Furled sails rigging

[toms10]

Hi MSW,

I have a question regarding the running rigging lines when a sail is furled, specifically lines that are secured to the kringles on the sail itself such as bow, leech and reef lines.  I am assuming these lines are loosened from their belyaing pins but stay attached to their kringles and "rolled up" into the sail so the lines come out near the yard arms and then reattached to their belaying pins.  I just want to make sure as I am going to furl or at least partially, the fore and main course sails on my Leopard as not to obstruct the details on the the decks below them.

 

Thanks for the help,

Tom

[popeye2sea]

When the sail is furled the bunt and leech lines are hauled up to the yard bringing the foot and the sides of the sail up with them, so there would remain nothing left to "roll" up into the sail.  Not sure what you are referring to when you say reef lines, but if you meant reefing tackles, they are only hooked into the cringles when actually in the process of reefing the sail. Otherwise, they are stoppered along the yard. Bow lines were un-hitched from their cringles and probably unrove completely.  Although, I have seen models depict them hitched around the yard in the approximate position of where they would come when the sail is brailed up prior to furling.

 

Regards,

[toms10]

Thanks Henry,

Yes I was referring to the reef tackles.  I didn't want to put extra lines in unnecessarily.  There are enough already. 🙂

Tom

[georgeband]

Tom,

 

My interpretation of this problem rested on the way in which a square sail is furled. It is not 'rolled' but rather pleated and the final layer forms a skin over those beneath it. The furling action also brings most of the weight of the sail towards the centre of the yard (at least in the time of your Leopard). The lower corners of the sail stick out from the furled mass and were called dog ears. When a ship was sailing before the wind in extreme weather these dog ears were the only active sail area and were referred to as goose wings. 

On my model of Sherbourne I attached three ropes to each dog ear: the clew line, tack and sheet block. I also had a bunt line and bow line emerging from the skin by the dog ear. Henry says that the bow line was probably unhitched and I do not have any evidence to dispute this so follow his advice and have one rope fewer to deal with. 

The photo below shows the complete yard ready to be attached to the mast. The edge of the 'skin' is just below the visible edge of the yard itself and the dog ears rise up there and are bent over to hang down in front of the yard. 

 

I made the dog ears as triangles and mounted them on lengths of copper wire which was tucked among the pleats when furling the sail. On this photo the bunt lines have been coiled. The bow line is a loop which would have been between two cringles on the sail. This loop projects from the skin with the dog ear and I tied the bowline itself to the loop. 

 

The corner of the sail has a cringle and I tied a block and two ropes to it rather than trying to replicate the actual links which are complicated and hard to see at 1/64 scale. 

 

There is a fuller description on my website where you can also download a pdf file that has more photos. Here are links to both. 

https://www.grbsolutions.co.uk/

Sails.pdf

 

 

George

 

 

 

[Ian B]

good PDF, I am most of my way through HMS Vanguard and intend having a full set of furled sails on her so will definitely refer to this

 

 

[allanyed]

To all,

Out of curiosity, what was the typical weight/thickness/thread count of cotton and/or flax sails in the 18th and 19th centuries.    From what I could find on the 'net, modern sail cloth is in the neighborhood of 8 ounces with a thread count of about 148 by 160.   The reason this comes to mind, again for me, the sails in the photo above look rather thick and this subject comes up somewhat often.   The diameter of the threads of the sail cloth in the photo above appear to be about 1/3" in diameter, more like  small rope.   This is based on the assumption that the block is  a 6 inch block. Even if it is a 12" block, the sail cloth thread would be very heavy at 1/6" diameter. 

 

Tom,

The dog ears as separate pieces look really good.   Hope you don't mind my asking but what are the gold lines on the sails?    I thought maybe they represent seams or sewn lines, but seams were just sewn overlaps of the same materials. so would be the same color as the sails and I think the sewn lines would be close in color as well.     Am I correct to assume these are preprinted sails in a kit?     

Thanks

 

Allan

 

[toms10]

Hi George

thank you for your response. This is exactly the information I was looking for.  I was also curious about the actual thickness of the cloth used for the sails. I only found reference to a number that was designated for a particular thickness in my reference books but was unable to correspond that to an actual inch measurement.
 

I am going to be using a silkspan  on both sides of a sheet of paper. The total thickness is .008” which might be a bit heavy at the 1:85 scale I am using. I may substitute the center paper ply with tissue. This technique was developed by a fellow member of my local club, Ron Neilson and looked excellent on his model

 

thanks again for your valuable insight. 
 

