Bob Cleek

One important feature that doesn't seem to have been mentioned is maximum depth of cut. To me, that's a significant  consideration in choosing a small table saw. I believe the 8"  thin-kerf blades are only thinned on their outside edges sot they won't cut any more than the 3" saws, either. It would seem the stock 4" blade on the Byrnes saw gives an inch more depth of cut than any of the other options.

I'll buy that. Untarred hemp rope is still made. I've handled some hemp buds that were pretty sticky, too.   
 
I believe, however, that we are in agreement, actually. As you say, "This rope is called "white rope" in opposition to the tarred rope which is dark. This white rope is obviously not white but straw colored as it has been said." It's a linguistic difference, I think. The hemp used to make marine rope was generally run through a bath of thinned pine tar before it was laid up on the rope walk. This resulted in its color being exactly as you describe, "straw colored." Hemp rope that is used for standing rigging is coated with thick pine tar in use to preserve it. This tar coating is reapplied about every six months and soon results in a very dark, virtually black, color. So, to put a finer point on it, the fibers are run through a thinned hot tar bath before the rope is made and this results in the "straw colored" rope. When that straw colored rope, which was called "white rope" by the French, was tarred by applying thick tar to it, it became "dark rope."
 
Hemp rope that has not been treated with pine tar before being laid up looks white, like this:
 

I can assure you that what is called white rope in the 17th and 18th centuries is indeed a hemp rope without tar. No marine rigging treatise of that time mentions linen rope.
The process and considerations I have written about are well described in the texts about galleys.

Hi Branko,
Thank you for your video.
Sabatini may be mistaken as I don't believe belaying pins were used in the 15th century, and if they were, certainly not made of iron.  From research and discussing here at MSW in some depth it appears belaying pins of any kind really would not have been used until sometime in the 18th century so there would be none on a model such as in your video.
Allan
 

I know next to nothing about the period Mediterranean vella Latina vessels mentioned, but I do think, perhaps, though I'm not positive, that you may be confusing hemp and flax rope in distinguishing between "white" and "tarred rope. I'm not sure there was ever a distinction between "white" (untarred) rope and "tarred rope" in the way you are explaining. I've always understood that all "working rope" (as opposed to ornamental rope) was lightly tarred in the manufacturing process for the purpose of providing resistance to weathering. I believe hemp rope is stronger than flax (linen) rope because it can be given a harder twist and being oiled doesn't enter into it, but I could be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time.  

Yes, but that really has nothing to do with the subject being discussed. The best anyone can do given your analysis is to build a replica of the ship which was found and it will be accurate only to the degree that the original artifact was intact. Building a replica of one of the Viking grave ships is possible because some were well preserved, as, you note, was Vasa. My point, however, is that one ship doesn't prove a whole lot beyond that one ship. I really don't know how many more "accurate" model kits of Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria, or Mayflower, Golden Hind, Half Moon, and Noah's Ark will be sold before folks realize we have no historical record of what these vessels actually looked like. 

That would depend upon the way the plank you are cutting from was originally sawn. The question is really what do you want for grain orientation in the plank?  In full-size construction for carvel planking, you want the grain running perpendicular to the wide face of the plank ("quarter sawn" or "rift sawn") and for lapstrake planking, you want the grain running parallel to the wide face of the plank ("plain sawn.") This is because dry wood swells across the grain when it becomes wet, so that the carvel planks will swell so that the plank edges at the seams will press tightly against each other, while lapstrake plank faces at the overlapping plank seams will swell against each other.  There are a number of regionally popular terms for saw cuts, as well, but basically it's all about the way the grain runs in the plank.
 
