Charles P Notman by cdrusn89 - FINISHED - BlueJacket Shipcrafters - 1/96

[cdrusn89]

Mike,

 

Thanks - I can afford to spend as much time as my girlfriend will permit (as long as she is working on her quilt(s) I can do pretty much as I wish).

 

We should get together sometime - Mt. Dora is less than 90 mi from Rockledge.

 

 

[cdrusn89]

Note to future builders:

 

It is not mentioned in the instructions (at least I do not remember seeing it) but there are two sets of hatch covers for the companionways/skylight. There are there three on the aft deck house and two on the midships one. They are shown on the parts list as LTN71 (2), LTN72, 73 and 74. One set is on the glued up decking sheets and the other on the plain basswood sheets.

 

So you have your choice of using painted hatch covers or ones that match the decking material. Had I noticed this earlier I might have opted for the decking but am not willing to "change horses in midstream".

 

Below is a shoot of both the LTN 71s.

[cdrusn89]

Midships deckhouse is done.

 

Should have the forward house done tomorrow so I can start on the hatches and smaller items.

 

I also got the "anti-fouling irons" (I assume that is what they are - keep lines from fouling on the structures on top of the after deckhouse) installed on the after deckhouse. I have not decided about the gangway yet. I am thinking about putting the boat on top of the after deckhouse instead of hanging on the davits. Less work, only have to paint the hull not do anything on the inside. I am telling myself that I will get a "real" ship's boat (one made from wood instead of Britannia metal) to hang on the davits someday. But...

 

 

[cdrusn89]

Forward deck house is complete except for the boiler piping and some of the deck pads and cleats.

 

I finally gave up trying to glue the two pieces of the boiler stack together directly and used a piece of 1/32 brass rod drilled into each piece to hold it together (plus Thick CA). That has worked so far. Based on my experience with the cook stove stack on the midships deck house I plan on building a jig to get the three stack supports the same length before they go on the stack. I am hoping it will lead to fewer "cut and fit" sessions and a cleaner looking installation.

 

So here is the hull with all three deck houses in place (more or less) and a shot of the side and rear of the forward deck house. It is easy to see why they had sliding doors on the forward deck house. It looks really tight in there. I am not sure how I am goiing to get the lines secusred on the pin rail. Should be much fun. May have to leave gluing the deck house down until I have gotten the lines around the belaying pins.

[cdrusn89]

I am working several areas in sequence as I get closer to the "real work" of getting the hull ready for the mast installation.

 

I finally got the boiler piping atop the forward deck house. Much easier if you plan ahead for the boiler stack supports rather than trying to do them "as you go" which I did with the stove stack.

 

Here is the forward deck house with the boiler stack installed. I still have to install the fore staysail sheet and lead block. The drawings are not all that clear on the configuration of the fore staysail and jib sheet tackle. I am going to use a double 1/8" block with becket on the booms and a double 1/8" on the deck with a single 1/8" fairlead block to a cleat on top of the forward deck house for the fore staysail - the jib sheet belays on the forward most pin on the starboard side forward pin rail. We will see how easy that turns out to be.

 

 

I decided to start putting the chain plates on the hull since they are going to be needed shortly. I also decided to put a second row of the double bead molding (painted yellow) at the deck edge. The double bead molding is used as the out layer over the top of the chain plates so I will paint this yellow and continue the yellow molding along the outer edge of the deck. I would assume there would be some kind of rub rail at the extreme hull breadth and this is what I am using for that.

Here is forward starboard chain plates - before the pin heads are painted. What is not mentioned in the instructions is that the pins provided in the kit are long enough to punch through the bulwarks above the main deck. It will be really hard to see this as it will be hidden by the forward deck house but it would have been nice to know about this before hand. I will cut the excess off and try and clean up the splinters before the deck bhouse goes in.

Because the forward most chain plate is outboard of the splash rail I installed the turnbuckle now as there is not much clearance to do it later and the chain plates are pretty fragile (.010" thick) so it made sense to put this one on now.

