Rattlesnake by JSGerson - FINISHED - Mamoli - 1:64 - Using Robert Hunt’s practicum

[JSGerson]

The hook was made by first opening up the eyelet and then wrapping it around two tiny nails used for planking to create the shape which you can see in the first picture. After the excess wire was trimmed off, the hook then was squeezed with a pair smooth jaw plyers to flatten it and then filed smooth.

[JSGerson]

Next the hooks 18 in total, were blacken and were ready for use.

[JSGerson]

According to the references, the end of the futtock shroud was seized around the thimble. Since I wasn’t using a thimble I decided I would also forgo the seizing due to the scale. The seizing would have made making a small loop almost impossible Instead I used a technique I had seen described in various build log to make a pseudo eye splice and thus get the tiny splice I wanted.

 

Basically one takes the end of the thread/rope and passes it through itself once to create the loop and a second time to create the pseudo splice and added strength. A tiny dab of glue holds it all together and then the excess thread/rope is trimmed.

[JSGerson]

Finally, the futtock plate is bent to the required angle and the futtock shroud is hooked on. The other end of the futtock shroud is wrapped around the stave and lashed to the shroud. The diagram shows three lashings but I used two. One down, 17 to go.

[Martin W]

Well done, Jon.  Those futtocks can be agonizingly frustrating, and as you say, at this scale you find yourself wondering why, oh why do I bother with these details?  Glad to see you worked out a solution for the hooks, though.  I never found a wire both thin enough and stiff enough.

 

cheers,

 

Martin

[Salty Sea Dog]

Just catching up again. I love those top down views of the crow's nest with the deck below. Terrific work!

[JSGerson]

The remaining 17 futtock shrouds were made and installed. Then the shroud ratlines were installed just like before. Here is how the model looks at this stage.

[JSGerson]

Crowsfoot

According to David Antscherl, it is now time to make the three crowsfeet. As it happens, the latest issue of the Nautical Research Guild’s Journal (Vol. 60, No. 2 Summer 2015) has an eight page article complete with photos, formulas, and diagrams by William E. Sproul entitled “Making a Crowsfoot Assembly.” How convenient…or so I thought. Up until this point I had initially followed Mr. Petersson (Rigging Period Ship Models) and then Mr. Antscherl, when I got his book. They seemed to match where their details over lapped. However Mr. Sproul appears very knowledgeable as well, but things became less certain with all the detail he provided.

 

To determine the number of ropes that made up a crowsfoot, I counted (as best I could) the ropes in the crowsfoot as indicated on Harold Hahn’s plans and got 13. Neither the Mamoli nor the Model Shipways kit used the crowsfoot in their rigging plans. Antscherl’s book on rigging a sixth rate sloop, which is very similar to the Rattlesnake had 23 ropes. Mr. Sproul gave a formula to determine the number of ropes which he said was between 10 -24; so far so good. However he also stated that the number would have been an even number. He stated:

 

“Having an even number of ropes in the crowsfoot allowed sailors to do all the rope handling from the top itself. Having an odd number of ropes would leave one end secured to the euphroe. Can you imagine having to shinny down the crowsfoot ropes to the euphroe on the stay every time an adjustment needed to be made…?”

 

 

Both Antscherl and Petersson show an odd number of lines and the crowsfoot line secured to the euphroe in direct contradiction to Mr. Sproul. Maybe it was done both ways, but since I had already drilled the holes in the tops with an odd number of holes, I will continue to follow Mr. Antscherl.

[JSGerson]

That being said, according to Mr. Antscherl, who quotes Steel, the crowsfoot  is made up of ¾” circumference line which converts to ¼” diameter rope (actually 0.24”). At 1:64 scale, that works out to 0.004” thread. That is thinner than normal cotton sewing thread.

 

OK, I need very fine thread. Trying to find some and getting what you want is not so simple. In the world of thread (at least for the normal consumer) there is sewing (needle point, embroidery, clothing, etc.), thread and fiber manufactures, and even fly fishing suppliers among others, nobody talks the same language and nobody talks thread diameters. Everybody it seems has different ways to describe thread sizes not to mention plies, weights, strength, materials, etc. except diameters.

