Pride of Baltimore II by jdbondy - FINISHED - Model Shipways - 1:64 scale

[Tigersteve]

Very nice model. Congratulations!

Steve

[GuntherMT]

Looking great!

[shipmodel]

Beautiful work, JD - 

 

I especially like how the flags and pennants came out, especially the Maryland one.

 

Dan

[jdbondy]

Thanks to you and your flag making tips, Dan!

[jdbondy]

Since I bought the Pride 2 kit in 1995, many times have I looked at the bowsprit netting on the plans sheet and wondered how in the world I would go about doing that. Recently, though, it became apparent that I was at a point where I could start working on it. The bowsprit and dolphin striker had been installed, and the guys were in place. I had not yet started installing either mast, but had been working on the sails. I realized that trying to install bowsprit netting after having put in all the forestays would be difficult, as the forestays travel to the tip of the bowsprit and then travel back to the bow underneath the bowsprit. Those would obstruct the area of the netting.

A year or so earlier, I had tried assembling a bowsprit net off the ship, using a jig that I built out of scrap. The blocks at the top and bottom have grooves cut in them.

Using some coarse leftover line, I took about 10 strands and ran them between the blocks. The strands traveled in a zigzag pattern essentially parallel to each other, without actually crossing each other (like chain link fence). Fine line was used to attach the lines to each other. T-pins maintained the shape of the net at the edges.

This wasn’t very satisfying, because the netting would have to have an overall triangular shape, with an apex and then widening as it approached the bow.

Another jig was built that had more of a Christmas tree appearance. Work with that jig produced a net like is seen in the bottom of the next photo. (The net in the top of the photo is the final product that resulted from all these first tries.)

Work with the jigs helped me realize that the netting would have to be a true netting, meaning that the strands of the netting would have to cross one another, instead of abutting one another where they were attached to each other with the finer thread. And the fibers would have to weave above and below one another to create a more stable structure.

 

The question really became: is it possible to build a net off the model and then install it? Or is it necessary to build it in place on the model? Of course, the ultimate solution would be a combination of both.

On the real ship, the netting does not attach directly to the bowsprit guys. The netting attaches to finer line that is intermittently seized to the guys. The next photo shows a 0.004” line being seized to the guy using very fine fly tying thread (Veevus 16/0).

And a close-up:

After attaching this line to each guy, a test run was made by running lines through these gaps on the guy and weaving an initial in situ bowsprit netting.

 

It was clear that something would have to be done where the netting and the guys meet. Simply weaving the fibers through the gaps on the guys causes the line to very gently curve up to where it meets the guy. In reality, these parts of the netting need to look like sharp corners.

It was also a puzzle what to do at the fore edge of the netting, where the fibers all came together. They could be gathered into two common points, but the fibers look too crowded and less net-like.

In order to get the edges of the netting to be more orderly, and in order to make the fibers sit neatly, they were waxed. Plain beeswax by itself is not very pleasant, as it leaves a whitish residue that is visible on the line, especially if it is worked too much. But a piece of beeswax that has been colored with Transtint black dye can be used to coat the lines with no visible residue. This took some experimentation in order to get the granular appearance of the beeswax on the line to disappear, which typically involved heating the line by pulling it through tightly pinched fingertips and letting friction melt those waxy deposits into the fibers. They became much more orderly after that.

So instead, the netting was begun using a single line that ran athwartships at the fore edge of the netting, and five lines were seized to that line. That gave a total of 10 fibers traveling aft that could be used to weave a bowsprit net.

 

Next step was to install some loops along each guy that could be used as temporary attachment points for the netting, enabling me to create a netting in place while being able to remove it once I was happy with its shape. In order to get the netting to attach more realistically to these temporary loops, it would be necessary to seize the fiber of the netting as it came up to each of the attachment points on the guys, so they would not gently curve into the guys but would come to a focal attachment point.

The guys looked pretty ugly after installation of the temporary loops, which were created with a generic, fuzzy sewing line. Fortunately that made it easier to identify which lines needed to be snipped later on, and which should be left alone.

Now it was possible to take the 10 strands attached to the one line and set it at the tip of the bowsprit and guys, and begin weaving the netting. I pretty much weaved the entire netting, leaving the aft most edge open. Then it was time to go back and seize each fiber of the netting where it met the guy. The first photo shows the netting fully weaved, then the second photo shows the seizings going on.

