rybakov

Bowlines and Bridles – Boulines et branches
In continuing my research on the bowlines (boulines) for my French corvette, I came across an intriguing national distinction that manifests not only in theory but also in practical model execution.
I have since identified a differing treatment of bowlines when sails are struck, between British and French practice. The aim of these measures was to prevent the lines from becoming entangled and to ensure immediate readiness when re-rigging. These differences are well documented in contemporary sources and observable in period models:
a) British Practice:
British manuals such as David Steel (1794), Darcy Lever (Sheet Anchor, 1808/1843), and Brady (The Kedge Anchor, 1841) depict bowlines fitted with spliced-in thimbles, through which the bridles were rove.
Lever states explicitly:
Accordingly, the British rigged the bowlines together with the bridles to the outer yardarms. This arrangement was certainly robust, but less flexible when striking sails, as bowlines and bridles had to be handled as a single unit.

Source: K. Schrage – Rundhölzer, Tauwerk und Segel, p. 144
b) French Practice:
Baudin (Manuel du jeune marin, 1828) notes that bowlines were rolled up and secured to the mast or yard after the sails were furled — “roulées et assujetties au mât ou à la vergue.” He does not elaborate on the exact method of securing them to the yard. However, his description suggests that the bridles remained attached to the sail. This interpretation is supported by illustrations in the Atlas du Génie Maritime, where bowlines are shown fastened to the bridles using toggles. This solution facilitated rapid bending and unbending of the sails.
The bowlines of the mainsails require separate consideration, as discussed in a previous contribution of mine.
 

Source: Atlas du Génie Maritime
 
On the period model of La Créole, as well as on numerous other models in the Musée national de la Marine, one can observe bowlines secured amidships on the yards, without bridles. In the case of La Créole, the bowlines in this example appear to be connected to the buntlines via eye splices or stopper knots, and thus stowed securely.

Source: Detail from the original model of La Créole, Musée de la Marine, Paris

Source: Detail from La Flore, Frégate de 18, Musée de la Marine, Paris, 1806
Personal Conclusion:
The French employed toggles at the bridles and secured the running ends of the bowlines amidships on the yard, where possible, e.g., in conjunction with the buntlines — in my view, a practical solution that facilitated swift re-rigging.
The British, by contrast, preferred spliced-in thimbles at the ends of the bowlines, through which the bridles were rove — a permanent and solid connection, but likely less flexible when striking sails.
 
This reveals a clear national differentiation, as seen in many other rigging elements.
 
As a result, I now need to revise the detail of the bowlines on the fore yard, which I had mistakenly and prematurely executed in analogy to British practice.

It seems important to me that such details shouldn't be viewed too absolutely. Depending on the ship type, time period, or source, different solutions may have existed side by side—and therefore, variants that deviate from the "schema" are not automatically wrong.
 
I welcome any feedback or additions — especially references to French sources that further illuminate the use of toggled connections.
 

I’ve been plugging away on this f’ocsle breast rail and belfry, here and there, when I can.
 
I made enough BONDO scroll ornaments so that I didn’t have any difficulty selecting for the best and most consistent examples:

I coat them with a little thin CA, once they’re in place, just as a precaution - in case there were any micro fissures or fractures.
 
The belfry came together sequentially.

Turning the bell took a few attempts.  I overheated the plastic, on the first try, and the bell winged-out on me.
 
I made the cap rail from a couple of layers to give me a thickness of 3/64ths.


It was necessary to fit a center section of caprail to the belfry assembly.  The side sections will be mortised for the timberheads, and joined to the center section later.
 
All-in-all, I’m really pleased with how it’s coming along:



As always, thank you for taking time out to look-in at this build.
 
More to come…

Time is short with conference play starting for the soccer team... but I can say I am 99% done with the dolphin hance pieces. Basically a little clean up work is left on the brows. I have attempted to avoid the brows being completely smooth, and have tried to leave little furrows and scratches in them if I can just for interest, but the reality is they will be very hard to see.
 