 

Early on during this build, I tried using fly fishing thread size 3/0 (whatever that means) for sizing rope and didn’t like it much because the thread fibers were not twisted very much and would get a frayed look to it. Mr. Anscherl stated that he used brown 6/0 fly fishing thread. I don’t have a local source of fly fishing supplies and must buy mail order. The postal rates make the cost of a spool of thread ridiculous.

Going back to my only local hobby store, Hobby Lobby (which is more of a crafts store), I bought some hemp-colored two-ply polyester thread. That seemed to do the trick. As near as I could measure it, it came close to the desired diameter. Pure polyester doesn’t fray like cotton so doesn’t need to be waxed either. Although when looked at with a magnifying glass, it doesn’t have the look of rope, but at these scales even if it did, no one could see it so it doesn’t matter.

[JSGerson]

Euphroe

 

The euphroe is a special type of “block” which gathers the lines coming off of the mast top. In my case, at 1:64 scale, it worked out to about 3/16” in length. According to Sproul, there was no universal shape used. He provided different examples from oval to egg to straight with various cross sections. At this scale I stuck with the very basic – straight with rounded ends.

 

I started with a strip of 3/64” square boxwood which I mounted on my rotary drill press stand equipped with an X-Y table. After numerous fiddlings and adjustments with the table to get the wood strip lined up with the table, I used a #78 drill to drill 6 holes for the main and fore masts and 5 holes for the mizzen mast euphroes.

 

I am amazed that I got what I did. The drill press stand is not ridged. Moving the drill up and down with the lever, has a minute lateral movement. To make matters worse, the drill (a product of Sears not Dremel) does not spin exactly on it center axis so it has a minute wobble. One of these years I’ll get a proper drill press…someday.

[JSGerson]

The pieces were cut off the strip and the ends rounded. A groove was filed along the length of the euphroes for the rope stroping.

[JSGerson]

Assembly

 

At one end of the euphroe is a small loop used to attach the center crowsfoot line. At the other, a four inch block needed to be attached. A four inch block works out to 0.0625” or 1.59mm. The smallest block I have seen/used is one made by Warner Woods West (warwoods@infowest.com) at 2mm. I was using his blocks before Chuck Passaro’s Syren Ship Model Company started selling theirs. However, Syren’s 2 mm are a bit bigger than Warner Woods’. Luckily, I had some leftover from my Evergreen build.

[JSGerson]

Once the block was attached, it too needed a loop so a line could be attached and fastened to a block attached to the stay. The loops at both ends were made using a piece of wire to form the loop opening.

[JSGerson]

After the second block was fashioned, the pieces were assembled. The lines for the crowsfeet were made long to ensure there was enough when it was rigged to the model. 

[JSGerson]

Now it was just a matter of weaving the lines to make the crowsfeet and securing the euphroes to the stays.

[GuntherMT]

Some good work, but a bit of critique on the end result - In the other ships where I've seen the crowsfoot, the stay which they are connected to is not pulled out of alignment by the crowsfoot.  I think you need to relax the tension in the crowsfoot and tighten the stay to prevent the stay being bent out of alignment by the crowsfoot which should not be holding the load which the stay is designed to be doing.

[JSGerson]

GuntherMT - I did notice the alignment change. The problem I had, was that the stays are not very taught so any line attached to them is going to tug on it. I'll try to readjust them to reduce the obvious kink in the stays. Thanks for keeping an eye out for me.

 

Jonathan

[GuntherMT]

This may be a dumb idea, and I don't know that anyone has ever done it (I certainly haven't), but I was working with some piano wire the other day, and it comes in very small sizes, yet it is extremely stiff and hard - could you possibly use piano wire, either just glued to the bottom of the stay (painted black the small size would make it almost invisible) or actually inserted into the stay to stiffen it?

 

If you try it, just be aware, piano wire is ridiculously hard, don't try to use any cutters that you value on it, as it will just dent the edges.  The wire pretty much has to be cut with a saw or cut-off wheel, even in silly small sizes.

[JSGerson]

It's a thought, but I'll try adjusting the line first. I do have a supply of music (piano) wire in a variety of sizes.

[DanO]

Looking great. Now I will have to check out page by page and going back to #1 really like the fillers between the bulkheads.

