircraft, and railroad modelers who need the exact shade of field gray used by the Wehrmacht in early 1943 or the exact shade of boxcar blue Conrail paints its boxcars. Ship modelers don't have the problem of that level of color accuracy and I don't think we have to pay five bucks an ounce and another five bucks in shipping and handling for a bottle of generic black, white, or bottom paint brown (which is the same as "boxcar red.") So I'd urge anybody who doesn't want to go broke collecting a couple of hundred one ounce bottles of modeling paint to display on their shop shelf while the paint dries hard in the bottles to learn to mix, condition and use quality tubed artists' oils or acrylics. Tubed colors have a shelf-life measured in decades, come in as many pre-mixed colors as anybody could possibly want, and, if one learns to mix their own colors, can provide any color in the rainbow out of five or seven tubes. (Black, white, red, blue, yellow, and for convenience maybe a brown, and a green.) There are many YouTube videos on how to use artists' tubed colors in both oil and acrylic for brush and airbrush application in miniature work which are well worth a ship modeler's time to watch. (Many are by the guys who paint fantasy gaming figures and miniature soldiers.) There is also an excellent instructional chapter on mixing your own colors for painting ship models in volume two of Ship Modeler's Shop Notes which can be purchased from the NRG. Tubed colors, as well as varnishes, thinners, and flattening (matte) additives and coatings are available on line from artists' supply houses, or locally from arts and crafts stores much easier than modeling paint is locally available at local hobby shops if you can even find one anymore. Painting and finishing ship models seems to be an aspect of the craft which is often given short shrift yet it is one of the most important factors in the final appearance of a model. There's a lot more to it than just applying paint straight out of the bottle. Once the relatively simple skill of mixing your own paint is mastered, you're free from all the limitations and inconveniences of sourcing pre-mixed modeling paint and can enjoy the benefit of saving lots of money over the course of a modeling career. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Yeah, it was a slow afternoon and I had time on my hands.  

Just some opinionated general observations to add to the good advice above, offered for what it's worth. Others' mileage may vary:
 
Since the internet and especially the Covid pandemic, we've begun living in the age of mail order. That has opened up much wider and more easily accessible sourcing options than we ever had before. However, the catch, particularly for those living outside of major metropolitan centers where a few "brick and mortal" shops struggle to survive, is that the costs of shipping and handling are added to online purchases and these added costs have risen exponentially in recent times. That fact has to be factored into the equation. "Amazon Prime" and "free shipping and handling" are significant considerations in making online purchases these days. 
 
You can rely on any of this forum's sponsors for the best of whatever they sell. They've all been thoroughly vetted and their customer service is top notch. You won't go wrong looking to them for specialized ship modeling products and their prices are very reasonable. If I needed an airbrush, I wouldn't consider looking any further than USA Airbrush Supply or for after-market blocks any further than Syren Ship Models. This is a no-brainer for me.
 
If the online outfit advertises itself as a "hobby" anything, you are often better off going directly to an online supplier of professional supplies of the same type and see if you can do better. A "hobby shop" can get away selling lower quality tools and supplies at a higher price to a broader spectrum of customers, while a professional supply house will soon die on the vine if the professional customers aren't satisfied with product quality and service. Approach hobby outfits like Model Expo and Micro-Mark with caution. These two online retailers have an excellent selection of products for the modeler, but in many instances they are priced significantly higher than other sources catering to professional clients in allied fields. (It's a good idea to get on their mailing lists, though, because they often offer great discounts on clearance items.) This is particularly true with respect to tools. For example, Micro-Mark sells a pair of crudely scaled six-inch proportional dividers made by Tacro for $140.00, but you can find models of the finest rack-and-pinion adjustable, Verniier decimally-scaled ten-inch proportional dividers ever made, used and in good shape, for half that price or a higher-quality set of seven-inch dividers than the Tacro six-inchers for as little as $25 on eBay. The same goes for surgical and dental instruments. The "hobby shops" sell poor-quality tweezers, forceps, scissors, hemostats, scalpels and blades, and so on at higher prices than the mid-range quality stuff the medical and dental supply houses are offering on eBay or Amazon.
 
There is a wealth of model-building tools and materials that can be found in higher quality and lower prices from professional jewelers' supply houses. This is where to look for pliers, cutting tools, files, tweezers, rotary tools and burrs, soldering supplies, and such. A couple of the most popular are Rio Grande (https://www.riogrande.com/) and Otto Frei. (https://www.ottofrei.com/ ) Cheaper files can be had from hobby supply houses, but, for example, cheap files are a waste of money. The same goes for pliers and cutters. When buying tools, the cheapest quickly becomes the most expensive when you have to buy another to replace it.  
 