 

You can see the continuation of the bead molding aft of the forward chain plate. Some touch up painting is required where the molding and chain plates meet.-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cdrusn89]

Working on the hatches too.

 

Pretty straightforward all in all. I would have thought they would have mitered corners but not according to the instructions so who am I to add effort that will likely never be noticed.

 

Here is one of the hatches complete except for the strongbacks. I used 3/312" eyebolts (Model Expo I think) and 1/8" split rings for the lift rings. It took most of the afternoon to get 32 of these assemblies put together and blackened. Trying to "unsplit" small split rings takes a good deal of concentration and two pair of needle  nose pliers. I finally settled on using a drift pin punch to flatten the split ring and then the pliers to squeeze the joint closed (more or less). Here are the other 24 lift rings drying after being blackened.

 

[cdrusn89]

The steering wheel saga continues. I finally figured out that the wheel I showed in a previous post was NOT the one that came with this kit - it was left over from something else.

 

The wheel on the left below is the one that comes with the kit.

 

 

 

 

The one on the right is the kit wheel with boxwood spindles that were created from boxwood 6mm belaying pins.

 

I used the technique that is included with the Syren ship's wheel kits - using the Dremel hand piece as a mini-lathe to turn the belaying pins down to about .04" - that is still pretty badly out of scale but trying to go much smaller drives up the scrap percentage a good bit.

 

Here is the technique for mounting the new "spindles". I filed kit wheel down to "smooth" metal on the rim and then mounted the new spindles to line up with the existing spindles on the inside of the rim. I repainted the wheel internals a "rust" color and put a coat of flat finish on the spindles. I could have tried to paint the outer spindles on the kit wheel a different color to try of the same effect - it certainly would have been faster - but this seemed a better solution IMHO.

 

[cdrusn89]

Hatches are finished and installed on the hull - the first of the deck furniture. (The steering box is just there for a dry fit.)

 

The instructions call for using pins through the strong backs to assist in holding the hatches down. I think in the future (like for the chain plates) I will lightly sand (I have a 240 grit sanding disk on my Dremel handpiece that I use to clean up the Britannia metal parts) the heads of the pins to make it easier to paint them to match. It took two coats on the hatches - two opportunities to paint somewhere it does not belong.

[cdrusn89]

I got the chain plates on the starboard side and added the double bead (painted yellow like the sheer strake) between the chain plates so now there are two yellow stripes down the side. The picture  does not show this very well but I will work on getting a better picture when I get the chain plates on the other side done. I got an iPhone 11 Pro today so the pictures will HAVE to improve!

[cdrusn89]

As promised here are two better pictures of the "double yellow stripe, here on the port side.

 

Also I got the fore mast chain plates (both sets this time - I forgot the Fool and Cap stay chain plates on the starboard side) mounted but not yet cleaned up (blacken pin heads, touch up the bead molding, etc).

 

I started to put together the davits and blocks for the ship's boat (although I am still on the fence about where the boat will go - in the davits or on top of the after house). The instructions would have me drill a 1/16" hole,  1/16" deep in the bottom of a 1/8" double block. Try as I might I found that close to impossible and still have the block capable of having lines passed through. The lower line holes would be obliterated by the 1/16" hole. My solution was first of all to use 3/16" double blocks (I had more of them that I could afford to destroy) and second to drill a #75 hole (.021") hole as dead center in the block as I could manage. I also cut the eye off the end of the davit (as instructed) and drilled a #75 hole as close to the center of what is barely .050 in diameter. (I would not even attempted this without a miniature drill press and x-y table.) I could not drill in very deep as even with the bit chucked with less than 1/4" exposed, the bit wanted to wander. I used a piece (a really short piece) of .020 brass rod and thin CA to join the block and davit. After that set I used thick CA  on the outside where the two pieces join. Here is what one davit looks like after the block/davit was painted (twice). (Still needs some touch-up.)