There are seizings on the first 5 points on the left side of the photo, and the points to the right remain unseized. Seizing usually involves 5 or 6 wraps, with the bitter end tucking into a loop under the wraps. These seizings were nothing more than a series of overhand knots, with the tails of the overhand knots wrapping around the line and a second overhand knot tied next to the first. The overhand knot was then finished with a square knot. While doing the seizing, it was necessary to include enough slack in the fibers so that the netting would droop below the bowsprit. Once the seizing was added to a particular point, it was no longer possible to adjust the amount of slack in that particular fiber, so this was a key step. Seizings also had to be added symmetrically, so that one side of the netting would not have more slack than the other.

To give the netting more stability, temporary knots were tied in the netting in the centerline. Initially the idea was that at each point where the fibers of the netting crossed, a knot would be used to secure the two lines against each other. Here is a picture with nearly all the seizings in place. The temporary knots in the centerline are faintly visible under the bowsprit.

On the real ship, the netting looks like this:

I ran out of attachment points for the ends of the fibers at the aft end of the netting. You run out of room when there is the bowsprit cap and the dolphin striker protruding down from the bowsprit. So at the aft end of the netting, two of the fibers attach to the same point along the guys. This would turn out to be a temporary arrangement.

 

A row of permanent knots was tied at the edge of the netting immediately inboard of the bowsprit guys and the seizings, in order to give the netting more substance for when it would be removed.

At this point I was happy enough with the size of the netting overall that I created loops in the aft ends of each of the 10 fibers. The tails were left long, just in case. Once that was done, the netting could be cut off of the model. In the following picture, the temporary knots are visible along the centerline of the netting. These were replaced with permanent knots using Veevus fly tying thread. The permanent knots at the edge of the netting are visible, just inboard of the seizings.

At this point, the netting was adjusted to get as much symmetry as possible. Two additional rows of permanent knots were added, between the row of knots in the midline and the knots at the edge. I decided not to tie knots at every single crossing point, because it seemed like the net was holding together fine without tying that many knots. Once I was happy with the overall pattern, I used Flexament to secure the knots, and the tails were cut off as close as I dared. Here is the final product. Ahh, that looks so much better…

It was time to reinstall the netting on the model. I secured it as I had before, in terms of the spacing along each bowsprit guy, but now that all those knots had been added at all those crossing points, the netting no longer hung down beneath the bowsprit. It was in fact very flat, ruining the overall effect. The culprit was too much fore-and-aft tension on the netting, but this was easily fixed by changing the spacing of the attachment points of the netting. Now the netting did not extend as far aft underneath the bowsprit, but a nice consequence of this was that things were no longer crowded up in the area of the dolphin striker and bowsprit cap. This picture shows the netting attached at several points, with most of the attachment points still loose.

From here it was a matter of getting all of the points attached and trimming away the excess line. At the aft end of the netting, there were two spare lines that were meant to terminate near the bowsprit cap, but they would no longer reach. I therefore attached these ends to another one of the netting lines. A compromise that you can see in the following picture:

All points have been attached, and the only remaining task was to trim away the excess, leaving you with this:

The droop of the netting is actually too much, and I don’t like how the netting gathers up about 2/3 of the way back. But otherwise I am happy with how it turned out. And I can put this task behind me! As long as I keep the bowsprit protected from inadvertent injury…

 

This was an incredibly satisfying step to complete, as I had no resources to work with except the specifications on the plans and the images of the real ship. Many different steps required many different trials and errors to reach the final product.

[GuntherMT]

Very nice job on the netting.

 

Interesting note on beeswax that I got from the IPMS National Convention seminar - wipe a line with beeswax and then use a hair-dryer or hot air gun, and it melts the wax into the line making it disappear!  Something to consider in the future, and I have not tried this.

[jdbondy]

So at this point it is the fall of 2016 and we are within 2 years (!) of finishing the model. What remains is installation of the masts and associated sails and spars, then sorting out the rigging. Which, I might add, is my favorite part of building ship models. I love sorting out all the lines and bringing everything to manageable order, just like the sailors who actually sail these ships have to do in reality.

