Nirvana

I am looking forward trying this material.
Maybe even get my own ropewalk, this as I already have Chucks serving machine.

Like Arnold Schwartzeneger says  "I'll be back!" 

Always listen to the Admiral,  specially on a Christmas day.

Always listen to the Admiral,  specially on a Christmas day.

I am looking forward trying this material.
Maybe even get my own ropewalk, this as I already have Chucks serving machine.

I am looking forward trying this material.
Maybe even get my own ropewalk, this as I already have Chucks serving machine.

I use the guterman stuff for bindings an seizings etc. Nice colors, but it needs ca-glue or some kind of paint to fixate the knots. Pva will not hold.
 
Is the unraveling the result of how the thread itself is laid (left in stead of right), or is it the result of the material itself?
I ask because when using it as serving-material the direction of the winding mattered.
 
Jan

Great looking rope.  I hope you do decide to produce it as it looks so good.

Love your current rope - don`t really want something that will unravel with the slightest mistake in cutting!
 
Mark

I have also asked my current supplier to dye me a batch of the current thread I am using in the same colors as the polyester rope.  So I am excited to see what that will look like.  Once I get it I will experiment with it and see how it goes.  Not to get off-topic but I amy as a business decision to help moderate the time and labor involved in rope making,  select another color for running rigging.  I like the poly colors a great deal.   Then I will discontinue the current colors and go with just one for running rigging.  We shall see...much to think about in the coming year.
 
Chuck

I’ll stick with the venerable old Syren Rope. Just the thought of the rope unraveling after ten minutes of trying to place through a block and then clipping is enough to stop me. It is pretty but to many things can go wrong. And if the economy drives the price up so be it. My 2 cents.

Thats the issue really....it boils down to economy.  The cost for cotton and linen as a commodity is going through the roof this year.  Many think I charge too much for my rope now.  So I cant raise prices and now must absorb the price increase for my catolin thread.   If I made the polyester stuff and charged more because I would then be making natural fiber rope in 4 colors and 36 sizes by hand.....along with polyester in two colors and 18 sizes.  Its just impossible.  I can only do one or the other.  
 
Consider that I must make at least 800 feet of rope every single day right now to keep enough in stock.  Its maddening.   I may however cut down on the current colors and drop two of the catolin colors and just make light brown and dark brown moving forward so I could offer two choices of polyester rope.   But then the people wh o love my light tan and black rope would be upset.  I would lose a lot of business.  Other than that, I just cant even consider it.   So before I make such a decision....I must gauge what interest is out there for this stuff.  I literally just ordered $1000 worth of cataolin before the price goes up on January 1st.   That is about a 3 month supply.

Thanks Chuck for the starting a thread and posting the info above. I am thinking of getting a ropewalk so even if I can't talk you into carrying polyester maybe I can give it a spin myself. But I think you should support polyester, maybe make it a premium special order or something where you'll only make what people order and they'll have to wait a bit for delivery.
 
As for colors, one is pretty green and the other is a more saturated yellow, I prefer that one from an aesthetic standpoint but the green one may be more realistic.

B.E.  you would be surprised how well it hangs once you get accustomed to it and the tricks you would use.  Once again....no need to wet down like you would cotton or linen with diluted white glue while getting it to hang properly.  My tests included hitting it with the hair dryer to relax it in any shape....
 
No need to stretch it at all.
 
I go back and forth with which of these two colors I like best.   Which do you guys prefer? Should I decide to use it I would select only one for the same reasons.  
 
Getting back to the heat knife.  My experiments were pretty exhaustive.  I found that if you didnt knot the ends before heating it in the oven or using a hair dryer,  the rope would just unwind horribly almost its entire length.  So my thoughts were that using a hot knife would also have the same effect.  If you touched the end and it didnt immediately seal,  it would unravel like crazy.  The sam is true for dipping rope untreated with heat in water,   either hot or cold.  The rope would just unravel badly.   Some glues worked but I dont know which ones the guys were using at the museum.  That seemed to time consuming to me and if you forgot to do it when cutting you would regret it.   Same is true if you didnt get a good bond.   
 
So there are trade-offs.  The poly does have a slight sheen which I dont like.  But its not noticeable really or distracting.  It is also very stretchy.  That is not a problem but you will need to get used to it.
 
If not for anything else....I found it important to post my findings and experiments here and every can give it a try and make up their own minds.  Its worth the effort.  I am hesitant to not use any material just because its the current "rule" or traditional line of thinking that MUST be observed because well known builders and institutions have said so.  Times are changing and the traditional materials are getting more and more expensive and less and less high quality.
 
There may come a time where we must adapt.  As a business I this stuff is constantly on my mind.
 
Chuck

I was testing at 200 - 275 F
 
After a few test I found it better to go with the higher temp for a much shorter time.  But if you get distracted you will have a mess on your hands.  In the end I found the hair dryer worked the best.  Unless you have to make thousands of feet at a time like me I would suggest you stick with a hair dryer on the hottest setting.  Just clamp the rope gently so it doesnt blow all over the workbench.
 
Here is a photos of what I have left in terms of sizes.....you can get very very thin rope using Mara 120.   Remember that the lower the mara size the larger the thread is.   Its the opposite of TEX sizes.  Ultimately I was using Tex 25, 40, 100, and Tex 200 for those familiar with Tex sizes. The lighter color is the 265.  
 

 
I though about a heat knife but then I thought about how much cutting you do on the model.  Its hard enough navigating through a web of rigging with a sharp blade and I though a hot blade would be even more dangerous.  So I discounted the idea in favor of stabilizing the rope first so you didnt have to worry about it at all.
 