 

I used a similar technique to join the pieces of the Main fife rail together. I had no luck trying to make a good joint between the bitt post and the pin rails. I used the .020" wire and drilled all the way through the bitts then into the pin rails. I used a piece of thin plywood as a base to hold things while I assembled the pieces - I believe the plywood will come in handy as a template to mark where to drill the holes in the deck when that time comes. I plan on making similar templates for the Mizzen and Spanker pin rails.

[cdrusn89]

More odds and ends.

 

Here are the aft bitts and mooring cleats - test fit; not glued down yet.

[cdrusn89]

Deck access hatches dry fit (more or less the correct locations).

Here is the display board after its first coat of Wipe-on-Poly (gloss). It appears this will be at least a 3-coat job, probably more.

 

And now for the "real fun".

 

I decided to build a prototype of the lower shrouds to see what "issues" might arise since using the Beadalon nylon coated wire is somewhat outside what I am familiar with. I did use Beadalon wire once before but it was on a 1/35th scale model without ratlines (or steps). Plus I have never tried to use styrene in the shrouds.

 

So I got a scrap of wood, a 5/16" dowel, the shroud template for the kit and built a mast with small wood screws where the shrouds would tie off. So far so good.

 

I rigged the two sets of shrouds to one side and discovered that I had to get all four shrouds tensioned together rather than doing them one pair at a time. When on the real model I plan to get all four pair (both sides) rigged and tensioned before I squash any of the "beads" that crimp the wire together. It is easy to get one pair tighter than another which causes "droopy" shrouds which is "not good".

 

The next problem occurred when I tried to add the styrene "steps". Initially I thought to use the liquid styrene glue that seemed to work well when adding the styrene to the deck houses. Alas, I do not think there is enough surface (it is only .020" thick) bearing on the shroud to form a good bond. That and it is very easy to distort the shrouds if you try and wedge the step between the shrouds.

 

Shroud distortion lead to my next step. Given that you are going to have to cut the stairs to pretty exact dimensions (generally by trial and error) I thought that having something fairly rigid at every fifth stair as the plans show could help to keep the shrouds aligned. I searched and found some .010" music wire (I think it is really a piano string) that I was able to use. I put a drop of Weldbond (my glue of choice) on each shroud and laid (I had the mast horizontal) a short piece across the shrouds. When the glue dried I had a fairly stiff connection across all four shrouds.

 

For the test I did four sets of wire. Then I tried adding the steps, although I used the styrene without painting it black. This is when I discovered that the styrene cement was not going to work. So I used the Weldbond here as well. I cut a very small "V" in one end of the styrene and then engage that "V" on one shroud while holding the step in tweezers and mark the length. Cut the step and cut a small "V" on that end. Here is a shot of a step ready for a trial fit.

 

 

 

Now the tricky part. Engage both "Vs" on the shroud and see where if it fits. When there are several open places if it does not fit where you intended try one of the slots above or below depending on whether it is too long or short. If that does not work, either shorten it a bit or try again.

 

When you have a fit (no shroud distortion) then put a drop of Weldbond on the shroud at each end and carefully engage the step on the shrouds and the glue drops. When the glue has set some I add another drop on the outboard sides of the step/shroud for insurance.

 

Here is my test mast with four wires and ten steps - this took almost two hours to complete so; 240 steps looks like 48 hours of work. Hopefully I will get faster but probably not much. It is really hard to get the measurement right the first time. I do not think I got even one of the ten I did correct on the first attempt, except where I used it somewhere other than where I had measured.

I know it does not look level but the template I used (copied from the plans) was attached so the the template shrouds and the mast shrouds lined up which made things off just a bit. Getting the wire on straight would have helped.

 

Using the painted steps will probably require a paint touch up on each end of each step as once you cut the styrene there will be "white showing". I will have to see how much this shows through the glue drop.

[cdrusn89]

I painted some of the styrene black. The first attempt using Badger acrylic paint did not go too well so for the second try I ran the styrene over some 400 grit sandpaper before painting. Seemed to adhere better with a slightly roughened surface.

