Do you glue your pins to the rail?

[mikiek]

I am finishing up Enterprise. All the rigging is in but I have not glued pins in yet as I want to go back and tighten some of the lines. Then I need to add rope coils on the pins. That got me to thinking which is always a dangerous thing. My only completed square rigged model has more than a few droopy lines after 2 years on display. Those pins are glued so there is no way to tighten the lines now without major surgery. This is making me think about NOT gluing the pins on E. This would allow adjustments down the road but the catch seems to be I would have to leave enough rope coming out the underside of the rail so that I could grab hold of it if I needed to tighten. I guess the coils would hide most of that.

 

I'm wondering how you guys have handled this?

[allanyed]

Mike

I have a few models that have been around for going on 30 years in which the lines are still taut so this is a new one for me.    In any case, I am not sure why you would worry about the pins being glued.   The lines are the only things that need to be removed and tightened as the pins would be kept in place.     Just make sure you have sufficient line coiled as you mention.   

Allan

[Bob Cleek]

When tying off, apply a small drop of thinned shellac to the knot. That will keep it from loosening. If you ever do have to untie it, a light application of denatured alcohol will dissolve the shellac and the knot can be undone. 

[barkeater]

I have not had a problem with drooping lines. I don't glue pins. I cinch the lines around the pins a couple times as you would securing a regular size vessel then glue with thinned white glue. I then coil a separate line,  place over the pin and glue again with thinned carpenters glue. 

[mikiek]

Well the plan at least to this point was feeding a line thru a hole in the pinrail then jamming the pin in the hole after that. And then of course adding a coil.

 

I guess if I actually did wrap the rope around the pin with a under and over then glue the rope it might not be too hard to get a rope loose later on. And it probably wouldn't matter then if the pin was glued or not. Unfortunately, at this point that is a lot of rework. I will reassess.

[mtaylor]

I use the thinned white glue also.  One advantage is that the glue bond can be broken using alcohol.  

[bogeygolpher]

Mike,

 

I have, on occasion, had to tighten a line that has gone slack for whatever reason and have been successful in finding a location on the line where I could tighten it somewhere away from the pin rail.

 

Paul

[Richvee]

On 10/10/2020 at 6:37 PM, mikiek said:

Well the plan at least to this point was feeding a line thru a hole in the pinrail then jamming the pin in the hole after that. And then of course adding a coil.

 

I guess if I actually did wrap the rope around the pin with a under and over then glue the rope it might not be too hard to get a rope loose later on. And it probably wouldn't matter then if the pin was glued or not. Unfortunately, at this point that is a lot of rework. I will reassess.

I’m at this exact point on my KC build. I too had the lines fed through the holes and then the pin put in holding the line in place. After making a few rope coils I was real unhappy with the look of the coil with the line seemingly going through the coil. I chose to rework the lines and hitch them under and over and dab them with a spot of diluted white glue.  
You can see the 5th line from the left that’s still through the hole. I’m  causing more damage trying to extend and wrap that line than it’s worth. That one is staying through the hole and hopefully after all the coils are in place it will be less noticeable. 

 

 

Now I think the line and lay of the coils looks better. 

[mikiek]

Thanks for that Rich. I'm also concerned that reworking with a under/over wrap will end up with me doing more harm than good. Can you get away with just one under and one over? Do you have to hold the line in place while the glue dries?

[Richvee]

I used a combination of methods. On some I was able to get good angles and wrapping twice under and over in a figure eight pattern was easy. These lines held nice by themselves, and I was able to dab some diluted white glue on them, let it dry then cut the excess.

 

Others, either because of access angles, or whatever other reasons, didn't behave so well and gave me a hard time. On those, I put a spot of white glue on the underside of the pin, worked the line around the bottom of the pin, through the glue, and let it dry thoroughly  before attempting to wrap it over the top. On the stubborn ones, there's only one wrap, and the wrap around the top is sometimes held in place with a small spot of CA glue. In the event I need to re tension any lines, water does a good job releasing the white glue, and a drop of Model Expo's CA remover works to loosen the ones with CA holding them down. Overall I think it was worth the effort. The lines look much better coming down in front or to the side of the coils. I'm hoping the few on the fore rail I just couldn't get to are not obvious and hidden beneath  all the coils when they are in place. 

 

Here's a closeup look at the main rail with a few more coils in place. 

[mikiek]

Rich - I think I will probably give what you describe a go. As far as looking better I see your point, but I wonder if this is one of those things that no one notices but the modeller.

[Richvee]

Lol. Yes. Just the modeler, and other modelers. Those details are lost on the casual viewer. But we don’t model for the casual viewer. We model for our own self satisfaction. ( well, at least I do). 

[mikiek]

OK - I tried a couple of pins. I will say thank goodness for alligator forceps. They make reaching across a rigged deck a lot easier. They also help with the over/under wrap. Worst part of it all is holding the line tight until the white glue dries. It will be a slow process.

[barkeater]

To hold your line tight until the glue dries just leave some extra and use a clip as a weight and dangle it over the outboard side. Also if you are adding multiple lines to say a yard you can keep the tension on all your lines using this method until you have them all adjusted to you liking and the glue all at the same time.

Rich

[Bob Cleek]

17 hours ago, mikiek said:

Worst part of it all is holding the line tight until the white glue dries. It will be a slow process.

 

Yes. Thinned white (clear) shellac works well and dries very fast.