Cutty Sark by Kevin-the-lubber - Revell - 1:96 - PLASTIC

[Kevin-the-lubber]

I did wonder if it was someone on here 🙄. I already have the one for Victory so will probably just sell on the spare and the Mayflower as I doubt I'll ever look at that.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

 

Some quick pics of the jig I made for reefing the deadeyes (if that's the correct term). It is basically three bars of plastic with recesses for the deadeyes at the correct spacings vertically and horizontally on the outer two. It uses Vee shapes to align the bars. When finished reeving you'd slide out the centre bar and extract the deadeye assemblies. The bars are held together by a socket thing at each end, one of which can go in a vice. 

 

It works okay but I had to thread the deadeyes first as they otherwise fall out of the jig. V2 will probably have clamping bars to hold them in place, but the third hand may work better and just use this to get them all levelled. You can see how I trashed the paintwork doing this. And also how abs-like resin starts to distort after a day or so.

[Veszett Roka]

52 minutes ago, Kevin-the-lubber said:

It works okay but I had to thread the deadeyes first as they otherwise fall out of the jig. V2 will probably have clamping bars to hold them in place, but the third hand may work better and just use this to get them all levelled. You can see how I trashed the paintwork doing this. And also how abs-like resin starts to distort after a day or so.

 

i might put some blu-tac spot in the jig which will hold the deadeyes in place until you thread them.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

3 hours ago, Veszett Roka said:

blu-tac spot in the jig

That's a good suggestion, thanks. I'm kind of hoping that someone, after they've stopped rolling around at the floor with laughter, is going to show me a simple way that everyone else uses.

 

[shipman]

Kevin, hi.

All the information on such topics has been covered one way or another on the forum.

It has been my experience that getting into such nitty gritty is a laborious hit and miss affair, unless more often than not, you know exactly where to look, you can find it's a full time job.

Other members kindly do point the way, but rarely give a proper link, so you're back where you started.

 

An often overlooked resource are model makers on youtube who freely share such information.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

That's the thing with such a great forum - it's all in here, you just have to find it. The search function is pretty good though, I've used that to good effect a few times.

[rwiederrich]

On 5/9/2022 at 5:09 AM, Kevin-the-lubber said:

 

Some quick pics of the jig I made for reefing the deadeyes (if that's the correct term). It is basically three bars of plastic with recesses for the deadeyes at the correct spacings vertically and horizontally on the outer two. It uses Vee shapes to align the bars. When finished reeving you'd slide out the centre bar and extract the deadeye assemblies. The bars are held together by a socket thing at each end, one of which can go in a vice. 

 

It works okay but I had to thread the deadeyes first as they otherwise fall out of the jig. V2 will probably have clamping bars to hold them in place, but the third hand may work better and just use this to get them all levelled. You can see how I trashed the paintwork doing this. And also how abs-like resin starts to distort after a day or so.

I kept it simple and made a wire jig and rigged the lanyards on the model...easy

Edited May 10, 2022 by rwiederrich

[Kevin-the-lubber]

8 hours ago, rwiederrich said:

simple and made a wire jig

simple is good. I'll give that a try as well.

[rwiederrich]

2 hours ago, Kevin-the-lubber said:

simple is good. I'll give that a try as well.

And almost done with the lanyards. 
 

Rob

[rwiederrich]

Finished the shrouds. 

[bcochran]

18 hours ago, rwiederrich said:

I kept it simple and made a wire jig and rigged the lanyards on the model...easy

The lower deadeyes on the Cutty Sark pin rails are against the bulwark if placed correctly.  That makes them very hard to work with.  Also, the 2.5 mm ones look almost impossible to work with to me.  I haven't worked with real deadeyes before, and I know others have, so I have that to look forward to.

[rwiederrich]

4 hours ago, bcochran said:

The lower deadeyes on the Cutty Sark pin rails are against the bulwark if placed correctly.  That makes them very hard to work with.  Also, the 2.5 mm ones look almost impossible to work with to me.  I haven't worked with real deadeyes before, and I know others have, so I have that to look forward to.