Tom

[allanyed]

Why not just use silkspan tissue by itself?  A single layer with two or three coats of diluted tubed acrylic paint works very well and is surprisingly strong.  The booklet on sail making by David Antscherl goes into detail on how to do this and you can furl the sails without problems.  I gave it a try a month ago on a model and it worked very well and I will be using this method on my current project.   For the seams  I used a Liquitex marker pen that was just a LITTLE darker than the sails.  The booklet describes using a bow pen but my sails were rather large and the pen would not hold enough thinned paint to compete a complete seam in one stroke.  Liquitex offers a lot of colors from which to choose.   I trimmed the tip of the marker the pen with a scalpel to scale two inches wide before priming the marker and then laid down the lines with a steel rule.  I taped pennies under the rule so it did not sit on the sail and cause any of the paint to wick underneath the rule.   Once the seams were dry I applied a final coat on the entire sheet with the same color as the original and this  softened the seams so they were easily seen but unobtrusive.  You can make reinforce pieces with scrap pieces of the painted silkspan and apply it with matte medium which dries clear and is water proof.  As your model is of an older vessel, you can use unbleached titanium white or, if you cannot find any easily,  use the more common bleached titanium white and darken it with a touch of burnt umber or even yellow ochre.  Some folks don't thin it at all, but I found it easier to dilute it a little and then apply with a brush or small roller.  I don't like the roller as much as it tends to create tiny bubbles if pressed down very much.

Another way to skin the proverbial cat.

Allan

[wefalck]

I can't put my hand on that immediately, but I have seen estimations of sail-cloth weights. It is not so straightforward, as they were numbered and each number refered to a cloth of a certain weight per bolt, that is the roll of fabric of a specified lenght and width. The specifications varied from navy to navy and also where they obtained the fabric, if it was not manufactured in the navy's own manufacture.

 

As for rope, the thickness of a fabric is difficult to define, as it changes with the amount of stretching and the humidity. For this reason, today the thickness still is indirectly given by the weight per unit area (e.g. square metre or square yard). With information on the specific weight of the yarn used and the thread-count, one can make some rough 'guesstimates' of the thickness. However, I would hazard a guess that even the coarsest canvasses would not be much above 3 mm or 1/8" thick, typically less.

 

A german colleague puts a special paper-repair fabric between two layers of silk paper that is arranged in overlapping strips. This repair-fabric is extremely thin (I think about 10 g/sqm) and impregnated with a heat-activated acrylic glue. The resulting sails have the visual appearance of the real thing and are translucent like the real thing. They sails also can be wetted to drape them and thus show them e.g. limp.

 

However, for furled sails I would probably rather go for silkscreen as Allan suggested. Depending on the scale one may even go for paper maché or modelling putty and just make the 'dog ears' in silk-paper or painted silkscreen. What counts is the correct appearance, not what's inside

[toms10]

Hi Allan,

Thanks for your input.  The copy paper was to draw light lines with a #2 pencil then a quick spray coat of matte sealant to keep the lines from smudging.  I would then put a light coating of spray adhesive on the paper to adhere the silkspan on each side.  The silkspan is lightly spray painted with Liquitex unbleached titanium as you mentioned.  Now when the pencil lines show through they will be muted and less noticeable.  I was also thinking of white tissue paper between the silk span or maybe just draw the pencil lines on the back side of one sheet of silkspan and then cover that side with another piece of painted silkspan.

 

I like your idea of the Liquitex marker pen.  What color did you end up using to contrast the unbleached titanium for the seams?  Sounds like some experimenting is in my immediate future.

 

Tom

 

 

[allanyed]

The sails I made were for a new schooner that is to be built in the next year or two so the sails are to be white and I had to use bleached titanium.  You are right, experiment with a couple colors to see what works best for your sail color.  Below is an example of the seams with the colors that were appropriate for my build, but would be too light for sails for your build.  If you look at the BoothBay 65 build log, there is some detail on how I made the sails.  Go to https://modelshipworld.com/topic/25312-boothbay-65-schooner-by-allanyed/page/4/#comments and scroll down to about the December 4 post and go from there.  Hope it helps.  One of the pics is below showing the seams before and after the last coat of paint on the silkspan.   The model scale is 1:24 so the seams are 0.08" wide.