This will depend upon how the log is sawn:
 

 
Quarter sawn plank:

 
 
http://blog.carbideprocessors.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Sawn-Lumber.jpg
 
 
The grain orientation is of less importance with models, where the appearance of the plank faces, where the grain appearance of bright finished plank faces is an important consideration in achieving the proper scale appearance. For a model that will be finished bright, you want as little grain showing as possible and preferably none showing at all. This will generally favor rift-sawn stock, as can be seen from the picture above. (And, as rift-sawn stock is the most labor intensive and the most wasteful, it is also the most expensive.) This consideration is mitigated by the lack of visible grain in some select woods, such as castello boxwood and Alaska yellow cedar. Pear will also provide areas of select unfigured stock, but the strong color variations in a single piece of pear will often demand that only a limited portion of matching wood can be gotten out of a single plank. For example, you may get some suitable light-colored plank lengths cut from the sapwood on the left side of the pear plank pictured, but it's unlikely you'd get evenly colored planks from the heartwood on the right side of the pictured pear plank.
 
Structure is also important. Given the stock you've pictured, I'd be cutting plank strips from the long edges of the planks you have. As for the pear, however, the piece doesn't appear particularly "straight grained" and you don't want to cut planking strips in a way which will yield planks with grain running across the plank strip such that the strip will easily break at the grain crossing when you try to bend the plank to fit the curve of the hull. That said, it's hard to tell just looking at the top edge of the plank pictured. A test strip or two should confirm if it's suitable for bending without breakage.
 
There is a good treatment of milling modeling stock in Volume II of the NRG's Ship Modeler's Shop Notes. You may find this article helpful as well, although it addresses milling with full-size woodshop tools. https://thenrg.org/resources/Documents/articles/MillingScaleLumber.pdf  Most modelers use larger shop tools to cut smaller billets of select wood from which they mill their modeling stock with smaller saws such as the Byrnes Model Machines 4" table saw.

Hello,
 
Except for the anchor ropes and the shrouds (I'll spare you the Mediterranean terms), the rigging of the galleys is exclusively made of high quality natural hemp and not tarred. The process of obtaining hemp fibers is more elaborate and results in more refined ropes, with longer fibers and less dust, wood remains or little oakum. This rope is called "white rope" in opposition to the tarred rope which is dark. This white rope is obviously not white but straw colored as it has been said.
The white rope is imperatively used for galleys because it has an advantage: its resistance is one third higher than the tarred rope or, if you prefer, a tarred rope loses one third of its resistance by the tar applied to it. This implies that for equivalent strength, a white rope is less thick than a tarred rope and therefore lighter and, as in a galley, the weight and strength is very important given the size of the sails, white rope is preferred.
The galleys do not sail in winter (only from May to November) which avoids the problems of bad weather on the not tarred ropes. 
For the chebecs whose rigging has approximately the same characteristics although of lower size, I think that the same type of white rope was used.
 
GD
 

Homer repeatedly says that ancient galleys were rigged with plaited oxide.

There are different grades of quality pine tar, generally a function of the processing and resultant purity, but generally speaking, pine tar is pine tar. (e.g. There is a pharmaceutical grade of pine tar produced for medical applications.)
 
The consistency of tar varies in accordance with the particular application. When applied to standing rigging, It was called "slush." The traditional recipe is one part pine tar, one part raw linseed oil, and turpentine to the desired consistency. Modernly, paint thinner can substitute for turpentine and "boiled" linseed oil can replace the raw linseed oil, which will result in a faster drying time, as will adding a bit of Japan dryer to the raw linseed oil mix. 
 
As can be seen from the ingredients, the oil and solvent can be adjusted to modify the consistency of the "slush" so as to work best for the use intended. It's thinned considerably to the consistency of thinned varnish when applied with a brush as a sealing finish on bare wood ashore and afloat. (When used as a finish on bare wood, it's sometimes called "boat sauce" or "boat soup.") It was applied at the consistency of paint when applied to iron fittings and canon as a rust preventative. When applied to cordage when spun in the ropewalk, it was thinned greatly in order to result in a thin coating. On running rigging, it was thickened considerably (hence the term, "slush") and applied with slush-soaked rags wiped on the rigging. The use of thick "slush" on standing rigging avoided much of the drips and splatters that would have occurred using a thinner mix applied with a brush. 
 