 

I added two black steps to see if I needed to change procedure. The problem was it was harder to cut the "V" in the step - black surface and a basically black blade (No 11 but not a genuine Xacto). I will get some chrome blades before I start this in earnest.  Procedure is the same. Based on these examples I think a touch-up with black at the ends of the steps is gping to be required.

 

see for yourself.

One more procedure change - I will glue the piano wire only to the outboard shrouds - the glue drops on the inboard shrouds getsin the way when I add the steps.

 

It probably wouldn't hurt to paint the piano wire black as well, before gluing it to the shrouds. May need a touch-up on those glue blobs too.

 

I also got the port side chain plates and molding installed.

 

Some paint touch-up is still needed but we are basically ready for the turnbuckles.

 

[cdrusn89]

It is time to "put it all together".

 

I went from drawing to drawing and page to page in the instructions to get everything where it belongs.

 

Here is the fore deck - per the instructions the forward deck house is not secured yet - need to get Fore Mast in place first.

The drawings show what In assume to be two capstan bars secured to the deck (one on each side also my assumption) but no mention of them in the instructions or anywhere else. I will think about adding them - maybe.

 

The fife rails (also per the instructions) are not secured yet either, just sitting in the holes. Speaking of file rails, on the Mizzen and Spanker I ground off the pins on the after supports. It is hard getting all the holes in exactly the right place - if the large holes on the forward end aren't enough to secure them then I will have to live with the consequences.

 

FYI - the things with blue tape on them are the lines attached to the sheet block beckets. Easier to keep them out of the way - sort of.

 

Here is the rest of the main deck and the midships house.

 

I have one rope coil on a pin as a test - I think that will do.

 

Here is the rest of the poop deck forward of the aft house.

 

And here is the aft deck house.

I decided to put the yawl on top of the aft house instead of on the davits. I am telling myself that someday I will build a "proper" yawl for this model.

 

I am waiting for a tool to help bend the accommodation ladder - I do not want to attempt that with just pliers. It will be on this side of the aft house, painted dark blue like the hull.

 

Here are two shots of the entire topsides

 

I am going to mount the model on the final display board when the last coat of WOP in dry - tomorrow morning just to be on the safe side (I applied it just before lunch).

 

Next I am going to try and add some of the rigging to the bowsprit/jib boom before I start putting the masts aboard.

 

Instructions say to start with the Mizzen - no explanation of why and I can't find where it says which to do next.

 

 

[cdrusn89]

So here she is mounted on the display board. I am going to tape some paper over the finished board "just in case".

After looking over the rigging scheme again I decided that trying to reeve the line through the 1/8" double block for the Jib sheet when it is stuck between the knightshead and the splash rail would probably require more dexterity than I have. So I rigged the tackle and will attach the sheet block to the boom for the jib when that is installed (which will be pretty soon now).

 

Here is the tackle waiting for its "moment in the sun".

I managed to get the two forward sections of chain on the dolphin striker and am setting up the deadeyes on the bowsprit now.

 

I decided that 3/32" deadeyes are just too small for me to deal with so I am using 1/8" walnut deadeyes painted black. If I used the provided Britannia metal deadeyes I would have chemically blackened them so that is why I chose black paint.

Here is the bowsprit/jib boom as it stands - before I painted the deadeyes.

 

The next step would be to rig the bowsprit/jib boom back stays.

 

Which leads to my next decision. I had decided to use the Beadalon silver wire instead of the provided line (painted gray). After dealing with the wire on my "practice" shrouds I am beginning to question that decision. The Beadalon looks great but, unlike the line, it has essentially no inherent stretch and the nylon coating is pretty smooth and difficult to get even the Weld Bond glue to stick. A smooth surface will not be an issue with the painted line and I believe there will still be some stretch even after the paint dries.

 

I have decided to rig the other side of my test mast with the recommend .015 painted line from the kit. I am still going to use the .010 music wire for the long foot ropes as I did with the Beadalon and will add some black steps to see if it is any easier.

 

I need to decide whether or not to use the Beadalon now since the bowsprit/jib boom back stays are wire and they are "next up".