 

But first, I went ahead and installed the ships boat, Chasseur, which was finished many years ago as I began to ramp back up my ship modeling efforts. I did have to take out all the spars and oars, and give it a good dusting. Two lines secure the boat to its cradle; I did not have much to go on in terms of how this line was rigged, but I think in the end that it looks reasonable.

These are the brail blocks that are installed on several of the mast hoops for the foremast. The model will display a furled foresail, pulled up against the gaff and the foremast. These very small blocks (3 mm blocks as I recall, a little smaller than a 3/32” block) had to be carefully rigged so their seizing wouldn’t come apart under tension.

Here I am bending the foresail to the fore gaff. The fore gaff remains in its rigged position when the boat is docked; it does not come down. The shape of the sail had to be cut so that when I furled it up against the gaff, it would flake neatly against it without too much bulk. The same was true for the part of the sail that would be furled against the foremast.

A running stitch was used to rig the sail to the gaff. Before bending the sail to the gaff, I picked the points where the line would travel through the sail and marked them with pencil points. I then opened them with a needle, then applied some of the anti-fray material to the area so that the holes would hold their shape.

Black thread was temporarily used to tack the furled sail up against the gaff and the foremast. These will be removed later, once all the brailing lines are in place.

Also evident on this image are the attachment points between the leech of the foresail and the mast hoops.

I just had to see how it would look with the mast put into the hull! The yards have not been attached yet, and no work has been done yet on the headsails rigged to the bowsprit. More on that in a second…

Now, the yards have been attached, which really turns things into a bird’s nest of lines. All of the control lines for raising and lowering the yards as well as the associated topsail will have to be run through the control blocks on the topmast, which hasn’t been done yet. The lower yard is secured to the mast with chain in addition to its control lines. I used some fine chain that was coated with heat shrink tubing for that bit.

The line controlling the tack of the foresail is shown here.

I am pretty sure I included this picture after I had to re-install some of the brailing blocks when their seizings didn’t hold under tension.

 

And now, a diversion. Before proceeding further with the foremast installation, the jib and fore staysail have to be rigged to the bowsprit and the forestays themselves have to be installed. Then we can start attaching lines to their belaying points, starting as centrally as possible and proceeding in an outward manner. That means the lines attaching to the foot of the mast go first, then the lines attached to the pin rails before and behind the mast, and finally the lines that belay at the pin rails at the periphery of the deck. So here we go:

These are images from the manufacture of a rectangular piece of belvedere cotton cloth that was used as a skin to wrap the furled fore staysail. I sewed a very narrow hem on the edges of the cloth using fly-tying line for thread, then used fly tying scissors to cut the excess cloth off as close as I could to the hem.

This was pleated and placed on top of the fore staysail. I had already made and flaked the fore staysail some time earlier, and it was unhemmed. I decided to leave it as is. The halyard block is therefore somewhat precariously installed in an unhemmed corner of the sail. Furling lines have been put on, tied off with furling knots.

 

 

For the jib, I hemmed a scrap of cloth that was then furled up with another rectangular piece of cloth.

Thanks to the hemmed edge of the jib, the halyard block for the jib is therefore much more securely attached to its sail than for the fore staysail.

In addition to the fore staysail and the jib, there should also be a jib topsail rigged to the most forward of the stays. But the bowsprit would have become excessively crowded if I had tried to install 3 headsails. Each of the two headsails had to be threaded onto their various stays and loosely secured until the point that the stays could be put under tension.

Tensioning the forestays of course involves lots of work with the deadeyes at the bow of the hull. Some of that rigging is shown here. In particular, the thimble beneath the bowsprit secures the fore topgallant stay, which is the foremost and tallest of the fore stays. Creation of the thimble was a very satisfying task using my lathe; I had never tried to use it for the manufacture of something so small.

 

So just a brief aside: the thimbles were turned from 1/8” brass rod. The center was first bored out, then the outer diameter was turned. A notch or groove was then turned in the thimble, and it was parted off. I made about five of them for use at various places in the model.

Three of the thimbles, after turning but before finishing with sandpaper.

They were then put in blackening solution. Very satisfying!

Multiple bits of the rigging also had to be created and tracked. I put them into their own Ziploc bags to keep track of what was what. The jib topsail halyard, fore staysail sheets, and mainstay runners are shown here as well as the fore topgallant stay.