Medical and dental supply houses are also a great source for ship modeling tools, although many of these companies sell "to the trade only" or in large lots to institutional purchasers. eBay is a good place to find used medical instruments useful in ship modeling, but caution has to be exercised because there are a lot of Asian manufacturers unloading poor-quality instruments on eBay. The upside of this is that they are often so inexpensive that taking a chance is worth the gamble. Carnegie Surgical Co. sells a range of professional quality ear polypuses, a type of forceps for working in very confined spaces that I consider to be an invaluable rigging instrument) ranging in price from around $100 to $250. Micro-Mark sells a 12" ear polypus for fifty bucks. eBay, on the other hand, has tons of different versions ranging from ten to twenty-five bucks (and up) that are quite acceptable for modeling use because we aren't going to be using them deep inside a patient's ear canal. The same applies to tweezers. If you're looking for an 8" or 12" pair of tweezers to reach inside the shrouds on your square-rigger, eBay is the place to buy them.
 
As a footnote, there was once a time when you could get lots of used medical and dental instruments from friendly medical professionals. Forty years ago, I worked in a large state institution that had a big dental clinic and I was friends with the chief dentist there who was an avid HO train modeler. He kept me supplied with all sorts of worn-out instruments: probes, dental chisels, drill burrs, forceps, pliers, and the like. (I still have an oddly shaped pair of pliers designed to extract molars which comes in handy now and again.) Sadly, a combination of the trend to disposable instruments which are more cost effective because autoclave sterilizing and sterile repackaging labor is no longer needed and heightened "biohazard" prevention protocols now mandate the controlled disposal of used instruments. Few doctors and dentists consider it appropriate to deviate from the biohazard disposal protocols and save a "goody box" of used instruments for their modeling friends. If you are lucky enough to find one who will still provide you with some, go for it!  
 
Finally a word about paint.  Ship modeling very rarely requires exact color matches. What we do need is quality paint with good archival qualities and a high content of good pigment ground finely that will produce good opacity. Most all the pre-mixed modeling paints marketed as such will meet these requirements... at a very high price. Bottled modeling paints are very convenient if one needs to get an exact color match and for this reason they are the favorites of armor, aircraft, and railroad modelers who need the exact shade of field gray used by the Wehrmacht in early 1943 or the exact shade of boxcar blue Conrail paints its boxcars. Ship modelers don't have the problem of that level of color accuracy and I don't think we have to pay five bucks an ounce and another five bucks in shipping and handling for a bottle of generic black, white, or bottom paint brown (which is the same as "boxcar red.") So I'd urge anybody who doesn't want to go broke collecting a couple of hundred one ounce bottles of modeling paint to display on their shop shelf while the paint dries hard in the bottles to learn to mix, condition and use quality tubed artists' oils or acrylics. Tubed colors have a shelf-life measured in decades, come in as many pre-mixed colors as anybody could possibly want, and, if one learns to mix their own colors, can provide any color in the rainbow out of five or seven tubes. (Black, white, red, blue, yellow, and for convenience maybe a brown, and a green.) There are many YouTube videos on how to use artists' tubed colors in both oil and acrylic for brush and airbrush application in miniature work which are well worth a ship modeler's time to watch. (Many are by the guys who paint fantasy gaming figures and miniature soldiers.) There is also an excellent instructional chapter on mixing your own colors for painting ship models in volume two of Ship Modeler's Shop Notes which can be purchased from the NRG. Tubed colors, as well as varnishes, thinners, and flattening (matte) additives and coatings are available on line from artists' supply houses, or locally from arts and crafts stores much easier than modeling paint is locally available at local hobby shops if you can even find one anymore. Painting and finishing ship models seems to be an aspect of the craft which is often given short shrift yet it is one of the most important factors in the final appearance of a model. There's a lot more to it than just applying paint straight out of the bottle. Once the relatively simple skill of mixing your own paint is mastered, you're free from all the limitations and inconveniences of sourcing pre-mixed modeling paint and can enjoy the benefit of saving lots of money over the course of a modeling career. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A very clever trick with the twisted wire with "link" openings formed by a pin. I've never seen that one before. it looks to be a very credible representation for very fine chain.