 
Now on the finish the inletting of the rails. Last week, I had figured that I needed to have some sort of "cradle" under the belly of the dolphin; I was visualizing two 1/4 round or two 1/2 round pieces. However, in looking at any old drawings that I can find, as well as what Marc LaGuardia has done, I don't see any evidence of an obvious cradle or support system, other than the railing is simply contoured to the belly of the dolphin. Of course, a 1/100 dolphin hance piece doesn't need a cradle, but I still have it in my mind that a full size wooden hance piece might need to be supported at the belly.
 

 

 
Now, I can really see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am so close to being able to start painting! However, when I am done with the dolphin hance pieces, I need to not do any work for several days and just think... for example, I thinbk that I need to have hundreds of holes in the hull properly bored put before painting. Gun port lid ropes holes (1 hole per gun port), gun port tackle holes (4 holes per gun port), the wire insertion holes for the gun port lids (2 holes per gun port), etc...
 
Many of these are already in place, but now that I have the gun tackle bolts from Kris in Poland... that leaves me about 400 gun port tackle holes to do next! Fortunately, the "hard" part is just making an appropriate jig for each of the different gun ports.... the drilling then is very easy and robotic.

Well, I’m happy to report that the BONDO experiment was a success!  I made a few fleur and shell casts to see how the material might release from the moulds.


They released with even less effort than the Allumalite resin castings.  As with the resin, small air pockets were an issue, but the crispness of detail was very satisfying, overall.
 
For the squiggly scrolls, I decided to press a small amount of BONDO into the moulds with the pad of my finger, hoping to press out any air pockets.  I then applied a thin backing layer so that I’d have something to hold onto, as I wasted away the ground.  This time, perfect castings:

Wasting was easy with the Dremel drum sanding attachment, followed by lap sanding across a sanding stick with finger pressure.  Checking against a back-light, you can see where the ground is thicker or thinner, and you can adjust your finger pressure accordingly.  You sand until you can just begin to see the castings releasing from the ground.
 
I cleaned up a set to see what they looked like on a panel.  I’m on the fence about this, at the moment:

I also took some time to trim the panels so that they fit precisely within the parameters of the drawing.  Because all 6 panels are produced from only two master drawings, they don’t all perfectly mirror to the other side of the drawing.  A little fine-tuning was necessary:


I made the yoke for the bell.  The iron bands are simply black construction paper:

I’ve also made the six breast-rail stanchions.  I realized that the knees I patterned (left stanchion) were a little too heavy and out of scale, so I trimmed them back a bit (right):

I guess I didn’t save the bell (90’s reference), so I’ll have to turn one from Screetch!
 
RIP, Dustin Diamond

And the dolphin hance pieces are 95% completed... I am carefully configuring the railing to the contour of each dolphin. I have an idea for a subtle cradle that the dolphin will nestle into, simply using several thin half-round Evergreen strips. The dolphin is not tight fitted in.
 

 
I still have a little bit of finishing work to do.. very subtle things like the eye is too round, as in the lower right dolphin.
 

 
I wasnlt satisfied with making eyes from ApoxieSculpt... the eyes were just tiny little balls that I couldn't get right. I rummaged in my shotgun reloading supplies and pulled out some #9 pellets, which happen to be 0.08" diameter. Still too big and round, but I popped each pellet into a vise and then sawed a cut into each pellet. I then split each pellet in half... lead is soft.
 
I didn't like the round eyes... what to do? I sliced with am Xacto knife and made a different eye shape that - hopefully - looks a little meaner with an ApoxieSculpt brow. Marc LaGaurdia has observed that statue work like these almost bordered on the grotesque side, exaggerated like gargoyles. 
 