Not well documented in my photographs was putting the forestays under appropriate tension. But once this was done, I started to tie off lines associated with the foremast. These lines included the sheets and clew lines for the topsail rigged to the square yards, as well as the topgallant halyard. The tack line for the foresail also was tied off here.

Next was the pinrail just aft of the mast, where the brailing lines for the foresail are tied off.

The pinrail just forward of the mast included the buntlines, leech lines, and reef lines for the topsail rigged to the square yards.

At this point, I had not yet been able to achieve a consistent method for simulating coiled lines. So the lines coiled on the foot of the mast and the pinrails around it were done using a variety of techniques, none of which I was too happy with. It would not be until I reached the pinrails at the rail of the ship for me to settle down on a particular method that could be done consistently. That method will be detailed later.

But first, some other stuff had to be done. These are the boards for the port and starboard running lights, made by hand from a thin sheet of pearwood. These were sanded smooth, primed, and painted black.

Baggywrinkles needed to be installed on some of the mast stays I would need to install. I found that using chenille obtained from fly-tying sources gave this look, which was a little more bulky than things really looked at scale. Fortunately, I was able to pare down the volume of each baggywrinkle by trimming them with scissors. As long as I didn’t cut through the thread at the central core of the chenille.

The chenille was tied on by simply tying a chain of overhand knots on alternating sides of the line.

I am going to stop this post here and reload with pictures for the next post. Gotta get through this retrospective log, so I can start doing posts that actually reflect what I am in the middle of doing!

 

 

 

[russ]

On 8/16/2018 at 11:56 AM, GuntherMT said:

Very nice job on the netting.

 

Interesting note on beeswax that I got from the IPMS National Convention seminar - wipe a line with beeswax and then use a hair-dryer or hot air gun, and it melts the wax into the line making it disappear!  Something to consider in the future, and I have not tried this.

I agree that the netting looks very good. 

 

I have run the line across a hot light bulb and had good results. The heat melts the beeswax into the line. 

 

Russ

[shipmodel]

Hi JD - 

 

The rigging is coming along beautifully.  The baggywrinkle is delightful.

 

Dan

[jdbondy]

Time to tighten up the various forestays, of which there are five (!). There are two proper forestays, which terminate at the end of the bowsprit. The jib stay, fore topmast stay, and the fore topgallant stay terminate at the very tip of the jibboom.

This end of the fore topgallant stay hangs down from the area of the dolphin striker, through which it has to pass before it can be rigged with its thimble. The thimble is then rigged with lines that are secured at eyebolts on each side of the bow (ie, no deadeyes), suggesting that it is not easily adjustable. All of the other fore stays are rigged to deadeyes, allowing for easier adjustment by the crew.

The fore topgallant stay can be faintly seen hanging down from the dolphin striker. The jib stay and the fore topmast stay run alongside the dolphin striker. Also visible are the sheets associated with the jib, which run back toward the bow of the ship.

The thimble for the fore topgallant stay has been seized, and its control line is threaded through it.

The forestay and its thimble are blurry against the background in this photo.

The fore topgallant stay has been put under tension, with the control lines running back toward their respective eyebolts.

These are the deadeyes for the forestays, port and starboard. This series of pictures shows the deadeyes getting threaded and then secured, with the lanyard tied off with fly-tying thread.

Then it’s over to the starboard side, where the corresponding deadeyes are threaded and tightened up.

This lanyard is being held under tension in self-closing tweezers that are left hanging under gravity while the slack in the line is taken up and the lanyard is tightened. I had to be careful to make the forestay deadeyes spaced by about the same amount on the port and starboard sides.

A detail added at this point was the additional footropes just aft of the bowsprit netting, on either side of the bowsprit.

As mentioned before, the control lines for the headsails run back toward the bow, where they are tied off at the fore pinrails. These lines were laid out, then some disposable black thread was used to roughly secure them in the desired locations. They were then wetted with dilute glue to keep them in place, and to keep them from standing up against gravity.

You can see some of the temporary threads securing the headsail sheets.

Blocks for the jib halyard then were installed at the trestletrees of the foremast. I found that for rigging blocks, I liked using the Syren line. But when it came to the running and standing rigging itself, I preferred the appearance of Morope. (Sorry, Chuck…) This loop has been tied off with nylon fly-tying line.

Some disposable black thread holds things together while the block is secured in place with more fly-tying line.