 

 

 

 

 

[cdrusn89]

I rigged the other side of my test mast using the .015 line from the kit painted grey using Badger grey primer. It dries really quickly so it is easy to "make more" as I need it.

 

As I suspected it is easier to get the steps to "stick" on the rougher painted line than with the nylon coated wire so I am going to go with the painted line for the standing rigging.

 

Here is my test mast with six steps installed. I am going to stick with the music wire for every fifth line but am going to paint it black before installing.

[cdrusn89]

I mounted the bowsprit/jib boom (dry fit - too big a chance of damage while fiddling around getting the masts aboard.

 

Then I spent most of the day dealing with deadeyes.

 

I mounted the three sets of deadeyes on the bow where the bowsprit shrouds and martingales terminate.

 

 

 

I attached the chain to the four irons on the stem. Two connect to the Jib Stay (the two on top) and the other two are the bobstays which have deadeyes on the chain and at the bowsprit. For attaching the chain to a deadeye I used 30 ga black wire. I made a double loop through the chain link that I wanted to be the end and then captured the deadeye in the loops. I used medium CA in the slot of the deadeye to bind the wire to the deadeye and trimmed the wire ends and chain when the CA dried.

 

The plan is to get the four chains attached and tensioned and then glue (CA) the iron and brass pins together, trim the ends of the brass and touch-up,with flat black paint.

 

And finally I got deadeyes on the two ends of the martingales.

 

 

Next are the jib boom guys.

 

[cdrusn89]

I have gotten the bowsprit/jib boom as complete as possible without actually rigging lanyards on the deadeyes or running the fore stays.

 

It is back on its stand to await it calling after the masts are aboard.

 

 

I also built a cradle for the gangway and mounted it atop the after deckhouse. While doing that I noticed that one of the fairlead "irons" from the top skylight has gone missing. I should have made a few extra when I was at it as this is the second time one of them has turned up missing. Oh well.

 

[cdrusn89]

After looking over the way ahead it occurred to me that perhaps my tactic (and that generally recommended throughout this site) of pre-outfitting the masts with blocks and lines to the maximum extent possible may not have been prudent in the case of the Foremast. It looks like there will be very little "room to maneuver" between the forward deckhouse and the pin rails abreast the Foremast.  With that in mind I decided to "unrig" the halyards and topping lifts (except the boom topping lifts and throat and peak halyards) from the Foremast and instead terminate them at the belaying pins before installing the Foremast and forward deckhouse. While I am not a big fan of trying to terminate a running rigging line at a becket on a block already attached to the mast, that seems a better plan than trying to terminate a line on a belaying pin that is assess able only through a 1/4" wide slot.

 

So here is what the main deck looks like with the five halyards, two topping lifts and four sheet lines on the respective belaying pins.

I have not decided what to do about the empty holes in  the pin rail. I believe I will fill most of them with pins and some of those with rope coils like the ones on the port side.

 

The boom topping lifts and throat and peak halyards are "too hard" to undo and redo so I am leaving the last two pins on each side for them. I think I can get to them with the deckhouse in place. That is not where the belaying plan would have them go but "I am the Captain" as they say and I am sure the belaying plan was well within the Captains purvey to change - even on a merchant vessel.

[cdrusn89]

A mast! a mast is aboard.

 

I took the instructions advice and mounted the Mizzen first - not sure why but...

 

To accurately get the mast rake I created a template from a file folder using the waterline on the sheet 5 of the plans as the reference. I lined a cut edge of the file folder along the Mizzen (although all the masts are supposed to be the same) and marked where the waterline cut across the folder. Then I c arefully marked and cut along that line and checked that if I aligned the edge I cut with the waterline that the other edge aligned with the mast.

 

Then I put the waterline edge on the table an d checked to see how the mast lay. It was pretty close so I sanded a b it off the back side of the mast that fit in the hole in the hull and tried again.

 

Although not really easy to see in the below picture the mast and template are in pretty good agreement.

 

Then I set up the laser level to check the side to side alignment.

 

I set up a temporary shroud on the side that needed the pull and adjusted to get the vertical laser beam to run up the center of the mast.

