HMS Sophie by TBlack - kit-bashing Jack Aubrey's first command from the Vanguard Models HMS Speedy

[Keith Black]

Everything is looking great including you dear brother. 

[TBlack]

23 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

Everything is looking great including you dear brother. 

Thanks, Keith. I'm having the prostate problems that most of us old guys get. I believe that we're on top of it; it hasn't spread. I'm my college class secretary, and I do a monthly newsletter that, this month, included a poll: "how many doctors do you have?". Seems like, at our age (80+) 6-7 is about right.

[Keith Black]

 I'm praying for you, Tom. All my issues are above the belt, I'm trying to keep my doctors to a minimum as I just changed health care systems because the previous Vascular Department is in total disarray. I see a new, for me, vascular surgeon this coming Tuesday regarding my aneurysm stent. I sure took my health for granted when I was younger, stupid me.  

[TBlack]

Thanks for the "likes" and attention. Trying not to bore you! There are many Speedy logs far better than mine. As I mentioned previously, my big challenge was in reconfiguring the hull to accommodate the aft cabin and quarter deck. I think I've done that, and the rest of this is just building out Speedy. Except that in the book there are references to royal sails. Gotta do that too. Anyway, one of my mentors (muses) is Delf from his log back in 2020-2021. One of his concerns is how to load the serving machine without wasting line. He splices extra line onto the end of the stay/shroud he is serving to cut down on the waste. I sympathize, and do it this way:

Just grab the end of the line with an alligator clip, no need to wrap line around the nails! Maybe Chuck designed it that way to sell more line?

Next up, I've gotten the foretop stay and preventer in place:

We're looking at the preventer stay side. It comes down through the bees and ends aft in a double block (see crude arrow!). Then the fun part starts. There's a single block in that forest that has to hook on an eye in the hull. Took a bunch of tries, but I got it. On both sides!

[Coyote_6]

Beautiful work!   Thank you for the great serving machine tip.   Getting very close to that stage right now!

 

She's looking good!

[Thukydides]

9 hours ago, TBlack said:

One of his concerns is how to load the serving machine without wasting line. He splices extra line onto the end of the stay/shroud he is serving to cut down on the waste. I sympathize, and do it this way:

I also struggled with how to splice smaller lines and what I ended up doing was adding dowels to the end of two alligator clips. The dowels can then be slid through the holes and the second set of clips can then be used on the dowels to hold them the correct distance apart. I made a short one and a long one so I could use one or both of them depending on how much line I needed to serve.

 

This allowed me to serve very small pieces that I needed to have the holding points much closer together. I was looking through my alert album and I don't seem to have a picture of it. I can take a picture later if you really want to see the actual setup, but the below drawing should illustrate it pretty well. The blue is the dowels, the red, the alligator clips and the green the line being served.

 

[TBlack]

As to the main topmast stay and preventer, I'm going to try something different. The plan calls for a double block at the end of the stay where in goes to the deck. My muse (Delf), has substituted that fixture with a fiddle block. I don't know why, but I have about 15 fiddle blocks that I got from Chris way back when, so I don't remember why I bought them. Un any event I thought i would follow Delf's example and use a fiddle block there at the end as well. Also, I think I can assemble the main top stay off the boat and then attach. Maybe a little easier? Main top stay goes first because it runs through a block attached to the foremast below the hounds whereas the preventer stay goes through a block attached above at the doubling. Notice the block with the hook in the upper left. Its lanyard needs rigging through the fiddle block and then the whole assembly can be mounted on the ship.

[Theodosius]

Great idear of how to save line during the serving processes. That'l help, I produce a ton of waste 🙂