A primer of half saturated shellac is easily applied using a cotton rag - a worn out T shirt or bed sheet - it soaks into the wood.  Using the rag  - no ponds are left on the surface - it does not hide detail.
Indeed, if you had used an open pore wood species like Oak or Walnut, the open pores would still be there.  The application is less involved than using an air brush.  It is quick and simple to use.  It takes many applications of full strength to build any sort of thickness - an application is just a wet layer, not a coat.
Use scrap wood and practice a few times - you will then realize that it is not as complicated as imagined.  You can buff with a Scotch Brite pad when dry - 0000 steel wool is traditional, but the steel shards - not seen, but there - make themselves known when they turn to rust and leave a stain.

The point of a wood sealer or sanding sealer is that it should penetrate into the wood. There are two properties that help this process, low viscosity and good wetting behaviour. These are properties that PVA doesn't really have, it has, if undiluted, a high viscosity and being 'polar' (sorry for the chemistry-speak), it is being repelled from more or less resinous wood. Good sanding sealers are based on some kind of organic solvent (which includes alcohol in the case of shellac) and quite thin, so it really soaks into the wood, rather than forming a layer on top.
 
A sealer has to be 'worked' into the wood - in the old days shellac was applied with a 'tampon'. Modern sanding sealers are usually applied with a bristle-brush. So, application by air-brush would be counterproductive.

Yeah, it was a slow afternoon and I had time on my hands.  

Just some opinionated general observations to add to the good advice above, offered for what it's worth. Others' mileage may vary:
 
Since the internet and especially the Covid pandemic, we've begun living in the age of mail order. That has opened up much wider and more easily accessible sourcing options than we ever had before. However, the catch, particularly for those living outside of major metropolitan centers where a few "brick and mortal" shops struggle to survive, is that the costs of shipping and handling are added to online purchases and these added costs have risen exponentially in recent times. That fact has to be factored into the equation. "Amazon Prime" and "free shipping and handling" are significant considerations in making online purchases these days. 
 
You can rely on any of this forum's sponsors for the best of whatever they sell. They've all been thoroughly vetted and their customer service is top notch. You won't go wrong looking to them for specialized ship modeling products and their prices are very reasonable. If I needed an airbrush, I wouldn't consider looking any further than USA Airbrush Supply or for after-market blocks any further than Syren Ship Models. This is a no-brainer for me.
 
If the online outfit advertises itself as a "hobby" anything, you are often better off going directly to an online supplier of professional supplies of the same type and see if you can do better. A "hobby shop" can get away selling lower quality tools and supplies at a higher price to a broader spectrum of customers, while a professional supply house will soon die on the vine if the professional customers aren't satisfied with product quality and service. Approach hobby outfits like Model Expo and Micro-Mark with caution. These two online retailers have an excellent selection of products for the modeler, but in many instances they are priced significantly higher than other sources catering to professional clients in allied fields. (It's a good idea to get on their mailing lists, though, because they often offer great discounts on clearance items.) This is particularly true with respect to tools. For example, Micro-Mark sells a pair of crudely scaled six-inch proportional dividers made by Tacro for $140.00, but you can find models of the finest rack-and-pinion adjustable, Verniier decimally-scaled ten-inch proportional dividers ever made, used and in good shape, for half that price or a higher-quality set of seven-inch dividers than the Tacro six-inchers for as little as $25 on eBay. The same goes for surgical and dental instruments. The "hobby shops" sell poor-quality tweezers, forceps, scissors, hemostats, scalpels and blades, and so on at higher prices than the mid-range quality stuff the medical and dental supply houses are offering on eBay or Amazon.
 
There is a wealth of model-building tools and materials that can be found in higher quality and lower prices from professional jewelers' supply houses. This is where to look for pliers, cutting tools, files, tweezers, rotary tools and burrs, soldering supplies, and such. A couple of the most popular are Rio Grande (https://www.riogrande.com/) and Otto Frei. (https://www.ottofrei.com/ ) Cheaper files can be had from hobby supply houses, but, for example, cheap files are a waste of money. The same goes for pliers and cutters. When buying tools, the cheapest quickly becomes the most expensive when you have to buy another to replace it.  
 