Another thing, I bought some small 1/72 sailor figurines on an website a few days ago (I don't know if I can name it), the result is great! I've painted two for the moment, they will keep company with the officer I previously did ! And they will help, in different places of the ship, to give the feeling of scale of certain elements. (pulleys, yards, bitts...) (the one in the second photo is working on the sails normally, but there aren't any on my Ambitious yet)

 

 

Hello dear friends !
Thanks for the nice comments. Indeed I spent a lot of time pre-studying the color palette. It's something very important to me, as well as the lines, to give this strong good first impression when you look at a model. If the details are extraordinary but the colors don't feel true and the lines are too stiff I will not appreciate the model. I always try to bring the colors down a bit, because when you look at a real 1/1 thing versus when you look at a model, let's say 1/72, at one meter, it's like you look at the real thing at 72 meter. Because of the density of the air, the colors won't be as shiny and bright as the real ones. 
Anyway here are the last achievements, there are a little mantlets left to pose.
 
 
 

Hello dear friends !
L'Ambitieux is still going on, at his pace. I did a few things these last couple of weeks. At first I corrected the shape of the bow.
Then I installed the "porte-haubans", maybe the word is "stay shelf" in english ? I made various superstructure elements ont the third deck: some ladders ("echelle des gaillards" and the ladder of the crew), "bitton de grand hunier" and "bitton de petit hunier", the "bossoirs de capon" (the horns at the front of the ship), the chemneys. Concerning the chemneys, those of the kit were very acceptable, I only had to drew a real hole and treat them with "tourmaline". (a product that oxyde and blacked the metal) I also installed the bell, made the ladder and the protections for the outside hull, and now, I'm installing all the gunport mantlets.
I try not to dive too deep into detail, it's really a different work compared to my SR but it's very rewarding to see the model progress, and I really like the overall look. The purpose is not to have an educational model but a good rendering of the image of what a great ship of this time should have looked like, at sea. 
As always, I'm very thankful for the "likes" and comments, it really pushes me forward !
 
 

OK, I am satisfied with my first dolphin hance piece... well, actually Version 3.0. This fountain at Versailles is what I was aiming for, and now I have some cleanup work, as well as the assembly of the other three hance pieces.
 
EDIT: Stock photo removed by moderator.
 
I do need to trim the tail down a bit, where the tail turns from the body and extends to the viewer... that is just a little light sanding of the ApoxieSculpt. I know.. dolphins don't have scales or gills, but the French dolphins often seem to be very stylized. So I decided I wanted to mimic the "gill plates" extending behind the eyes, and have them stan away from the body a bit - so that needed a 0.13mm thick Evergreen sheet. I also wanted the "lips" of the dolphin statue.
 
Note to self... as I look at the magnified pictures, I am going to redo the eyes... I might actually drop a #9 shotgun pellet in the socket.
 

 

 
Overall, I am satisfied and the next three will look even better, especially when I fix the eyes/eye brows. Ohhh - and that too thick tail! I still see too many flaws, but I remind myself that no one is going to be looking at these with a microscope; they will be at least a foot away.
 

 

Thank you for all the thumps up, as always very appreciated!
 
And I am always delighted by the fine structures that are now possible in printing. Once again, parts whose diameter is half as wide as my papillary ridges, these are some of the finest parts of my products 🙂

XXXDAn

As I have wrecked the sails, there is a forced break at this point to ‘reweave’ them. Since my day-to-day business leaves little time for this, it is taking longer than expected.

Therefore, I am continuing with a rowed version as an interim action to build. According to the armament list, the Victory had a 24-pounder carronade for the big launch, for landing operations and similar tasks. It is time to continue with this little vignette. To this end, I have acquired a 24-pounder from my Constitution model, removed the first thwart, reinforced the second one, and already have a passable support. I have also added the swivel guns from the fighting tops of the my Constitution.



First, I checked the length of the breech rope.




The green underlay is good for rigging the small blocks, as you can push two needles into it as holding points. The blocks themselves were slotted into the vice as already described.

And then it was finished http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif



The tools for the carronade are already included, shortened in comparison to the other guns. The cannonballs are stowed deep in the boat in the rack. All that's missing are the small salt boxes for the powder cartridges and a toolbox.

Enjoy, Daniel  

I received a package today from Poland that I had lost all hope of ever getting! After being so pleased with the 100 cannon that Skutznik sent me in May,  I ordered some additional parts from Skutznik in July. The tiny package apparently left Poland July 25, and then... it simply vanished. The USPS website could not find the package anywhere. Seven weeks later - today! - it showed up in my mailbox. These are the final hull decoration pieces that I needed so I could start painting the hull!
 

