Scale visibility and which to pick

[Trond]

Hi,

Since I'm very green to ship building I've bought books on rigging and have been read forth and back on scale and sizes of blocks, deadeyes and rope.

I'm building the Bounty and I have a book on Bounty where McKay list up many sizes of block, dead eyes and rope, which give me a very detailed information on rigging of the ship. My problem is there is a lot of different sizes and a lot of sizes have small difference between them.

 

I haven't seen many finished ship and have little knowledge (so far) on correct sizes of blocks and deadeyes for the different ropes. I can easily see a difference between a nice block like Syren compared to a standard square block in the kit, but not if it was correct to use 5/32" or 3/16".

 

So my question is do you notice if one use for example 3/16" block in places where the table say 5/32" and 1/4" block? and of course the blocks need to be correct.

[wefalck]

If you have the technical ability to produce blocks of the correct size, why not do it ? Making your own blocks is not that difficult.

 

1/32" or even 1/16" is quite a substantial difference on something that is 3/16" or 4/16" long, that's 25% difference. If you don't have anything to compare it with and don't know the subject, you may not notice. However, say on a yard there will be row of blocks with different functions and for different rope sizes and then you will notice, when the blocks do not have the proper relative size.

 

Also, the size of the rope (and to some extent its function) determine the size of blocks. The diameter of the sheave depends on the diameter of the rope, as thicker rope is difficult to bend around a small sheave and will require a lot of force to pull it through (and the rope may be damaged, by a too tight bend, at least over time). The width of the sheave and, hence, of the shell also depends on the diameter of the rope - it should run easily through, but not be so wide that it has too much slack. So you will have to have the correct block size for each rope size and vice versa.

 

Having said that, there are practical limitations for a model. On the real ship you may have 20 or so rope diameters, but on a model you may reduce this to half a dozen, particularly, when you buy in rope. When you make your own, you have more possibilities. However, these may also be limited to available yarn thicknesses.

 

So the summary aswer would be to be as precise as your abilities (that will grow with experience) and the available materials allow.

[PietFriet]

I have picked up a 'rule' from this forum that in case the exact scale is not available to always pick the next smaller item available, with the view that something bigger appears much quicker out of scale. So far this has worked for me.

[Trond]

Thanks guys, Many good point. 

It is only a little confusion/what to do when one read all these tables with all those "20" rope sizes and one is 7mm and next i 7.89mm.

So I will do some scale converting and see what is practical possible out from what is available and what I have.