It ain't impossible.  All the lower main deadeyes on my Glory build are at a maximum 2mm (Sometimes a single mm), from the bulwarks resting on their channel.  The jig slips into the outer hole(outside) of the deadeye with ample room to secure it.  Once the shroud is stropped to the upper deadeye...place the jig into the two side holes in the deadeye and secure your shroud to the mast. (The jig holds the deadeye in the exact location as all the others).  Once done, simply slip off the jig and begin rigging the lanyard.  And that begins with you cutting the appropriate length of line, tying a knot into one end and starting with the shroud deadeye threading through the first hole in the deadeye, pulling snug to secure the knot in the hole....then thread through the channel deadeye, back up to the top center hole in the shroud deadeye...back down to the bottom(outer) hole of the channel deadeye...and so forth till you've laced the lanyard and the two deadeyes together.

Bring your last bit of line up from the channel deadeye and strop it to the back of the shroud, just atop of the shroud deadeye.....DONE.

 

Now, since you are so close to the bulwark....I recommend, you place an extremely tiny drop of CA on the tip of the lanyard line...to stiffen it so it will easily do through the deadeye holes and not fray(Don't let the drop ball).  NOW you'll probably have to use very thin tweezers to retrieve the line from behind the deadeye once you passed it through the channel/pin rail deadeye.  This can be snug....this is why I recommend very thin tweezers.

 

It's all doable....I know....because I'm doing it right now on my build.

 

You can do it.  Good luck.  Hope this helps.

 

Rob

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Thanks Rob, that's helpful. It means doing the masts and tops first, as the shrouds determine the heights of the upper deadeyes, but I can see that this is a good method. 

 

Scratches head... so where do I go from here... start making a serving machine of course.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

I read, probably in Campbell, that the first deadeye should be dead in line with the relevant mast. Is this critical? Now's the time for me to tweak it. I took the positions off campbells drawings and currently they look just slightly aft of the masts. Logic also tells me that the deadeyes would be equally spaced across their group, is that correct? Just how critical are the positions of the deadeyes in the grand scheme of things. I sense the answer is 'not very, within reason'.

 

I'm at the stage of printing the replacement rails for real, so at this point I'd want to finesse the positions of the deadeyes and belay pins. As you can see, I'm incorporating the 'lozenges' by having very thin sliver of a 'cover' that glues to the inner bulwarks. The ribs in between the lozenges hopefully give a bit of added strength but in any case, having the deadeye stanchions glued down at the waterway should mean there's no real strain on the pinrails.

 

bcochran, we're on the same journey and I'll be watching your log as much as my own. I started reading the Hackney book last night, not a bad place to start because, until the simple terms start to mean something I final the likes of longridge far too heavy going.

 

Rob, these lower deadeyes are going to be very challenging to reeve, especially the little 2mm one's. Probably a little easier if the thread slips easily through the eyes, on my practice piece I needed to use a sewing needle threader, but I don't think that'll be possible with them in situ.

 

(Note the cotton bales in the main hold. I wish I hadn't glued them in now, seemed like a good idea at the time as I felt my lack of progress was all about just glueing some stuff in place, but I subsequently changed my mind about what I wanted it to look like. Too late now, it'd take more than acetone to get them out, so I'll just live with it.

 

[Ian_Grant]

Hi Kevin; I would think the factor to watch out for is that topgallant and royal backstays should just kiss the spreaders while maintaining a straight line to the deadeyes, so you may want to keep track of where Revell had their deadeyes. Looking at my old CS there are no cleats on the spreaders and my teenage self gave the backstays one turn around the spreaders  .... 🙄

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Just now, Ian_Grant said:

spreaders

Hi Ian. You've given me some homework (which is fine) - spreaders...

 

I think I'll probably need to assemble the masts in order to understand the rigging points, so that I can then understand if and where the kit parts are wrong; and accept that if I make a complete pigs ear of the masts I'll have to remake them (but not printed, that's not good for these).