Pine tar alone was applied to pounded and flayed hemp stalks and rolled into "ropes" to make oakum for caulking seams. Seams were sometimes stopped with tar, heated and poured into the seams with a special spouted can, but that was a very messy proposition, particularly when the decks would be exposed to the hot sun and the tar softened and was tracked everywhere. [Alternately, deck seams were stopped with putty made of litharge (white lead oxide powder,) whiting (powdered chalk) and raw linseed oil or with various bitumen compounds. In the mid-19th Century, "naval" or "marine glue" was invented and remains the best stopping for traditionally planked decks. Jeffreys Marine Glue, now made by Davey and Co., London, is a proprietary compound of bitumen and natural rubber which liquifies when heated and is poured hot into the seams. When cooled, it is not sticky.]
 
Greatly thinned pine tar will have a honey color, but repeated applications will quickly darken the surface as the coats build up and in short order the color is going to be a very dark brown, so much so as to appear virtually black. 
 
Because pine tar will soften in the sun and, being black, will "soak up the heat" it softens in sunny hot weather and becomes very sticky, generally creating a huge mess. For this reason, tarred iron fittings and ordinance were often left to "dry" and then painted over with black paint (originally made of turpentine, linseed oil, and lampblack.)  Tarring and painting cannon balls prevented their rusting and thereby eliminated tedious hours spent cleaning rust off the balls, a rust-free ball being essential for accuracy at range. 
 
I hope this answers some of your questions.

Rest assured, we know exactly what "Stockholm" or pine "tar" was, is, and always will be. It was a naval store about which much has been written. Sourcing it required political alliances with nations having pitch pine forests, hence, the Europeans called pine tar "Stockholm tar" simply because Sweden controlled the production of it. Pine tar was the only tar relevant to our discussion. When Britain was unable to secure tar from the Baltic forests, it focused on the colonization of the American Eastern Seaboard for naval stores, primarily shipbuilding timber and pine tar. North Carolina was the center of the British naval pine tar industry and to this day people from North Carolina are called "tar heels." It's not rocket science.

Good Evening Everyone;
 
There has been quite a lot of discussion here about the colour of lanyards, and I am surprised that nobody has suggested referring to the works of the various marine artists who flourished for at least four centuries and recorded the actual things which they saw.
 
Below is an extract from Henrik Vroom's painting of the Prince Royal, with nice dark deadeyes and lanyards. Back then, interestingly, they were called 'deadman eyes'. 
 
A look through a book showing work by an artist working in the period in which one is interested would surely be a good first port of call for anyone seeking further information. 
 
On a slightly different topic, the deadeyes of royal yachts were sometimes gilded. 
 
All the best,
 
Mark P
 

This may be true... or not.
 
While archeological research can provide a lot of information, finds are far and few between and the flaw in your reasoning is that finding one, or even a few, ships of a given type still leaves us with little or no idea of just how representative the ancient vessel that was discovered is of the general class of such vessels. This phenomenon is quite frequently encountered, even with more modern vessels. In the U.S. in the 1930's, the government conducted the Historic American Merchant Marine Survey ("HAMMS".) Researchers were sent out all over the country to locate existing examples of old vessels of all types and record their lines and construction techniques. This archive, now in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. is an extremely valuable resource for those researching now-extinct working watercraft. However, as every researcher who has ever accessed this resource quickly discovers, questions frequently arise as to whether the vessel recorded was truly representative of the type. Where did it fall in the size range of the type? Was it's construction representative of the type, or was this example unusual in some, or many, respects. Does it represent the best of the type, or the worst, or somewhere in between? 
 
The same occurs with contemporary ship models. Many, if not most, have been re-rigged over the centuries, often with grossly erroneous rigging details. Sometimes the scale dimensions of a model of an identified ship do not reconcile with subsequent customhouse size parameters. How can we say how reliable an artificial record is  presented by a single ship model?
 
