Hammock crane netting

[toms10]

I am starting to work on the hammock cranes and netting on my Leopard and am trying to decide the color of the netting. My brain (which doesn’t always fly straight) tells me they should be a natural color rope that is not tarred. If they were tarred it would get all over the hammocks when stored. Yet when I look at pics of models (some of them world champion winners) the netting is black. My guess is because it seems to be very difficult to find netting in a tan color and if you do then it has hexagonal holes instead of diamonds. I like the way the black looks but it doesn’t make sense to the engineering side of my brain.  Any thoughts out there to steer me in a direction?

[Ensign]

Hello Toms10

 

Your are correct, the netting should be a light tan colour, mine is white which is ok. I searched for netting material when building the Caldercraft Victory. I finally found it at store selling craft and sewing supplies of all places, you could also try an outdoors store. What I found was mosquito netting. It is perfect and is the correct diamond shape.

Best of luck

Ensign

(Gary)

[toms10]

Thanks Gary.  I was unsuccessful at Joanne's Fabric.  They did have white but with the black rails on the ship it seems to be too much of a contrast.  I will try my luck at Hobby Lobby tomorrow.  I like the mosquito net idea.  I did not think of that.

Tom

[John Allen]

Tom,

 

JoAnne's should have Tulle it comes in a variety of colors, Gdale put me on that one, I used black on my Vic. It has the diamond pattern.

 

John

[toms10]

Thanks John. I did see the Tulle but it was so fine I could barely see it. I did pick up a piece just in case though as that may be my only option. 

[toms10]

Well I took John’s advice and went with the tan Tulle since I came up empty at Hobby Lobby. It came out okay. The black cranes and dark wood make the netting more visible than just holding the Tulle in the air without a backdrop

Thanks John for pushing me over the edge. 😁

 

 

Tom

[Louie da fly]

Looks very good, Tom, and the scale looks right. I agree about the colour for yours.

 

I'll be using tulle for my Great Harry, but as it's at 1:200 I find that a lighter colour vanishes at that scale, so I used black. Anyhow, the nettings on 16th century ships were pretty much permanently fitted, right over the top of the decks, and weren't used to store hammocks in between times.

 

Steven

[stm]

I Googled the USS Constitution and found several pictures of the actual ship and models of her. All had the lines black including the actual ship. I have seen three different types of netting over time used. Some with square, some diamond, and some with straight lines of rope. Never hexagon which some modelers use since it is available and at least close to the real thing.  I know that the present Constitution was rigged mainly with nylon dyed black due to the difficulty in finding proper sizes of hemp.  There is a good chance that ship board practice was to treat the netting with some type of preservative making them very dark drown or black in appearance. 

 

Scott

[Mark P]

Good Evening gentlemen;

 

Depending upon how far you want to go, there is one further thing to consider about hammock nettings: once the hammocks had been stowed they were actually covered with painted canvas to keep the sea-water off them (damp hammocks would not be much fun to lie in) I don't know if there was any particular colour used for this, but from memory paintings normally show a light-colour. 

 

All the best,

 

Mark P

[toms10]

Hi Steven

at 1:200 I agree you would need to go with black so it would be seen. I was having a hard time deciding but ended up going with the untreated rope color. As mentioned above it probably not wrong either way. 

 

Scott

i did see the the black on many pictures of many ships also. I found arguments for both treated and untreated. Treated naturally would last longer but on the other hand the treatment stuff would get all over the hammocks. Black is definitely more visible on models and paintings but may not be historically accurate. Since this model will most likely never get out of my living room and the rails are black I ended up going with the contrasted beige.   Thanks for checking and passing on the info to me. I welcome all the comments I can get as they only add to my knowledge which is never enough. 

 

Hi Mark

Thanks for the info. I don’t think I will bring it to the “canvas” stage. Don’t want to cover up the work already done. If I am visualizing what you are saying correctly wouldn’t the canvas also have to go down the sides also to keep the hammocks dry. I have never come across the canvas on hammock netting. But then again I have only been doing this for a few years and this is only my 2nd model. I still have a ton to learn. 

 

Tom

[mtaylor]

The tar used on the static rigging wasn't black but darkened with age, exposure to the salt air and reapplication as needed. It was a brownish color which is the color of the Stockholm tar that was used.   The running rigging was untreated.   Here's a picture from the Syren Model Company's rigging line.  Take into consideration what the others have said about the line.  

 

[toms10]

Hi Mark T

i just saw Chuck this past weekend at the Northeast Joint Modeling Conf. In New London CT. Bought some blocks. Saw his rope too. Very nice. Thanks for the interesting information about the tar colors. Definitely keep it in mind for the next. Just have to make the cranes for the forecastle deck and then string up the beige Tulle and the netting (except on the bow) will be a thing of the past on this model. 😁. Wasn’t my favorite part so far but it really put a nice touch to the model. 

 

Tom