Allan

 

[wefalck]

This wanders a bit off-topic, but I wonder what is meant by 'bleached' vs. 'unbleached' titanium ? Titanium oxide (TiO2) is one of the whitest pigments that we have. Also, due to the production process it is very pure and then very stable as a chemical compound. So, I wonder, how it can be bleached.

[georgeband]

Allan,

Ref your post #6 above. I drew the sails and dog ears on screen with all the seams as pale brown lines, then inkjet printed them on the finest cotton lawn material that I could find. This prevents one slip of a pen from ruining a whole sail. The material is intended for patchwork and quilters and comes in US letter size with a plastic backing. EQ Printables 9284. The thread count is 240 per inch which at 1/64 gives a pitch between threads of about 1/4 inch. Not quite a rope but still a lot thicker than a linen thread. 

The seam lines are darker than the sail itself because they have four layers of canvas and block the light more. At normal viewing distance the contrast between lines and background gives the right effect and open sails are nicely translucent.

 

If you do want the sails to have a realistic scale texture then the silkspan approach looks better than what I did. It still leaves another problem in that the stiffness is too great for the weight and you have to build in the folds and drapes. That also applies to ropes that are not under tension and have to be coerced to lie in a smooth catenary curve. 

 

The photo below shows part of the gaff sail at a more normal viewing distance than the extreme close-up of the dog ears. All the rings around the reef points would have been difficult to draw by hand and an invitation to make a mistake. The bolt rope around the edge was glued on with PVA. 

 

George

 

[AON]

from google search: Unbleached Titanium White is a warm beige tinted white. This oil paint can be used to lighten colors with a different effect than regular whites.

[wefalck]

Also did some googling and realised that my chemical/mineralogical knowledge crossed with what are marketed products. Today, TiO2 pigment is produced mainly from a mineral called rutile, which apart from being crystalline TiO2 can contain significant amounts of iron oxide. The iron oxide is removed by an acid leaching process, depending on how effective this process is, traces may remain, giving the pigment a slightly yellowish stain. It appears that some artists like this pale beige colour and it is marketed as such, as 'unbleached' TiO2. The purification process has actually nothing to do with 'bleaching', which is an oxidation process.

[georgeband]

I have looked up sail weights in Steel, pages 143-145. He lists 10 grades with number 1 the heaviest at 44lb for a bolt and number 10 the lightest at 15lb. A standard bolt is given as 38 yards long and 24 inches wide. 

One paragraph tells us that the six heaviest grades have 'at least 560 double threads of yarn'. I understand this to mean that what we call a 'thread' is actually two threads together, and there are 560 of these pairs across a 24 inch width. Technical term- these are the warp threads that run along the bolt of cloth. Other parts of this section say that doubled threads are also used across the cloth (weft threads). 

 

560/24 = 23.3 threads per inch. The pitch between threads is about 1mm and on a model will be proportionately smaller. If you want scale size sail cloth using fine cotton lawn which is 240 threads per inch then your model will have to be at 1/10 scale or bigger!  This is reasonable for a boat but for a ship in 1/64 or 1/85 there is a decision to make: live with the over scale thickness if you want a woven material, or use something like silkspan if you want the sails to be thin. Neither is perfect but if it gives a result that you like then be happy.

 

George

[allanyed]

George,

I had also used high thread count bed linens in the past for 1:48 scale before trying silk span.   You can find  600 to 800 TC in most stores that carry fine linen products and I was able to find some in one of the largest chain variety stores here in the US for a reasonable price.   There are higher thread counts but that was the highest  I could find at that time.  There were a variety of colors and I chose a beige that blended well with beige thread/line.  I purchased a pair of pillow cases and it was sufficient for all the sails on the schooner Columbia which went to a client and the schooner Lettie Howard (which was stolen out of the back of our car while it was on a car transport truck during our move to Florida), both at 1:48 scale.   Having used both materials, my preference right now is silk span.   Word to the wise, NEVER leave ANYTHING in your car if you are having it transported.    

Allan

[Keith Black]

35 minutes ago, allanyed said:

was stolen out of the back of our car while it was on a car transport truck

Allan, if that's not a candidate for "What Gets Your Goat" I don't know what is. 

[wefalck]

I think we had this topic somewhere else before ...

 

Anyway, there are extremely fine silk fabrics for silk-screen printing. I gather one can get them in art-supply stores, but also in the famous bay. Haven't tried them myself yet, but I believe this was the main use of the fabrics also used for covering model aircraft.