Viking ships are unusual in the relatively large number discovered as burial ships found by archeologists. Even so, there have only been a total of fifteen ship burials found to date, with most of these being fragmentary, if not completely decomposed. Add to that the span of time over which such examples were built, and "building an exact replica" becomes increasingly dependent upon conjecture. 

We have always had Wayback machines, but today we ignore them, blinded by our own internet-induced conceits, and, as time passes, the opportunity to ride those Wayback machines escapes us. As young guy, I soaked up as much of the "old ways" as I could. With a father who worked in the shipping industry all his life and my growing up around the ships on the San Francisco waterfront, I was "to the manner born," I suppose. I was able to learn much from elderly mariners and craftsmen who'd done formal apprenticeships in the '20's and 30's. When I was growing up in the '50's and '60's, there were still a few "Cape Horners" around who'd worked in deepwater sail and a foreign square-rigger would arrive in port every now and then. It was all there to learn if one had the interest to appreciate it. Today there is a wealth of books and videos about ship modeling, but, informative as they may be, they cannot substitute for spending time aboard the old ships or watching the old craftsmen work. Books can tell us what was done easily enough. That's knowledge. but knowing why things were done is understanding. I admire the ambition of modelers who undertake to build miniatures of things about which they have no personal experience, relying on practicums and forums to find their way. Sometimes, though, a lack of practical experience gets the better of them. I'd suggest every modeler keep a ball of tarred hemp marline in their tool box. The fragrance of pine tar will give a whole new meaning to the experience of rigging a ship model.  
 
American Rope & Tar LLC :: Hand-Tarred Marline (tarsmell.com)
Tarred Marline (arthurbeale.co.uk)
 

 
And if you really want to get the ladies' attention, try some pine tar cologne: A.G.A. Correa's 'Seized' (tarsmell.com)  
 
 
 
 

When rigging, I put a dish with some Lapsang Souchon or a similar smoked tea onto my desk in order to get into the mood 😊

We have always had Wayback machines, but today we ignore them, blinded by our own internet-induced conceits, and, as time passes, the opportunity to ride those Wayback machines escapes us. As young guy, I soaked up as much of the "old ways" as I could. With a father who worked in the shipping industry all his life and my growing up around the ships on the San Francisco waterfront, I was "to the manner born," I suppose. I was able to learn much from elderly mariners and craftsmen who'd done formal apprenticeships in the '20's and 30's. When I was growing up in the '50's and '60's, there were still a few "Cape Horners" around who'd worked in deepwater sail and a foreign square-rigger would arrive in port every now and then. It was all there to learn if one had the interest to appreciate it. Today there is a wealth of books and videos about ship modeling, but, informative as they may be, they cannot substitute for spending time aboard the old ships or watching the old craftsmen work. Books can tell us what was done easily enough. That's knowledge. but knowing why things were done is understanding. I admire the ambition of modelers who undertake to build miniatures of things about which they have no personal experience, relying on practicums and forums to find their way. Sometimes, though, a lack of practical experience gets the better of them. I'd suggest every modeler keep a ball of tarred hemp marline in their tool box. The fragrance of pine tar will give a whole new meaning to the experience of rigging a ship model.  
 
American Rope & Tar LLC :: Hand-Tarred Marline (tarsmell.com)
Tarred Marline (arthurbeale.co.uk)
 

 
And if you really want to get the ladies' attention, try some pine tar cologne: A.G.A. Correa's 'Seized' (tarsmell.com)  
 
 
 
 

Precisely so. And a host of other factors, as well.
 
I have little investment in what color somebody makes their lanyards, but the discussion illustrates what I believe to be a much greater problem of the manner in which quite significant errors worm their way into the historical record.  Already, in this thread alone, we see assumptions based on incorrect perceptions and reasoning, obviously erroneous historical recreations, and even inaccurately re-rigged contemporary museum models offered as "authority" for modeling depictions which are simply historically wrong.  On this point, again, we can see how assumptions by otherwise technical masters of the craft and inaccuracies in often modernly re-rigged contemporary models find their way into the canon of present-day "historical authority." As an historical research wonk, I've too often struggled with inaccuracies which may have found their way into the historical record by way of a 150 year old erroneous newspaper account which was cited as gospel over and over by later historians who assumed it to be true without any further research or historical analysis. Just as with "fake news," an assertion forcefully asserted often enough makes for "fake history." Three hundred years from now, will museum curators and researchers be misled by then-surviving inaccurate models being built today, as we may have been misled by assuming the accuracy some of those left to us by our ancestors?
 