Medical and dental supply houses are also a great source for ship modeling tools, although many of these companies sell "to the trade only" or in large lots to institutional purchasers. eBay is a good place to find used medical instruments useful in ship modeling, but caution has to be exercised because there are a lot of Asian manufacturers unloading poor-quality instruments on eBay. The upside of this is that they are often so inexpensive that taking a chance is worth the gamble. Carnegie Surgical Co. sells a range of professional quality ear polypuses, a type of forceps for working in very confined spaces that I consider to be an invaluable rigging instrument) ranging in price from around $100 to $250. Micro-Mark sells a 12" ear polypus for fifty bucks. eBay, on the other hand, has tons of different versions ranging from ten to twenty-five bucks (and up) that are quite acceptable for modeling use because we aren't going to be using them deep inside a patient's ear canal. The same applies to tweezers. If you're looking for an 8" or 12" pair of tweezers to reach inside the shrouds on your square-rigger, eBay is the place to buy them.
 
As a footnote, there was once a time when you could get lots of used medical and dental instruments from friendly medical professionals. Forty years ago, I worked in a large state institution that had a big dental clinic and I was friends with the chief dentist there who was an avid HO train modeler. He kept me supplied with all sorts of worn-out instruments: probes, dental chisels, drill burrs, forceps, pliers, and the like. (I still have an oddly shaped pair of pliers designed to extract molars which comes in handy now and again.) Sadly, a combination of the trend to disposable instruments which are more cost effective because autoclave sterilizing and sterile repackaging labor is no longer needed and heightened "biohazard" prevention protocols now mandate the controlled disposal of used instruments. Few doctors and dentists consider it appropriate to deviate from the biohazard disposal protocols and save a "goody box" of used instruments for their modeling friends. If you are lucky enough to find one who will still provide you with some, go for it!  
 
Finally a word about paint.  Ship modeling very rarely requires exact color matches. What we do need is quality paint with good archival qualities and a high content of good pigment ground finely that will produce good opacity. Most all the pre-mixed modeling paints marketed as such will meet these requirements... at a very high price. Bottled modeling paints are very convenient if one needs to get an exact color match and for this reason they are the favorites of armor, aircraft, and railroad modelers who need the exact shade of field gray used by the Wehrmacht in early 1943 or the exact shade of boxcar blue Conrail paints its boxcars. Ship modelers don't have the problem of that level of color accuracy and I don't think we have to pay five bucks an ounce and another five bucks in shipping and handling for a bottle of generic black, white, or bottom paint brown (which is the same as "boxcar red.") So I'd urge anybody who doesn't want to go broke collecting a couple of hundred one ounce bottles of modeling paint to display on their shop shelf while the paint dries hard in the bottles to learn to mix, condition and use quality tubed artists' oils or acrylics. Tubed colors have a shelf-life measured in decades, come in as many pre-mixed colors as anybody could possibly want, and, if one learns to mix their own colors, can provide any color in the rainbow out of five or seven tubes. (Black, white, red, blue, yellow, and for convenience maybe a brown, and a green.) There are many YouTube videos on how to use artists' tubed colors in both oil and acrylic for brush and airbrush application in miniature work which are well worth a ship modeler's time to watch. (Many are by the guys who paint fantasy gaming figures and miniature soldiers.) There is also an excellent instructional chapter on mixing your own colors for painting ship models in volume two of Ship Modeler's Shop Notes which can be purchased from the NRG. Tubed colors, as well as varnishes, thinners, and flattening (matte) additives and coatings are available on line from artists' supply houses, or locally from arts and crafts stores much easier than modeling paint is locally available at local hobby shops if you can even find one anymore. Painting and finishing ship models seems to be an aspect of the craft which is often given short shrift yet it is one of the most important factors in the final appearance of a model. There's a lot more to it than just applying paint straight out of the bottle. Once the relatively simple skill of mixing your own paint is mastered, you're free from all the limitations and inconveniences of sourcing pre-mixed modeling paint and can enjoy the benefit of saving lots of money over the course of a modeling career. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Beautiful work! I think you are channeling Donald McNarry's ghost!
 

3D....I tackled the issue by noting that the bunt line blocks are movable on the jackstay and can be rotated to the back of the stay and thus the furled sail.  The sail then can be tightly furled with the blocks nicely stowed behind it.   I wanted my Glory of the Seas to mimic actual practice.  ON the yard not in front of it.
 
Check out my log for Glory of the Seas to see what I did to answer the call.
 
Good luck.

 
 
Rob

No kidding! Don'tcha just hate waking up in a cold sweat dreaming about that "rare, but life-threatening infection in the skin of the perineum?"