 

When I had it correct I pulled the mast (and fife rail and mast coat) off the ship, added a small amount of Weldbond glue around the inside of the hole in  the hull and put everything back an d readjusted to get the laser on the mast. Now, wait for the glue to dry and then try a keep everything in line while putting the shrouds/stays on.

 

[Vladimir_Wairoa]

 most beautiful build indeed. what an unusual interesting ship.  . V. 

[cdrusn89]

Thanks V.

My father (who grew up in Fall River, Mass.) told me seeing three and four masted schooners like the Notman was quite common in the late 1920s in the local waters.

[cdrusn89]

I reread the instructions and did find ( bold at bottom of page 60) where it indicates the order for installing the masts: Mizzen, Spanker, Main and Fore. No explanation of why but as always "we follow the instructions (more or less)".

 

The instructions also say to rig the running rigging before the standing, at least to run the running rigging to the belay point, take up the slack but "DO NOT GLUE YET".

 

I am still thinking about that. I am inclined to rig the shrouds/stays as I put the masts aboard to minimize the amount of "stuff" that might get in the way while rigging the shrouds on a given mast.

 

Leaving the Foremast to the end means installing the Bowsprit after all the masts which is probably a good thing as I am always nervous about something catching on the Bowsprit/jib boom once it is aboard.

 

Anyway, once the Mizzen is secure (glue dry) I will proceed with the Spanker etc.

 

 

 

 

[MrBlueJacket]

There are two schools of thought about rigging. Since the running rigging is generally inside of the standing, It makes sense to do it first. On the other hand, putting up the standing rigging first stabilizes the masts and makes alignment easier. It's not difficult to do the running rigging after.

 

So it's six of one, and a half dozen of the other. Builder's choice.

 

As for belaying lines along the forward deckhouse, with its tight clearance, you can put the line through the belaying hole, then put the pin in.

[cdrusn89]

Nic,

 

   I had not thought of putting the line through the hole and then putting the pin in. The holes in  the forward pin rail are a bit large for the provided pins so that might be the preferred solution if I had not already gone "the other route".

 

   Having the running rigging behind the standing makes tying ratlines somewhat more complex but they do provide a convenient support for the ratline template. I laminated mine on this job to reduce the possibility of gluing the template to the shrouds. We will see how that works in practice as I am still "raising masts" at this point.

[cdrusn89]

Having decided to use painted line (rather than Beadalon nylon coated wire) for the standing rigging I used a step ladder to hang the line while it dried.

 

In my first attempt I poured a small "puddle" of paint (Badger grey primer) and pulled the line ( kit supplied) through the puddle of paint and then hung it up to dry. This did not work out so well even though I ran down the line between my fingers as it hung the paint still dried with noticeable "bumps" in various places. Part of this is the line which is not as consistent as you might like, and the other is probably the paint which was pretty thick.

 

After scraping that line I cut the paint 50/50 with water in a small cup and essentially submerged the line in the thinned paint then pulled it out between my fingers and hung it up to dry. I also shifted to Syren .012 and .008 tan line (for the .012 and .010 line called for in the instructions). I am continuing to use the kit provided line for the .015 thickness.

 

With the Mizzen aboard and while waiting for the painted line to dry, I put the Spanker aboard and tied off the running rigging.I used the laser and template to get the rake and side-to-side alignment with the Mizzen.

With the two masts aboard I started to add the standing rigging, although nothing (running or standing) is glued in place yet. My plan is to wait until I have all the masts and bowsprit aboard and rigged, then CAREFULLY tie off the rigging mast-by-mast starting at the bow since that is where all the forestays are.

 

So here is the Mizzen with all of the running and standing rigging (except the Spring Stay to the Spanker) in place. Forgive all the excess lines - I am leaving them long to make it easier to grab them if necessary.

 

And here is the Spanker with just the running rigging (no standing yet).

 

 

After I get the standing rigging on the Spanker the Mainmast is next.