In his masterful work, The Fully Framed Model, Building the Swan Class Sloops, Volume IV, David Anscherl opines that because deadeye lanyards had to be frequently adjusted, they are running rigging and were light brown..." (or words to that effect, this not being an exact quote.) In my own experience sailing vessels equipped with deadeyes and lanyards, the deadeyes, once set up, aren't ever adjusted at all, or, at least, very rarely and when they are released, as when unstepping a mast for maintenance, tarred and painted lanyards, which are at that point quite stiff and hard, are not infrequently simply cut away and replaced anew when the mast is restepped . Now, I'm not saying they weren't ever adjusted at sea and maritime adventure writers describing "tightening the lanyards until they screamed in order to squeeze the last quarter of a knot out of the old girl" in a sea chase does make for exciting reading,  but I do know for sure that traditional standing rigging generally does not need to be adjusted after being set up and doesn't need to be all that tight in any event.
 
A traditional keel-stepped mast is quite capable of standing on its own, supported laterally by its partners. The purpose of the standing rigging was not to hold the mast vertical, but rather to evenly transmit the forces of the sail through the rigging to the hull. (The engineering of the modern "Marconi" rig being an entirely different animal.) The purpose of the deadeyes and lanyard were not so much to provide a mechanical purchase in the manner of a block and tackle, but to provide a method of fastening the shroud to the chainplates in order to transmit the stresses from the sails to the hull. Tying a knot in a shroud so it might be fastened to a chainplate is not a practical exercise. The deadeye provides the necessarily large diameter around which the thick, stiff, shroud-laid shroud can be turned and lashed. Moreover, as a practical matter, there's very little mechanical advantage in the deadeyes and lanyard because the tighter the lanyard becomes, the greater the friction of the lanyard going through the deadeye holes, greased or not, and a point of diminishing returns is quickly reached. As for tightness and stretch, masts bend somewhat and, in so doing, the windward shrouds fetch up tightly while the leeward shrouds become slack and once the windward shrouds have taken up, they are as tight as they need to be to efficiently transmit the power of sails to the hull of the ship. (Pre-stretched, four-strand shroud-laid cordage sacrificed tensile strength in exchange for lack of stretch, in any event.) I certainly wouldn't contradict Anscherl on any other point I can think of, but on this one, I think he jumped to the wrong conclusion. The definition of the term, "running rigging" is perhaps too broadly applied in this instance. Lanyards do little, if any "running."
 
Similarly, anyone who has done any amount of traditional rigging using "Stockholm" or pine tar can attest that if it is thinned greatly, it is indeed amber colored, but in the form it is usually applied to standing rigging, it is so dark a brown as to be seen as black, and that's a fact, not an opinion.

Oh, come on!  You can't be serious.
 
The galleon has Dacron lanyards and their overly-long bitter ends are tied off ludicrously, wrapped around the shrouds. They'll serve their purpose just fine and won't require the maintenance natural fiber cordage would, but they are not historically correct in appearance. (Black synthetic line is readily available, so there's really no excuse.) Neither are the bronze ring bolts. For an "historical recreation" of a vessel the appearance of which can never be more than an educated guess, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. (The electrical cables running down the shroud and into the cabin side are a nice touch, too.)  But what difference does it make? The tourists will love it. "A real pirate ship!"  
 
USS Constitution, the only commissioned ship in the U.S. Navy to have actually sank an enemy vessel, and an actual historical artifact responsibly restored and conserved, is completely correct.* And her lanyards are black.
 