These two particular blocks (one on each side) are rigged with a short pendant, so this took quite a few wraps of the fly-tying line.

Now we are reaching the point where I have to secure the foresail gaff. But at what angle?

Here is my protractor being used to estimate the angle of the gaff from the plans.

And so the peak and throat halyards were tightened, and the gaff’s vang lines were installed so as to duplicate that angle. The vang lines are currently hanging free from the end of the gaff.

We haven’t reached the point of snugging everything up at the pinrail yet, but it was at this point that I realized how excessively I had waxed some of the lines. The flakes of wax required careful cleanup, and from this point on, I didn’t wax any more of the running rigging. From left to right, the lines that have been belayed are the jib sheet, jib halyard, staysail sheet, lower yard lift, lower yard truss, foresail peak halyard, and foresail throat halyard.

It may not look like it, but the foremast installation is essentially complete. Final tightening of the associated lines would wait until the mainmast installation started, because some of these mainmast components would need to be in place in order to allow final adjusting of the foremast rigging.

 

So next up, moving on to the main mast!

[MEDDO]

Very nice progress. I never thought wax would pop off the lines like that.  Hopefully it is not too sticky and can be picked up neatly.

[jdbondy]

Before we get to the mainmast, got to deal with Chasseur, the ship’s boat.

I created tie-downs for the boat that thread through holes in the cradle. I didn’t have any particular description of the tie-downs, so I just created what seemed to make sense.

Uh oh, now I have a problem. There is a cleat along the port side rail where one of the backstays for the foremast ties off. With the ship’s boat in place, that cleat is very difficult to access. To make things worse, at some point the cleat broke off from the bulwark. Replacing it with the boat in place is impossible.

Sigh. So those tie-downs were cut after I made a note of how I had made them, and the boat was removed.

I had to create a hole to attach the new cleat. The old cleat had no firm physical attachment to the bulwark besides glue. So here I am drilling a new hole.

I drilled a hole in the base of a cleat and glued a short segment of wire into the hole. This was used to create a more secure attachment point for the cleat.

A small amount of paint was scraped off of the bulwark surrounding the hole, and the cleat was glued to the bulwark. The line is secured to the cleat in the proper configuration; later on a coil of line will be added over it.

So now work begins on the main topmast. Blocks have to be attached to the mainmast cap, which are control blocks for the fore yard. This is the same technique used for attaching blocks in other parts of the rigging, with a double loop of Syren line that is then seized with fly tying line.

Once everything is tightened, Flexament is applied to the seizing, and topcoat is applied to the block.

I love being able to see what the seizing looks like up close using my microscope. I really need to get a camera attachment for the viewfinder, because getting this picture with my iPhone is actually very difficult to line up through the eyepiece. This seizing has not yet been treated with Flexament and topcoat.

This is the topsail rigged to the main topmast. Since it will be modeled in a furled state, its overall shape doesn’t matter. This rectangular shape worked well for furling it into a nice tight bundle. The sail is being rigged to its mast hoops with line that will get all cleaned up once the seizings are secured with glue.

For that step I was able to remove the sail from the mast and bundle it up, first with coarse black thread…

…then more properly with tie-downs made with Morope. Very small reefing knots…

Now it’s on to the main boom, which had previously been manufactured and cleats and jaws attached. Here I am attaching some footropes to the aft portion of the boom. Well, they aren’t actually footropes, but rather the attachment lines for the mainsheet blocks.

This picture shows the relationship between these ropes and their respective cleats.

These loops will serve as downhaul points for the reefing lines of the mainsail.

Fly tying line was used to secure them to the boom.

So here they are in place, giving some idea of where the reefing downhaul points are on the boom.

This is one of the blocks for the mainsheet, which will get rigged to the black lines shown above.

The mainsheet system consists of a single and a double block attached to the boom. The lines run from these blocks to additional blocks at deck level on either side of the ship’s wheel.

Time to rig the mainsail to the boom.

Ready to start securing the foot of the mainsail to the boom.

Plus the same process for the head of the sail, attaching to the main gaff.

And now, the luff is getting attached to its mast hoops.

 

The usual technique, using a double loop of line that is then seized in the middle. Only these seizings are significantly longer than the ones for attaching a block to the rigging.

A bit messy, but these lines will get trimmed off and things will look neater. Under the sail and its spars, I have some anti-skid material that is used under rugs. It’s great for keeping things from sliding around on the desktop.