 

Dan

[Martin W]

Hi Jon -- That's good work on the crowsfeet.  I experienced the same problem with the "drill press," in that it didn't equal a real drill press for accuracy.  In the end I resorted to a jig that enabled me to drill the holes in the euphroes by hand.  But once the crowsfeet go up, you can't tell how accurately you lined up the sheave holes anyway.  As for the alignment of the stay, why not just tighten the stay?  It does need to be fairly taut -- and over time it will loosen up some, so that if it isn't taut it will sag. 

 

Looking over your build makes me remember just how handsome the Rattlesnake is.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[JSGerson]

To install the topmasts, the fid needs to be fitted into the masts. Per the practicum, Mr. Hunt simple glued square piece of ebony to simulate the fid. I chose to actual put them through the masts to ensure a good mechanical joint. It wouldn’t do well for the simulated fib’s glue joint to fail due to the tension of all the lines. It would be a mess to fix. Since I didn’t have any ebony, painted boxwood was used.

 

I made sure that the fid was no more than 1/3 the width of the top mast. You may notice that the fid is square in cross section and the hole is round. Here is a case where one does fit a square peg in a round hole! The very slight gap between the fids and the holes vanishes unless one uses a very strong magnifying glass and even then it’s hard to see.

[JSGerson]

Once the top masts were installed, the stays and ratlines followed.

[Blue Ensign]

Hi Jonathan, just caught up on your build, Rattlesnake is looking splendid, and some nifty work with silver soldering.

 

Regarding the stays being pulled out of alignment by the Crowsfeet, I find  it best not to seize off the stays too early in the build, I leave a length of excess  lanyard and  tweak it as the extra hamper goes on the stay. With the Forestay other things can also impact on it, spritsail braces, bowlines, etc; in a similar vein I also leave tying off the shroud lanyards to a fairly late stage in the build.

 

B.E.

[JSGerson]

B.E. thanks for the soldering complement, especially from you. Also thanks for the tip on seizing the stays, it's greatly appreciated.

 

Jonathan

[JSGerson]

Topmast Stays and Backstays

 

Working from the stern forward, the Mizzen Backstay was the first to be installed. The stay was split where it fits over the topmast and terminates at the sides of the hull. The bitter ends were served and looped through a blackened ring and seized. Another line, this one very short and fully served, came off the base of the most aft deadeye and also terminated to a ring like the backstay. These rings were then lashed together

[JSGerson]

The Mizzen Topmast Stay was next. It started at the top of Mizzen Topmast and went to base of the Main Topmast. The backstay was fastened to the Mizzen Topmast with a simple loop through an eye. At the Main Mast, the line passed through a block attached under the mast cap and terminates to a 3mm blackened ring. Another blackened ring was threaded on a served line that wrapped under the fighting top tree. The two rings were lashed together. The stay was full constructed off the model and then installed. Note the lashings shown in the below images are not finalized.

[JSGerson]

The Main Topmast Backstay was constructed the same as the Mizzen Backstay except instead of rings, deadeyes were required. The lower deadeyes were previously installed but unfortunately, the kit came up short by at least two for the backstays. Using the laser cut deadeye kit supplied by Syren Model Ship Company I then preceded to make-up the shortfall.

 

The deadeye kit consisted of two identical side framed layers and a centerpiece layer containing multiple deadeyes; in this case seven. They are to be assembled as a group. Making sure the outside layer had their outside faces facing outwards and the holes were all facing the same direction, the three layers were glued together with CA as directed. A few minutes later, I cut off two deadeyes. The downloaded instructions strongly suggested using a block tumbler but since I didn’t have one and at this stage only needed two deadeyes (so far), they were hand filed and sanded. The holes, which lined up very nicely, were drilled to remove any excess glue and then stained.

[JSGerson]

The Fore Topmast Backstay was constructed just like the Mizzen Topmast; the ends terminating to a pair of lashed rings coming off the aft deadeye.

 

The Fore Topmast Stay and Preventer Stay each looped around the topmast tree requiring a mouse and passed through the bees – the Stay through the forward opening on the Starboard side and the Preventer through the aft on the Port. From there they terminated at the bow using a pair of single and double blocks. Because the lines pass through the bees, the double block had to be attached to the rope on the model. The other half of the rigging, the single block, the rope, and eye ring were assembled off the model.

[Jack12477]

Very nice rigging !