[rwiederrich]

30 minutes ago, Kevin-the-lubber said:

Rob, these lower deadeyes are going to be very challenging to reeve, especially the little 2mm one's. Probably a little easier if the thread slips easily through the eyes, on my practice piece I needed to use a sewing needle threader, but I don't think that'll be possible with them in situ.

 

(Note the cotton bales in the main hold. I wish I hadn't glued them in now, seemed like a good idea at the time as I felt my lack of progress was all about just glueing some stuff in place, but I subsequently changed my mind about what I wanted it to look like. Too late now, it'd take more than acetone to get them out, so I'll just live with it.

In many cases it would be permissible to use larger deadeyes to accommodate the lanyards.  there will be no one who views your build who will be critical of said alteration.  Most won't even know the difference...and if they did, then they might be critical of the out of scale pins in the rail.  Some license is allowable for practicalities.

 

Cotton bails?  What time frame are you building her?  She was primarily a Tea clipper and later in her life when she visited Australia....she picked up some wheat....but cotton??   Hmmmm  Possibly when she was a mixed trader.

I'd probably just place her closed hatch covers on and leave it at that if you object to the detail.

 

Good work.

 

Rob

[rwiederrich]

24 minutes ago, Kevin-the-lubber said:

Hi Ian. You've given me some homework (which is fine) - spreaders...

Spreaders were used to align and separate the backstays that guided and reinforced the masts.  They are usually at the cross tree of the topgallant and royal masts.

 

Your plans should outline them.

 

Rob 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

1 hour ago, rwiederrich said:

Cotton bails? 

Rob, I meant wool. Not that I’m at all pinning her to any particular era, just wanted something in the hold. At one point I thought of tractors, but when I started googling I got in trouble with my other half. (Sorry, highly contemporary Brit joke). I tried tea chests but unless you scatter them they just look like a square block, whereas the wool bales at least have a bit of shape.

 

Thanks for explaining spreaders, the cross trees etc on this model are still a mystery to me, but I guess it’ll all fall into place once I start looking at it properly. Ditto going out of scale on the deadeyes. 2mm really is a bit too small, I think I’ll bump these up to 3mm and the 3mm to 4mm and see how it looks. I think there’s a link here with the discussion over on your Glory build about perspective distortion, that the viewer has a certain expectation. In my case, when I look at properly scaled deadeyes they simply look too small, they lack the presence of those on the real ship.

[shipman]

3 hours ago, Kevin-the-lubber said:

these lower deadeyes are going to be very challenging to reeve, especially the little 2mm one's.

Kevin, there is another oblique way to tackle the issue of tiny deadeyes and their lanyards.

 

You could 'cheat' and make a rigid assembly of the damn things by simply still having the deadeyes,  but instead of reeving them, stick three pieces of stiffened lanyard stuff (perhaps using PVA) either side.

 

I'm sure you're cunning enough to pull that off. That would give you the effect you need.

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  There's scale, and then there is practicality.  From what I've seen thus far, very many models have at least a 'tad' of leeway when it comes to the deadeye sizes.  One must pick which things to 'battle' and how much to fret over any detail.  I seen postings of models large enough not to be able to get out of the space in which they were built.  Larger size may mean deadeyes and belaying pins will be easier to be 'in scale', but then smaller stuff has to be represented that does not have to be included in smaller scale versions.  There is a 'rule' or 'formula' I somewhere in this forum to calculate the minimum real-life size of anything one the original ship that should be represented at any particular scale.  If anyone recalls that, they might just post in this thread.

[Ian_Grant]

8 hours ago, rwiederrich said:

Spreaders were used to align and separate the backstays that guided and reinforced the masts.  They are usually at the cross tree of the topgallant and royal masts.

 

Your plans should outline them.

 

Rob 

Kevin, I lied - upon examination with my headband magnifiers, the spreaders at the topmast crosstrees DID have small square projections meant to represent the cleats. Can't tell if they were accurately placed since, as I said, my teenage self wrapped the backstays one turn around the spreaders thus distorting their run. 🤨

[bcochran]

10 hours ago, Kevin-the-lubber said:

I read, probably in Campbell, that the first deadeye should be dead in line with the relevant mast. Is this critical? Now's the time for me to tweak it. I took the positions off campbells drawings and currently they look just slightly aft of the masts. Logic also tells me that the deadeyes would be equally spaced across their group, is that correct? Just how critical are the positions of the deadeyes in the grand scheme of things. I sense the answer is 'not very, within reason'.