* Except for the "kiddie proof" netting they festoon all over her, as between the cannon barrel and the port jambs.
 
As I said, one can use any color lanyards they wish. Those who are interested in historical accuracy will make sure the lanyards on their period models are black. 

It's only "amber" when it's been thinned like all get out, as in when it's applied to fibers when making rope. All the "Stockholm" or pine tar I've ever used around boats has been very, very dark brown, virtually black, before thinning. The more it is thinned, the lighter it gets. Hence, when repeated coats are applied, the amber color deepens to black as the coats build up. 
 

 
Pine tar is widely used for dressing horses' hooves and for veterinary medicinal purposes:
 

 

 
It's also traditionally used as a sealer on bare wood in Scandanavia:
 

 
 
And it's the traditional method of treating wooden baseball bats to provide a sticky grip for the batter:
 

 

 
Dark, dark, dark brown... virtually black.
 
And because it is sticky and gets all over everything, after a good coating of tar for preservation was applied to rigging, it was painted over with black paint to further seal it and provide UV protection. Were this not done, a ship would have "tar tracks" from stem to stern in short order and be quite a mess. As most know, the sailor's "middie" collar, the square of cloth attached to the back of the collar on a sailor's blouse, evolved from a scarf tied around the neck to prevent the pine tar from the sailors' pigtails from staining their shirts when they tarred their pigtails to preserve their hair as it grew out uncut on a long voyage. Upon their return, they'd cut off their tarred pigtails and sell them to the wig makers, who'd rinse them in turpentine to remove the tar and clean the hair for making the wigs so popular in past times.
 

 
I could care less what color people make their rigging, but if anybody's asking what color deadeye lanyards were in the Age of Sail, I'm going to say "black." And if people insist on "two tone" deadeyes and lanyards with black shrouds and tan, or even white, lanyards, they're certainly free to do so. 
 
 
 

Precisely so. And a host of other factors, as well.
 
I have little investment in what color somebody makes their lanyards, but the discussion illustrates what I believe to be a much greater problem of the manner in which quite significant errors worm their way into the historical record.  Already, in this thread alone, we see assumptions based on incorrect perceptions and reasoning, obviously erroneous historical recreations, and even inaccurately re-rigged contemporary museum models offered as "authority" for modeling depictions which are simply historically wrong.  On this point, again, we can see how assumptions by otherwise technical masters of the craft and inaccuracies in often modernly re-rigged contemporary models find their way into the canon of present-day "historical authority." As an historical research wonk, I've too often struggled with inaccuracies which may have found their way into the historical record by way of a 150 year old erroneous newspaper account which was cited as gospel over and over by later historians who assumed it to be true without any further research or historical analysis. Just as with "fake news," an assertion forcefully asserted often enough makes for "fake history." Three hundred years from now, will museum curators and researchers be misled by then-surviving inaccurate models being built today, as we may have been misled by assuming the accuracy some of those left to us by our ancestors?
 
In his masterful work, The Fully Framed Model, Building the Swan Class Sloops, Volume IV, David Anscherl opines that because deadeye lanyards had to be frequently adjusted, they are running rigging and were light brown..." (or words to that effect, this not being an exact quote.) In my own experience sailing vessels equipped with deadeyes and lanyards, the deadeyes, once set up, aren't ever adjusted at all, or, at least, very rarely and when they are released, as when unstepping a mast for maintenance, tarred and painted lanyards, which are at that point quite stiff and hard, are not infrequently simply cut away and replaced anew when the mast is restepped . Now, I'm not saying they weren't ever adjusted at sea and maritime adventure writers describing "tightening the lanyards until they screamed in order to squeeze the last quarter of a knot out of the old girl" in a sea chase does make for exciting reading,  but I do know for sure that traditional standing rigging generally does not need to be adjusted after being set up and doesn't need to be all that tight in any event.
 