Here is a look at both colors sitting on my model.  Just to show it in a real life setting on a model.  The rope on the belaying pin is my cotton/linen blend rope....as good as that rope is it just cant compare to the crispness of the poly rope.   But yes...it is poly and I wonder about the stigma attached to it and whether folks would shun using it.  So I stopped considering switching over to it.  But I may still in the future should there be interest.   I just could never make rope in both materials....its just impossible for one person to make that much rope.  
 

 
 

That looks really good for being a synthetic. Doesn't have the usual "plastic" look to it. I'm intrigued...

Looks very nice Chuck.
I have used Morope a fair amount and as you say the definition with Polyester superb.
The only downside for me is that it is all but impossible to get a natural slack in the line which I like to see in certain lines such as braces, and some stays.
On the upside very little pressure is required to get a taut line, and I love the smaller diameter Morope lines for seizings.
B.E.

Just a thought: if you use a ‚hot knife‘ to cut the rope after laying it, you have done the cutting and the melting at the same time.
 
BTW: did you mean 275 F or 275 C ?  I have a hot-air soldering iron that can be adjusted from 100 C to 400 C and should try it, while rope is still on the rope-walk.

I was quite surprised about 4 months ago with the prevailing thought about only using linen or cotton for scale ropes. This has been the requirement of Museums and collectors for quite some time.  Synthetics are frowned upon.  But I think there is some movement and acceptance starting with these folks. 
 
 I was hired by a major well known museum in Europe (I wont mention their name) to make several thousand feet of rope for them.  They were going to use it to restore a contemporary model....and also to rig a newer model.  But they told me they have now decided that polyester scale ropes are being used from this point forward because of its longevity and its crispness and beauty.  It really lays up like real rope.  They have (like all of us) been unable to find good quality linen  or even cotton that isnt fuzzy or lumpy or that requires custom dying.   This makes it very time consuming and expensive to make in large quantities with sometimes inconsistent results.  The custom dying opens up a whole host of other issues for them.
 
So anyway,  they specified polyester rope made the same way I make my other rope which they have purchased many times before.   But this time they also specified the brand and color they wanted for the polyester thread I was to use.  They created a new standard for themselves.  I did have some adjustments to make and it took some time to get used to working with material that is a bit more "stetchy".
 
It does unravel like mad.....just like morope....BUT they are aware of this and use a conservatoires glue that is used to stop fragile textiles from fraying and deteriorating on it before they cut it.  They seemed to have a whole plan set up for now accepting the use of this material.
 
Below is a photo of some of that rope I made for them.  Its beautiful and I like its appearance and handling more than the rope I sell.  I even considered switching to it for all of my rope from Syren.  Come Jan 1st, the prices for linen and cotton as a commodity are increasing pretty drastically (about 20%) because of the Trade wars now underway.  DMC has even decided to STOP production of many sizes of their Cordonnet Cotton thread.  That is a shame.   But then I thought model builders wouldnt get used to how it unravels.....it really unravels if you dont glue or burn the ends.   Just thought I would share this with everyone.  There are actually two colors they specified for all running rigging.   Both are in the photo.  No fuzz and no lumps and it laid up the best I could have asked for.
 
But for those of you who have a ropewalk....you can order 
 
Gutermann Mara Thread...color 2899 for running rigging and color 696 for standing rigging (very dark brown).
 
But you need to go to the industrial division to get the sizes which arent available retail.
 
You will need Mara 120 .....Mara 70.....   Mara 30.... and Mara 15..... thread in these colors to make it but they have so many colors to choose from.  Unfortunately there color charts do NOT accurately reflect the true colors of the thread when you get it so beware of this.
 
I experimented after making the rope and found that if you knot off the ends and place them on a cookie sheet,  place them in the oven at 200 - 275 degrees for 7-10 minutes.   You must watch closely and set the stove on the lowest setting because polyester has a low melting point.  The rope looks the same afterwards and wont unravel at all.  In addition,  when your wife finds out you did this and gets mad....another method I used when experimenting was to use my hair dryer and a very hot setting and heat up the rope for a minute or two.  Dont be afraid to get close to the rope when you are doing this .  This method works very very well....because its easier to watch whats happening and not melt your rope.  But you can only do smaller quantities at a time.
 

 
I was able to replicate all of my current sizes of rope ranging from ,008 to ,080 in diameter using various strands of the thread sizes shown.  I even managed to make a huge cable for them 3mm in diameter.  It was just a matter of experimenting with the number of threads and either 3 strand or 4 strand.  Once you have your recipe established for each size you can easily replicate the sizes with great consistency and accuracy.
 
Because there was some interest in this topic I started a new one rather than post it in another members build log.  I will take some more photos of the packages I still have remaining to show the size variables and give you guys a better idea of what the rope looks like.
 
Feel free to ask me any questions.  Happy New Year !!!
 
Chuck

While at a Maine Made show in Bangor, I came across a guy who cuts trees into 1/2 inch slabs for cutting boards. I thought that one of them would make a great baseboard for the trawler. Here it is:

A coat of primer, then an application of red oxide auto putty, then sand. After that, repeat at least once more.

I have used it before when fiber-glassing an R/C plane, and didn't have any problems. It seems to be sticking quite well here, too.

So the bulwarks are on, and it is time to strengthen the soft balsa wood. I decided to use MinWax Polycrylic and silkspan. Here a section being applied.

Wow, look who's back! Just in time for Christmas! Great to see back at work on this project.
 
Cheers!

This ship has been patiently waiting on my desk as many other projects have gone by, I've made mostly aircraft models for awhile, but dusted her off and got to looking at some things bothering me about the model, so set to work on some ideas to improve, some painting and refreshing, but redoing the bulwark stantions was the main thing and with new color too the starboard side done..