 

I am considering securing one mast at a time (starting from the bow) and then adding the "ratline steps" to one mast at a time before securing the next mast. The thought of doing 240 steps with nothing else to do in between does not appeal to me much.

[cdrusn89]

And then there were THREE (masts).

 

Mainmast is abroad but not yet rigged.

 

Therein lies the problem. The turnbuckles which secure the lower shrouds are not as sturdy as I might like. The parts list shows 36 of the small (eight per mast (32) plus four (4) for the fools/cap stays on the foremast). comes with the kit. I suspect there are a few spares included but not enough for the ham handed (like me). The eyes that must be opened to hook the turnbuckle to the chain plate is good for only a small number of bends before it breaks off rendering the turnbuckle useless. Perhaps I should have painted them rather than chemically blackened them. Maybe the blackening reduces their resistance to fracture in some significant way.

 

In any event, I have two of the four mast standing rigging done and have less than four turnbuckles remaining. So another 30 are on the way from BlueJackets - should be here Saturday (I hope).

 

In the mean time I intend to get the mainmast running rigging belayed and then move on to the real fun - the foremast. I will work the standing rigging when the turnbuckles get here.

 

I would also suggest that anyone building this kit leave the wooden battens that run through the turnbuckles out until all the standing rigging as been tied off and secured. I think the jockeying around getting the batten inserted and then moved around as the standing rigging is added may have contributed to the turnbuckle breakage. To make the battens as easy as possible to insert I thinned them down to 1/64" rather than the 1/32" called for in the instructions. I might substitute some styrene (of the appropriate dimensions) for the wood as it is easier to maneuver in through the slots in the turnbuckles (and it doesn't break easily).

 

[cdrusn89]

Ready (except for the turnbuckles for the forward two masts) we are for the forward deckhouse and mast to "come on down" as they used to say (or maybe still do) on "The Price is Right.

 

Since there are more moving parts in this install I rigged up lines port, starboard and forward from the foremast to weights to allow me to adjust the pull to get the mast aligned as required.

 

I also put some weights on top of the forward deckhouse as its position also plays into the foremast positioning.

 

Here is how it looks from forward - all the masts seem pretty much in line, even though none of them have the standing rigging taut.

They may be off a little at the topmast portion - hopefully I can pull this in with the topmast shrouds and back stays.

 

Here is how the mast rack mlooks

That assumes that my base is close to level, which I think it is.

 

Here is the rest of the set up showing the lines to control the foremast position.

 

 

Now for the hard part - taking it all apart, applying the glue and then getting everything back in this position.

 

We do that tomorrow

 

 

[cdrusn89]

While waiting for the foremast/deckhouse to dry I added the downhauls for the four headsails to the bowsprit.

 

I also added a 1/8" block for each downhaul attached to the "extra" eye at each of the jib boom irons. I thought I read somewhere in the instructions about using these as fairleads for the downhauls but they are not oriented correctly.

 

For the fairleads I used 1/8" wooden blocks stained walnut. I ran out of metal blocks and grew tired of having the attachment or becket fail. I think I am DONE with the metal blocks.

 

So here is the bowsprit with the downhauls and blocks added.

[cdrusn89]

Foremast and Bowsprit are aboard - beginning to look like a real ship (model)!

 

I am leaving the temporary shrouds in place until I can get the "real" shrouds in place. The replacement turnbuckles did  not get here yesterday so I am working on the running rigging (mostly head sail halyards and the topping lifts for the two head sail booms) to keep myself busy.

 

I looked at the .015 line (painted grey) I used for the Spring stays (Spanker-Mizzen; Mizzen-Main) and did not like the look or smoothness of adjustment so I painted some Syren .018 tan line grey last night and am going to use that for the standing rigging that calls for .015 thickness. Hopefully this will make it easier to get the correct adjustment since there are at least three other pieces of rigging that are affected substantially by the tension on the stays between masts.

 

I have the model clamped to the wordworker's workbench until I get the shrouds on the Main and Fore masts. I can more easily keep the Fore mast correctly positioned vertically with the temporary shrouds with the base firmly positioned.