A traditional keel-stepped mast is quite capable of standing on its own, supported laterally by its partners. The purpose of the standing rigging was not to hold the mast vertical, but rather to evenly transmit the forces of the sail through the rigging to the hull. (The engineering of the modern "Marconi" rig being an entirely different animal.) The purpose of the deadeyes and lanyard were not so much to provide a mechanical purchase in the manner of a block and tackle, but to provide a method of fastening the shroud to the chainplates in order to transmit the stresses from the sails to the hull. Tying a knot in a shroud so it might be fastened to a chainplate is not a practical exercise. The deadeye provides the necessarily large diameter around which the thick, stiff, shroud-laid shroud can be turned and lashed. Moreover, as a practical matter, there's very little mechanical advantage in the deadeyes and lanyard because the tighter the lanyard becomes, the greater the friction of the lanyard going through the deadeye holes, greased or not, and a point of diminishing returns is quickly reached. As for tightness and stretch, masts bend somewhat and, in so doing, the windward shrouds fetch up tightly while the leeward shrouds become slack and once the windward shrouds have taken up, they are as tight as they need to be to efficiently transmit the power of sails to the hull of the ship. (Pre-stretched, four-strand shroud-laid cordage sacrificed tensile strength in exchange for lack of stretch, in any event.) I certainly wouldn't contradict Anscherl on any other point I can think of, but on this one, I think he jumped to the wrong conclusion. The definition of the term, "running rigging" is perhaps too broadly applied in this instance. Lanyards do little, if any "running."
 
Similarly, anyone who has done any amount of traditional rigging using "Stockholm" or pine tar can attest that if it is thinned greatly, it is indeed amber colored, but in the form it is usually applied to standing rigging, it is so dark a brown as to be seen as black, and that's a fact, not an opinion.

Precisely so. And a host of other factors, as well.
 
I have little investment in what color somebody makes their lanyards, but the discussion illustrates what I believe to be a much greater problem of the manner in which quite significant errors worm their way into the historical record.  Already, in this thread alone, we see assumptions based on incorrect perceptions and reasoning, obviously erroneous historical recreations, and even inaccurately re-rigged contemporary museum models offered as "authority" for modeling depictions which are simply historically wrong.  On this point, again, we can see how assumptions by otherwise technical masters of the craft and inaccuracies in often modernly re-rigged contemporary models find their way into the canon of present-day "historical authority." As an historical research wonk, I've too often struggled with inaccuracies which may have found their way into the historical record by way of a 150 year old erroneous newspaper account which was cited as gospel over and over by later historians who assumed it to be true without any further research or historical analysis. Just as with "fake news," an assertion forcefully asserted often enough makes for "fake history." Three hundred years from now, will museum curators and researchers be misled by then-surviving inaccurate models being built today, as we may have been misled by assuming the accuracy some of those left to us by our ancestors?
 
In his masterful work, The Fully Framed Model, Building the Swan Class Sloops, Volume IV, David Anscherl opines that because deadeye lanyards had to be frequently adjusted, they are running rigging and were light brown..." (or words to that effect, this not being an exact quote.) In my own experience sailing vessels equipped with deadeyes and lanyards, the deadeyes, once set up, aren't ever adjusted at all, or, at least, very rarely and when they are released, as when unstepping a mast for maintenance, tarred and painted lanyards, which are at that point quite stiff and hard, are not infrequently simply cut away and replaced anew when the mast is restepped . Now, I'm not saying they weren't ever adjusted at sea and maritime adventure writers describing "tightening the lanyards until they screamed in order to squeeze the last quarter of a knot out of the old girl" in a sea chase does make for exciting reading,  but I do know for sure that traditional standing rigging generally does not need to be adjusted after being set up and doesn't need to be all that tight in any event.
 