 

Will continue on the main mast in the next post.

 

[MEDDO]

Excellent progress JD.  it is always hard to take apart stuff that is “finished” but it does look better in the end.

 

Sorry I cannot remember but are you going to be able to make it to the NRG conference?  

[jdbondy]

Sadly, no. I have too many other travel plans this fall, particularly during October. Have fun!

[MEDDO]

Just a little check in to see how your are doing.  Wondering if you have had any extra time to work on this beauty.  

[jdbondy]

Meddo! Been thinking of you as we wait for the onslaught of patients in Dallas and Dayton. Work is slow because aside from the cases of viral pneumonia, everyone has been keeping away from the hospitals, as you probably know.

 

The model is finished, I just haven't done a good job of continuing my retrospective posts. But you will inspire me to resume them...

 

[MEDDO]

Can't wait to see the pictures of your PoB II.  Speaking of pictures, the first time I saw a chest ct of it I was like 'yikes' even I can dx that 😳.... Stay safe

[jdbondy]

At the prompting of Meddo, I am going to try to finish off posting my pictures from the Pride 2 build. And high time too, as I am now making significant headway on my next ship model, so I will need to start that post once I finish this one!

So, I created a jig that would support the mainmast while I worked on the main boom and gaff, and its associated sail. The mainsail had been ironed to give it a flaked appearance. Black thread is being used to bundle everything up temporarily. It was a bit of a trick to keep the gaff from falling to one side or the other.

Next problem: the relative stiffness of the sail fabric caused the leech of the sail to bunch up and stick up.

 

Putting tension on the outhaul lines helped matters, but still needed more work before the temporary black thread could be removed. In the end, I had to take fine fly tying thread and essentially sew down the folded leech to the sail material underneath it and give it a neat appearance.

In preparation for installation of the mainmast and mainsail, these lines had to be installed. These are control lines for the boom that are used when the ship is docked. They are rigged to double blocks that have an associated hook, and the hook attaches to the boom.

Now the mainsail has been tacked down, and the mast is ready for placement.

The main mast in place, awaiting adjustment of its lines. A really exciting moment, as both masts are in place! I did not glue either mast in place, figuring that it was not necessary. They aren't going anywhere...

Starting to rig the mainsheet through its blocks. Hey, wait a minute...isn't something missing that was there before??

The view from the starboard quarter.

What followed next was an extensive process of rigging the halyards for the gaff, putting them under some tension, and then tightening the mainsheet and the boom control lines.

This took a lot of trial and error to make sure that both of the halyards and the mainsheet were under tension…but not too much tension!

Then each of the mainstays for the mainmast had to be secured at their rigging points adjacent to the foremast base.

Here the mainstay rigging line is being coiled adjacent to its cleat, and is secured with dilute glue.

 

I love working on the rigging! It is so very satisfying to see that jumble of lines begin to take order as everything is put in its proper place. My favorite part of building ship models. And this has been my most intricate model to date.

 

Very close to being finished, so I think I will keep the momentum and work on the next post. That mainly means shrouds and ratlines, and putting rope coils in place. Hopefully that post will be here shortly! Plus this Coronavirus stay at home thing really has me in a productive mode.

 

[MEDDO]

Lookin real nice there. Agree it is always very satisfying when it all starts to come together

[jdbondy]

It’s time to address the issue of rope coils at the various pin rails throughout the ship. After rigging the foremast and foresail lines, I had a jumble of coils that were behaving badly, as shown above at the starboard fore pinrail.

What a mess. This is the port side fore pinrail.

I wasn’t happy with the technique I was using to this point, as I was getting very inconsistent results. These were some trial coils. Of course, as I am sure is common among us, the line is tied off to the pin rail and then the extra is cut, then a rope coil is created off the boat and applied over the cut line. Hey, if you don’t tell anyone my secret, I won’t tell on yours…

 

I spent time playing with a piece of full scale line to try to come to a stable way of coiling line and adding a loop that would go over the pin, while leaving a coil that would realistically hang down.

I also solicited a lot of helpful feedback from others on MSW, although when I try to go find my post, I can’t seem to find it.

 

I gravitated toward this technique, with two metal posts in a block of wood around which line was coiled up. Then smaller thread was used to force it out of its round shape.

