Albatros by Dr PR - Mantua - Scale 1:48 - Revenue Cutter kitbash about 1815

[georgeband]

I have used teabag paper to make a sail for a 1/64 boat. The paper was reclaimed from a used teabag and therefore has sound environmental credentials, but the size is limited. The photo shows a tea-stained sail glued to a wire mast; the seams are drawn on with pencil. 

A quick search on the web for 'tea bag paper' shows several suppliers who offer sheets or rolls at low cost. My intention with Whiting is to use this paper for the sails, and even to try printing the seams on it. At my rate of building this is probably a year away...

 

George

[Dr PR]

I have finally caught up on taxes, financial dealings for the nonprofit I am Treasurer for, my own savings accounts, and preparing a lecture - it has been a hectic couple of weeks - and can now get back to important things! I have a little bit of progress to report on the ship model.

 

I left off with the preparation of a sail, the main spar gaff topsail. The next step was adding the boltropes. These are on the port side of fore-and-aft sails where the linings were placed (on square sails the bolt ropes are on the aft side of the sail).

 

I made a few changes to my work area.

 

 

I stapled a sheet of parchment paper to the cardboard work surface (the other side serves as a cutting board). I also have a piece of parchment paper to place over the glued areas for heating them with an iron. The parchment paper seems to work better than the waxed paper.

 

The little Mini Iron II (Clover No. 9100) is a quilting iron for seams. I saw it mentioned in another post on the Forum as a plank bending tool. But it is also perfect for ironing the tablings, linings and bolt ropes after they have been glued. It is less cumbersome than a large iron and the  small tip gets into tight spaces. But I also used it to iron the entire sail after everything was finished. And now I have a plank bender too!

 

It is basically a 40 Watt/120 Volt soldering iron with specialized ironing tips. It has three heat levels, low (200F/105C), medium (390F/200C) and high(580F/295C). They recommend the low setting for silk.

 

I also mixed up some diluted white glue 50:50 with water. I like the white glue because it dries without a trace and you can loosen it if you need to with water or the diluted glue. The small clamps are essential to prevent the sail from moving while you are attaching the ropes!

 

This sail has a larger boltrope across the head (1/2 diameter of the main topmast stay) and smaller ropes on the leech, foot and luff (1/4 the diameter of the topmast stay). I used 0.012" (0.30 mm) rope on the head and 0.008" (0.20 mm) on the other sides.

 

Note that the rope is glued to the port side of the sail (opposite the tablings) and not to the edge of the sail. This is the way the books say to do it and it gives a larger surface area for the glue to attach to. I do not plan to lace the bolt ropes to the sail edges as is done with real sails, because the lacing material would be microscopic.

 

At the corners I created a small loop "cringle."

 

This method requires a bit of patience. Of course the rope has a mind of its own and wants to be anywhere but exactly along the sail edge. So you have to do a little bit at a time and wait for the glue to dry before continuing. The little iron does speed things up a bit. There were a few places where I had to go back and reposition the rope so it was nice that the white glue can be softened after it dried.

 

 

After the glue set up I seized the cringles with small stuff and white glue. This should place all the strain on the bolt ropes. As you can see in the photos there are a few small spots that can be reworked to get the rope exactly along the sail edge.

 

After the glue dried the small stuff was trimmed.

 

 

 

The ends of the larger rope across head of the sail were turned into a loop for a cringle and a short bit of rope was glued down along the top of the leech and luff. Small stuff was tied around the cringle for seizing. Here I did sew some small stuff through the sail material and around both ropes.

 

The head of the sail will be laced to the spar. For this I will sew the lacing through the sail material just inside the bolt rope.

 

Here is the finished (I hope) sail. Eight more to go (if I install the fore course).

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 28 by Dr PR

[Dr PR]

I have been sidetracked for a few weeks but am now back at work on the sails.

 

I had to redesign a few of the sails. After reading about how sails are made I had to rethink the designs to make them as a sail maker would, using full 24 inch cloth widths where possible.

 

 

I changed the flying jib and jib to have a whole number of cloths along the foot of the sail, as well as adding the roach (curved foot).

 

 

 

 

For the fore sail and main sail the design was changed to have a whole number of cloths across the head and foot - and the roach was added. The  reef bands were changed to 6 inches wide (1/4 cloth width) and two reef bands were used instead of just one (Lees, page 154-155).

 

I plan to install the foresail and mainsail first, along with their gaffs and boom. They are lower on the masts and will be "inside" all the other rigging for the topsails. They will have to be tied to the mast hoops, so I want to get them in place before adding all the additional rigging that might get in the way.

 

Edited May 23 by Dr PR

[Dr PR]

I have just plunged down the rabbit hole again, trying to learn how sails were put together. After reading through eighteen books describing sail making, I have concluded that whatever one author says another will disagree with it!

 

All agree that since the middle ages sails have been constructed with parallel cloth strips (cloths) that are sewn together. How they were sewn together and how wide the overlap of the cloths was is not always agreed upon. But most authors agree that for the last several centuries in Europe and America in most cases the cloth width was 24 inches.

 

Everyone says the edges of sails were lined with a bolt rope for added strength, and amazingly every author says the bolt ropes were attached to the port side of fore-and-aft sails and the aft side of square sails. This was the only thing they all agreed on!

 

The outer edges of the sail cloths (head, foot, leech and luff) were folded over and seamed (hemmed) for added strength. This was called tabling. Most agree on this, but which side of the sail was the tabling folded to? Almost none of the books say which side! The few authors that dare to venture a guess seem to agree that the tabling was on the after side of square sails. Some say the tabling was on the port side of fore-and-aft sails, but one author says it was on the starboard side (mainly on modern British racing yachts).

 

Some parts of sails were strengthened with extra cloth pieces called linings (although a few authors also call tablings linings). Most agree that linings were on the face of square sails (the opposite side from the tablings). Some say linings were on the port side of fore-and-aft sails (along with the tablings and bolt rope).

 

The reef bands were sewn to the forward side of square sails and to the starboard side of fore-and-aft sails. But one author claims reef bands were sewn on both sides of the sail. Another says reef bands were sewn under the leech linings. But if the reef bands are on the starboard side of a sail that means the linings must also be on the starboard side, and not on the port!

 

You have to love it when one author says white is black, and another says black is white. And which end of the egg do you crack first anyway?

 

*****

 

And now there is Phil's way!

 

On square sails the tablings are on the aft side and the linings and reef bands are on the forward side. On larger ships bunt cloths and additional reinforcing bands are on the fore side. The top lining (to prevent chafing against the mast tops) is on the aft side along the foot of the sail.

 

For fore-and-aft sails the tablings and linings are on opposite sides like the square sails. Tablings are on the port side, Linings and reef bands are on the starboard.

 

Now I can get on with making the sails for the model!

Edited May 26 by Dr PR

[Dr PR]

I have sails at last!

 

 

A few have the tablings and linings but there still are a lot of details to add.

 

The model is 1:48 scale, where 1 foot scales to 1/4 inch. The sail cloths were two feet (48 inches) wide, and that comes out to 1/2 inch scale. I have a metal ruler that is 1/2 inch wide and that really helped me to draw the lines for the cloths and seams. It was also very useful for cutting the sails from the larger sheets of material.

 

I mentioned earlier that this sail material is pretty tough (when dry). I am able to erase any errors when drawing the pencil lines for the seams. However, although most of the pencil marks are removed it isn't easy to get the last bit, leaving a faint pencil line where it isn't wanted. I found a simple way to fix that - I just paint over the lines with the original buff colored paint I used to color the sail cloth.