 
 
I just laid the circular gun port wreathes and square gun port decor on my beakhead bulkhead - obviously I have some fine tuning work to do, but this saves me a lot of work.
 

 
Finally, my long awaited gun tackle arrived, i.e. a steel rod through the hull, with a washer and wedge on the outside. It might take an electron microscope to see the wedge, but I love the scale size compared to what I had been atempting. I ordered 500 of thse little buggers, as I strongly suspect that I am going to lose some as they are so tiny.
 

 
 
 

I’ve spent the better part of the week fretting out these panels.  They are pretty small, at 3/8” x 7/16”+:

As such, I was having a lot of trouble NOT breaking off the ears of my fleurs.  I set them aside, to glue them back-on once the fretting was done.  Despite that precaution, I still managed to break one off again.
 
I realized I would never be able to model the shells and fleurs unless they were secured to a backing, so I glued the .032 fretted panel to a .020 backer.
 
In order to preserve some sense of lightness, I filed out the scalloped recesses around the perimeter.  When I get to painting these, I will use flat black for the ground behind the fleurs and shells - a nod to theater carpentry.  The fret-work will be red ocher, and the ornaments will be yellow ocher.
 
I’m going to experiment with Bondo to see whether I can cast extras of the small squiggles that ornament all the corners of the frieze.  These might be nice accents for the corners of each panel:

I ran out of viable resin and don’t feel like buying more because it has a shelf-life, and I won’t use it enough to justify the cost.
 
As long as the vinyl Bondo releases from the rubber moulds I made, we’re in business.  We shall see.

I think I have figured out a way to apply scales to the dolphin hance pieces.
 
The first step was to roll out some ApoxieSculpt into a very thin sheet. I rolled it on a small piece of ceramic tile, and then put the tile in the freezer. Every hour or so, I took the tile out and let it sit at room temperature for a few minutes, then back into the freezer. I eventually found a point where the ApoxieSculpt was not tacky, and yet was still malleable (putting ApoxieSculpt in the freezer stops the hardening process). Then I cut a small sheet... this small rectangle has some texture on it that I was experimenting with. Also, I should note that prior to this, I made a thin "mud" of ApoxieSculpt and applied it to the hance pieces... the "mud" was thin enough that it self-leveled and the surface of the hance pieces became smooth.
 

 
Next, I dabbed some cyanoacrylate on the dolphin body, and then applied the small sheet of ApoxieSculpt. I then used my thumb to level the edges and cover the entire half of the body... no scales on the head.
 
 
 

 
Next was several passes with the knurled handle of an X-Acto blade to make scales. I lightly rolled the piece several times. The piece can't get into tight areas where the tail curves, but I am not going to sweat that. I am not looking for perfect scales. I did try with multiple individual tools to press or carve in rounded scales one at a time, but I didn't have the skill (and patience), so I knew that I needed something to take away the guesswork. 
 

 
Now all four hance pieces have one side of the body textured. They need to dry completely overnight, and then back to the other side. Ultimately, I just wanted a fine, consistent texture, and as Marc LaGuardia has observed on his build log, that fine texture on his dolphin tails will pick up a wash!
 

Just to support Chuck´s and Greg´s observation: When I started to hit the french forums, I was surprised them not doing the "usual" diffentiation in color inbeteen the standing and running rigging. Even more they were surprised that we or better I did.
 
Eversince I orientate myself more on the style I saw on Hermione: different colors due to different level of tarring and also different bleaching by sun and salt.
 
To the question if parts are wormed but not served I would like to show you the pictures of Invincible´s stays, nice to see the different worming, serving and the differences of stay and preventer stay 🙂
 
The mainstay wormed the whole length, served around the masthead up to the mouse, the preventer no worming along the length but wormed and served around the masthead. All pictures taken from the Facebook site of Invincible wreck.
 
Enjoy!
 
