4mm diameter sapele

[Dougal Mack]

I'm building the Artesenia Latina HMS Endeavour's Longboat and am on with the masts and sails.  I cut the booms and gaffs to length as per the instructions, but annoyingly, the mainsail gaff is way too short and I have no 4mm diameter sapelly left.

Can anybody suggest where I can buy some from - UK please - when I look on the AL website, it just states "there are no products in this category"!

[Charter33]

Hi Dougal,

You could try either Cornwall Model Boats or Mantua Models who are based in Windsor.

Good luck!

 

Graham.

[Roger Pellett]

Before buying more wood, do some research to determine a realistic sail plan for your model; not what the kit designer thought looked good.  Some of these longboat rigs had quite short gaffs.

 

[Jaager]

You do not provide a geographic location for where you are at, but in the US most local hardware stores stock Birch dowels.

 

Now, using commercial dowels for spars is a risky but common option.  A cork borer type cutter is used on a board.  The straightness and parallel orientation of the grain is a pure chance factor.

A dowel with grain that is not dead straight will tend to take a dogleg bend over time.  A way to avoid this is to start with a board with straight grain and is of a species of wood with scale appropriate grain and absence of visible pores.  Use a froe to split out a square cross section stick and work it round and tapered.

 

Not germane to this particular problem:

 

We all probably started with plastic kit models of whatever.  If a part is missing or malformed,  it is probably necessary to interact with the kit manufacturer to get a replacement.

Wood kits of ships use a material that is available from many sources.  The cast metal and PE parts are get back to the manufacturer parts, but for the wood, finding outside sources will probably gain you better quality wood to start with and it is the usual way to cross the barrier over into scratch building.

 

There is a fundamental  difference in the mien behind plastic and wood in respect to kits.   Because so much on a wooden ship is basically the same over the wide range of vessels in its slice of time - varying only in size depending on ship size - I suspect that some kit instructions are loosey goosey in the HOW in their instructions because it is like describing water to a fish.  It probably seems redundant when you know what sort of information is generally available.  Plastic is subject specific assembly  and each needs specific instructions.  Wood is fabrication from raw materials and the instructions are a trade set of skills.