Lady Nelson by vossiewulf - Amati/Victory Models - 1:64

[vossiewulf]

On 12/24/2024 at 10:03 AM, Gregory said:

Are those the newer Printed blocks from Syren?

No Gregory, those are standard Syren wood blocks.

[vossiewulf]

9 hours ago, Dr PR said:

vossiewulf,

 

The "jib inhaul/outhaul/halliard ring thingy" is called a "traveller." There are some other things called travellers, most (all?) involving metal rings that slide along some kind of boom or rod and provide a place for tackle and rigging to attach to - like the ring that the boom sheet block will attach to on the "horse" (horizontal metal bar) at the stern of your model.

 

You must have great patience to be manually serving ropes with that very tiny thread!

 

Your bock holder is a nifty idea. I'll have to make one for myself when I get back into rigging.

 

Have a happy holidays!

Thanks for the explanation, Phil, I'm trying to absorb the topic of rigging now and every bit helps

 

Yes, it takes patience to serve line with fly tying thread, but I'm hoping it will get better with Chuck's serving machine, that is making its way through the mail to me.

 

As for the block holder, make one carbon fiber rod about 1/8" longer than the other, this makes getting them both into the blocks much easier as you're only doing one at a time.

[Gregory]

26 minutes ago, vossiewulf said:

No Gregory, those are standard Syren wood blocks.

OK that brings up my next observation.

 

I never cared for the bright look of Syrens boxwood blocks, but there was not any alternative that came close to the shape/quality.

 

Myself and others found that the boxwood did not take traditional wood stains very well. 

I experimented with Fiebing Leather Dye  ..  Just another option you might consider.

 

The difference in color here is the lighting.  With hindsight I would have polished them a bit more.  I would like to get more of the look I see on contemporary models.

 

[vossiewulf]

1 hour ago, Gregory said:

OK that brings up my next observation.

 

I never cared for the bright look of Syrens boxwood blocks, but there was not any alternative that came close to the shape/quality.

 

Myself and others found that the boxwood did not take traditional wood stains very well. 

I experimented with Fiebing Leather Dye  ..  Just another option you might consider.

 

I am using ethanol-based dye stains like they use for musical instruments because they don't penetrate much, and if they don't penetrate it's hard for the result to be splotchy. But it was anyway, I'm not happy with the results I've gotten so far. So I'll take a look at the leather dye, thanks.

 

While I'm here, I finished the blocks on the jib boom eyes.

And then I took a hand at trying to create thimbles 75% of the size that Chuck creates in his Cheerful instructions, and I can report that making thimbles out of 1.2mm OD brass tube is not easy. The cuts in the tube have to be square and parallel to each other, and no matter what you cut the tube with it leaves a tang of uncut metal that needs to be removed with a small full-flush side cutter. I made a blunt-curved end brass rod per Chuck's suggestion and used that with a little chasing hammer to tap each side of the pieces of tube to form the curve of the thimble edge. Not easy to get consistent results and you really need a reasonably thick piece of brass to go under the tube sections when you're tapping.

 

I ended up cutting the tube sections on my Byrnes saw while holding my hand right over the blade to catch the tube section as the blade hurled it in some random direction, and then clipping off the tang under magnification.

As noted I wish there was more consistency in the results, I'm trying to be as consistent as possible with the number of taps and how hard they are, but I've still got some variation. I'm going to stare at these for a day or so and decide if I want to try again for improved results.

[Gregory]

2 hours ago, vossiewulf said:

I am using ethanol-based dye stains like they use for musical instruments

The Fiebing's is alcohol(ethanol?) based but I seemed to have gotten pretty good penetration.  I would suspect the formulation might be different across intended applications.

 

One caveat to keep in mind is that DrPR talked about using shellac on some of his block rigging and the dye was bleeding into the rope.

Not a problem if you don't use shellac.

[Dr PR]

I was trying to use the shellac to shape the rope. Shellac is an alcohol solution. Fiebing leather dye is alcohol based. If the alcohol in the shellac wicked down the ropes to the blocks the dye bled into the ropes, discoloring them.

 

I also had problems with the light brown stain on the wooden blocks. The end grain is more porous that the side grain, so the ends of the blocks soaked up the stain and are almost black. The sides stained OK on the smaller blocks, but the sides of the larger blocks were splotchy. I think this was caused by glue on the wood from the sheeve pins in the multi-part Syren blocks.

 

All in all, I think I would have gotten MUCH better results with just painting the blocks.

[vossiewulf]

15 hours ago, Dr PR said:

I was trying to use the shellac to shape the rope. Shellac is an alcohol solution. Fiebing leather dye is alcohol based. If the alcohol in the shellac wicked down the ropes to the blocks the dye bled into the ropes, discoloring them.

 

I also had problems with the light brown stain on the wooden blocks. The end grain is more porous that the side grain, so the ends of the blocks soaked up the stain and are almost black. The sides stained OK on the smaller blocks, but the sides of the larger blocks were splotchy. I think this was caused by glue on the wood from the sheeve pins in the multi-part Syren blocks.

 

All in all, I think I would have gotten MUCH better results with just painting the blocks.

Noted