Then one end of the line was passed through the wraps to give the loop that would go over the pin. A lot of effort at this point centered around what glue to use to get the line to hold these shapes. Thin CA certainly worked but was too difficult to control.

These are what my coils looked like prior to forcing them out of their round shape.

This is more like it. I settled on an Elmer’s product called Elmer’s Pro Bond Advanced. White glue didn’t seem to work well on Morope, which was probably because of its synthetic fibers.

 

A finalized loop.

I tried to avoid the use of CA due to the varying opinions about its stability over the long term. However, it was the best option for securing the coil of line to its pin. I could direct a very small droplet to the pinrail and place the loop over the pin, with just enough time to adjust the position of the coil before it firmed up.

A couple of loops at the pinrail at the foot of the mainmast.

Finally, a reproducible technique that I will hopefully be able to remember when it comes time to rig my next model! These logs are invaluable for that. And just in the event of another website crash (sorry, shouldn’t have mentioned it!), I keep these logs in Word format too.

A brief interlude to acknowledge the reinstallation of the ship’s boat, Chasseur:

Chasseur was removed earlier because I had to reinstall a cleat located on a bulwark stanchion immediately next to the cannon visible in the picture above.

I was able to duplicate the line scheme that secured the boat to its cradle. Nostalgic moment: the first part of this project I did when I resumed building the Pride 2 after raising our first child to the age of 10 was to build the ship’s boat! I am very satisfied with how it turned out.

 

Next topic: Shrouds and ratlines!

Here I am using fly-tying thread to seize the shrouds around the deadeyes. I learned later, and maybe I mentioned already, that the technique I was using to tie these seizings is called a “country whipping”, where overhand knots are tied on the front and then the back of the shroud, over and over again to achieve the long seizing depicted above. Country whipping sounds like something I used to endure as a kid…

The forward deadeyes on the port side are now seized, and the lanyards have been reeved through the deadeyes.

Next the sheer pole is installed.

Footropes applied to the port side foremast shrouds.

A white card behind the shrouds made the line so much more visible.

Now the after shrouds. The sheer poles were placed first, in order to accurately space out the footropes. What follows is a series of images showing my sequence of events for tying a footrope.

Started with the center shroud, using a clove hitch for all the knots.

It’s quickly evident that the footrope to the right of the center shroud is going to try to bend upward against gravity, while to the left of the shroud, the line hangs more naturally.

There was no way to counteract this upward slope of the footrope to the right of the shroud except to fix it in a downward angle with a tiny amount of CA.

That’s better.

Fortunately that was the only part of the footrope where the angle of the line had to be corrected. CA was also used to secure the clove hitches at the ends of the footropes, so that the excess could be cut neatly without risk of the hitch unraveling.

Pretty neat.

Once again, white cardstock was essential to be able to visualize things well.

 

Getting pretty close to the end! Gonna stop here for today, I think. Maybe I will finish up these posts tomorrow...

[MEDDO]

Those foot ropes and sheer poles look so tidy.  The rope coils certainly look better than previous.  Will have to remember that technique. 

[jdbondy]

This picture shows installation of the sheets for the fore topsail yards. These lines for the upper yard run to the blocks at the mastcap of the mainmast, above the radar dome, then down to the deck.

The sheets for the lower yard arise from the mainmast shrouds, running to blocks on the lower yard, then back to a pennant that is also attached to the mainmast shrouds. Then down to the deck.

This pennant is about ½” in length. It took a lot of wraps of fly tying line to make it.

Here is one of the rigs for securing the boom when at anchor or tied up at the dock.

It ties off at a solitary pin on the deck rail.

Here I am cleaning up the lazy jacks. It was difficult to work on one without over-tightening it and making the others suddenly look slack.

Cleaned up pretty well, though.

The mainsheet is of course quite long since the sheet runs through an extensive series of blocks, including a triple block between the (missing) ship’s wheel.

The navigation lights are located on boards that are secured to the shrouds. The boards were manufactured from thin sheets of pearwood. Painting the lantern was a very delicate matter!

Starting to work on the flags. The flag on Pride 2 is a 15-star flag, which as I recall indicates the number of states at the time of the War of 1812 or thereabouts. The flag was drawn using Paint, originally in a rectilinear manner. Then the skew function was used to skew the flag as you see it here. It helps to create a more naturally drooped final product. (Credit for the flag making techniques shown here belongs to Dan Pariser.)