A traditional keel-stepped mast is quite capable of standing on its own, supported laterally by its partners. The purpose of the standing rigging was not to hold the mast vertical, but rather to evenly transmit the forces of the sail through the rigging to the hull. (The engineering of the modern "Marconi" rig being an entirely different animal.) The purpose of the deadeyes and lanyard were not so much to provide a mechanical purchase in the manner of a block and tackle, but to provide a method of fastening the shroud to the chainplates in order to transmit the stresses from the sails to the hull. Tying a knot in a shroud so it might be fastened to a chainplate is not a practical exercise. The deadeye provides the necessarily large diameter around which the thick, stiff, shroud-laid shroud can be turned and lashed. Moreover, as a practical matter, there's very little mechanical advantage in the deadeyes and lanyard because the tighter the lanyard becomes, the greater the friction of the lanyard going through the deadeye holes, greased or not, and a point of diminishing returns is quickly reached. As for tightness and stretch, masts bend somewhat and, in so doing, the windward shrouds fetch up tightly while the leeward shrouds become slack and once the windward shrouds have taken up, they are as tight as they need to be to efficiently transmit the power of sails to the hull of the ship. (Pre-stretched, four-strand shroud-laid cordage sacrificed tensile strength in exchange for lack of stretch, in any event.) I certainly wouldn't contradict Anscherl on any other point I can think of, but on this one, I think he jumped to the wrong conclusion. The definition of the term, "running rigging" is perhaps too broadly applied in this instance. Lanyards do little, if any "running."
 
Similarly, anyone who has done any amount of traditional rigging using "Stockholm" or pine tar can attest that if it is thinned greatly, it is indeed amber colored, but in the form it is usually applied to standing rigging, it is so dark a brown as to be seen as black, and that's a fact, not an opinion.

The problem lies in what EXACTLY really is. We don't know, we where not there then, and no written or pictorial records exist.
 
We interpret, in the above case, archaeological finds, with our modern knowledge and logic. But then the knowledge was different and the logic probably as well - we have some archaeological evidence of what people in a particular case may have done, but we don't know what they have tried to achieve and why, and what was the 'normal'. With the exception of one of the Skudelev wrecks, I think, all longboats finds were dressed up for funerary purposes, so we don't know, to what degree they reflect actual practice. Even for many 19th century practices there are no records and we need to back-interpret with our 20th/21st century knowledge.
 
This applies in particular also to naval vs.merchant navy practices. We are so much framed by tax-money funded naval practices, which were often recorded, that we think that this is what they did on low-marging operated and sparingly manned merchant ships as well. Not very likely, as later 19th century photographs seem to indicate.
 
When you look at a modern replica, you look at a set of interpretations of the existing evidence, nothing more. Sometimes these are the best available interpretations and sometimes concessions have to be made, when you actually want a working(!) replica on which you are allowed to put people.

It seems that the debate goes full circle again ... modern examples are not helpful, as they only reflect the modern interpretation of others and perhaps modern seaworthiness regulatory requirements ...

Fairly accurate tapering can be turned  on the Sherline.  These tiny oil cans (copies of actual full size cans), about 1/4" diameter at the can's base, were completely turned on my Sherline  Lathe.  For turning tapers I use the step method. The material is divided segments. I calculate the diameter of the taper at the base of each step. I start with the stock back in the headstock protruding about two inches beyond the chuck jaws. I make the first turning to near the diameter of the taper at that  point.  I continue this until have cut alter taper points.  Then I finish it off with a file. 

And just to make life a bit more miserable for the anally constrained obsessives, let's not forget that the measurement of a "foot" was not internationally standardized in the times discussed here. Individual nations and even individual cities had their own "foot" measurement standards and even some trades had their own "foot" measurements.  Where some may have updated their measurement standards or political boundaries may have shifted, there were simultaneously "old feet" and "new feet" in some locations. This is often a cause of confusion today when a contemporary draughts and records list the length of a particular vessel in "feet" and the contemporary model doesn't measure out to scale in the present "Imperial foot" which was only internationally standardized in 1959. I once had a terrible time trying to resolve the published discrepancy in the length of a yacht built as recently as 1939 until I realized the naval architect's drawings were done in the UK to British feet and inches, while the vessel was built to the offsets in British measurement units by a yard in Sweden using Swedish feet and inches!  See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_(unit)