XXXDAn

Not to throw a monkey wrench in this discussion...but as a devoted student of studying contemporary models, I noted that many of them if not most of them used Tan rope exclusively.  No brown or black for standing rigging.  Now this could be early restoration work that was the "model style" in the early 1900's but it does give a model an interesting look however inaccurate to history it may be. Additionally, I have also seen contemporary models with original rigging that are exclusively rigged with "hemp" colored tan rope as well.  So it adds another possibility.   Dont put yourself in the usual "box" of what is popular today or expected of you.   Think outside of the box and the results might just surprise you. Its no different than planking with pear below the wales and boxwood above them.  Its just a visual style.  I know that Culver was partial to this style and the vast majority of models at the USNA he worked on are rigged in this way.  I have long wanted to try this and still might do so on a future project.   Its quite interesting to me.
 
I am contemplating this very choice for my Speedwell at this very moment.   I am curious what a modern model would look like with such a rig.
 

 

 

 

Dale,
 
Below are a couple pictures of rope displays I have been lucky enough to come across.  The first is from the ropery at Chatham dockyard.  The second is from Mystic Seaport.  They show that even in new rope there is a pretty wide variety of colors that would change over time.  The ropes in the Chatham display are from left to right hemp, Manilla, coir, sisal, and synthetic.  The ropes from Mystic are labelled.  Some of the hemp ropes from Mystic are tarred as well.
 
If you are interested in rope making I would recommend doing a google search for the ropery at Chatham Historic Dockyard.  It is super interesting and there are lots of pictures of the process.  They continue to make and sell rope in the same facility used to make ropes for the Royal Navy in the age of sail.
 
Adam

My 27 cents as for the color, as seen at Hermione:
 
50-thousend shades of brownish grey 🙂
 
No one is alike the other and even the shrouds are not completely black 😉
 
XXXDAn

Hello,
now the pictures of the finished Gokstad ship. Enjoy it.














 

Hello and thank you for all the likes,
today I finished the ship mostly. The rigging is complet and only the oars and some smaler things must be fastened. Some pictures with the last sun for today. More tomorrow

Hello Dick,
if you wont to know more about these ships, you should get it. It's worth the money. I got my copy for 40€ + 13€ taxes and shipping.
Ones again to your „the sail should be as wide as the ship is long, 23,4 m“. Imagine, the ship is 5,2 m broad, than the sail would stand to both sides 9m over the board. How would you handle such a sail? And close-hauled sailing would't be possible. Ms Bischoff looked for the points where the sail was attached to the ship, close-hauled. And that was the width of the sail. Just simple.

Hello,
just a short sign of life, but no great progress. I'm bussy with the sail. My first try with silkspan did't work for me. The bolt rope tears out when I tried to sew it on. So for tomorrow plan B, linnen.
So should it look

And that is the the first try. Did't look bad, but did't work 😐 At least the color is't so red, it's more a red-brown

 

Hello and thanks for your nice comments a d likes
 
Today I cleared the deck from rope ends, at least from the shrouts. The next thing to build is the sail. I ordered Silkspan, and it should arrive here someone next week.

Hello,
John, today it is to be 27°C here and sunshine, but next week again it is only 22°C and rain. And it's a nice boot you have build. Did you have Viking genes?
 
Today I finished the standing rigg. And I know now exactly, why I don't like rigging. These stuborne and nasty twines, who go always the directin you don't want ☹️ It was realy loud yesterday in the basement!
But the result is great, I think. Now the ship looks fuller, more compact. Enjoy the pictures. The strongest rope is the forestay with 0,7 mm Ø, the shrouts and forestay have 6,5 mm Ø

Hello, and thank you for your likes
today I build the gangplank. So that the Vikings could leave and enter the ship in a hurry, to plunder! Also new is the mast, the fifth now and I hope the last one. This one is at least the most correct. It's hard to get there informations, because not all parts of the masts, also from the Oseberg ship, survived. But I found at YouTube an interesting video with both ships: Råseilseminaret 2013 - vikingskipene Saga Oseberg og Gaia, and that answes my questions.
 
And I started with rigging. First the toggle and blocks for the stays and shrouds.