The Maryland flag was also drawn using Paint, and skewed in the same way. This one is printed onto fine cotton cloth, and before cutting it free, the edges were treated with an anti-fraying treatment.

This was a first try for the pennant, printed on paper or silkspan. However, it didn’t handle crinkling well, as extensive cracking developed that you can faintly see here.

A small amount of extra fabric was left on one short edge to accommodate the flag halyard.

For each flag and pennant, the image was printed onto each side of the cloth, requiring mirror images of each flag and pennant. Pieces of fabric were taped over a paper onto which the flag had been printed, then run through the printer for the first side. Then each piece of fabric was flipped over and carefully taped to overlie its mirror image, and run through the printer again. Multiple attempts were done and the best was selected.

The flag halyard cleats were very small. This image shows how much reduction of one of my stock cleats had to be done to achieve a scale size.

These were then lashed to their respective shrouds with fly tying line.

Ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille...

A yellow clamp at the level of the desktop secures the two halyards for the flag and the pennant at the mastheads.

The Maryland flag did not droop quite as much as I would like.

But I got a better result with the US flag. Each of these was crinkled by wetting with a spray of water, then crinkling it up and allowing it to dry. The lowest corner of the US flag was put under some tension to help it droop.

This flag is rigged essentially on the boom topping lift.

The finished model, with flags in place.

A journey of more than 20 years is now at an end. I didn’t realize that there is a nice little history behind me of my other ship models! This one is by far the most complex, and the most satisfying.

I moved it into the corner while awaiting the arrival of the display case kit. On the wall behind it is a model of Cuilaun, built by Rob Eddy of Camden, Maine. On the other wall is an antique map of the island of Martinique.

My shop looks so clean at this time! I have mentioned it before, but my main workbench is actually a motorized sit-stand desk that has been essential.

After a lengthy delay, the display case was ready. My neighbor and I VERY carefully put it in place while my wife took pictures.

The glass case is actually a little too large for the bookshelves it is on, so I cut a piece of plywood for the case to rest on.

My wife spontaneously said that it needs to be more prominently displayed than in the corner of my shop, which I was very pleased to hear! So initially it went onto the sofa table. But it seemed sort of vulnerable there.

So instead, we cleared off this piece of furniture that was bought to support an  antique mirror that came from France.

And now both sides of the model are on clear display!

[MEDDO]

Absolutely wonderful result and I really like that the final placement in out in the open for everyone to see

[jdbondy]

I get lots of comments from visitors to the house. Definitely better than in the corner of the shop!

[jdbondy]

By the way, when you pull up my build log, is the entire build log on only two pages? Those seem like two awfully long pages compared to other peoples' posts.

[MEDDO]

2 pages for me.  Very detailed and long posts with lotsa pictures make for long pages. I have this in my stash and will eventually be to building her. Your log will be a great reference. With how fast I build I will also be part of the 20year club.  Hope I make it that long. I grew up in Baltimore and my father has some pictures of me in the shipyard with the original as she was being built.  

[shipmodel]

JD - 

 

Beautiful work on the Pride.  You should be very proud . . .

The rigging is especially impressive..

 

For only a 2 page build log yours was excellent.  Informative and engaging at the same time.

Well done.

 

Stay healthy

 

Dan

[MCTurbyfill]

An absolutely breathtaking tour!  Thank you for taking me to destinations with your skill, knowledge and precision to plateau's my imagination can only aspire!  

[Eurus]

What a fantastic ship! 😮

[halituzun]

Hello Sir,

I have been reading your blog on POB II for almost 2 years and would like to congratule and thank you sincerely. As I am in the building journey of the same model since Aug 2020, I can easily say that your blog is the most comprehensive, detailed and photographed one among the other POB II building blogs in the forum. That said your blog helped me a lot and will probably help in the future. 
I am finished with the masts , yards and bowspirit and start rigging soon. All other deck furniture and details are done and put aside. I am planning to post a retrograde blog when the model is finished. As I am currently posting a blog locally , the written details and photos will be ready.

BTW I am a retired ENT surgeon and residing in Bodrum, Turkey. 
So once more thanks a lot for your efforts and extremely helpful blog.

Wish you a nice and happy day.