 

I'm at the stage of printing the replacement rails for real, so at this point I'd want to finesse the positions of the deadeyes and belay pins. As you can see, I'm incorporating the 'lozenges' by having very thin sliver of a 'cover' that glues to the inner bulwarks. The ribs in between the lozenges hopefully give a bit of added strength but in any case, having the deadeye stanchions glued down at the waterway should mean there's no real strain on the pinrails.

 

bcochran, we're on the same journey and I'll be watching your log as much as my own. I started reading the Hackney book last night, not a bad place to start because, until the simple terms start to mean something I final the likes of longridge far too heavy going.

 

Rob, these lower deadeyes are going to be very challenging to reeve, especially the little 2mm one's. Probably a little easier if the thread slips easily through the eyes, on my practice piece I needed to use a sewing needle threader, but I don't think that'll be possible with them in situ.

 

(Note the cotton bales in the main hold. I wish I hadn't glued them in now, seemed like a good idea at the time as I felt my lack of progress was all about just glueing some stuff in place, but I subsequently changed my mind about what I wanted it to look like. Too late now, it'd take more than acetone to get them out, so I'll just live with it.

 

Kevin,  You are very welcome to watch my build, but keep in mind I am a rank amateur when it comes to rigging. The thing I most worry about is breaking a mast or spar or jib-boom.   At my age, my manual dexterity has diminished.  You should see my hand shake when I try to touch up some tiny paint flaw.

 

I like the looks of rigging, that gives me inspiration to go at it.  I think I am going to use Revell's blocks painted black.  I don't feel like stropping all those wooden blocks. In my mind's eye I can see my ship finished, but from this point in time it looks a long way off and a lot of trying times ahead.  I hope I finish.

 

One question I have for anyone who knows, how were the stays attached to the masts.  Revell says to tie them at certain places.  I doubt in reality they were tied to a mast.  Also, I am going to do a harbor rig, so I think I should remove the rings round the mast where spars locate for a sail rig.

 

The other thing that bugs me and I will have to live with it is that Revell's masts and spars represent the ship before they were cut down and Revell has a skysail where the cut down version did not.  Also, the stun sail booms were gone during the wool voyages.  My model, to me, represents a period after the cut down.  I don't want to take the trouble to cut down the plastic masts and yards, and I don't want to make new ones. I feel I would not be accurate enough, even though we both agree the deck is too high and are living with that.

 

I am going to use Revell's mast and yards as they are.  Maybe old White Hat had painted deck house panels before he cut down the masts. 

 

If I finish and have the model sitting on a shelf under glass and my friends look at  it, not a single one of them would be able to point to a discrepancy.  It matters to me though to some extent.  I have to balance accuracy to the work involved to correct, skills available, willingness to work at it and the odds that I'll do a good job.  After hours and days and weeks into it I don't want to make a major screw up.

Edited May 13, 2022 by bcochran

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Shipman - now there’s a thought. But one I’d only turn to as a last resort. As a variant on that theme, it’s quite easy to model and print rope I.e. to remake the revell parts but better, but I know I’ll get far more satisfaction from doing it for real. 
 

Rob, wise words. I don’t want to get bogged down and, a bit like bcochran, wil be happy enough if the end result looks reasonably “shippy” and not too much like some plastic moulded toy.

 

bcochran, you and me both. But I have a feeling that between the three of us, including Bruma, we’re going to learn a lot more about rigging by the time we finish. I also really struggle with the very fine detail and small parts. These hands were made for building full size ships, not miniatures. I think the revell blocks have ring bolts don’t they, and I’ll probably do the same, just pretty them up by serving the ropes.

 

Ian, I think that’s the nail being hit on the head. At this point my reference is the kit parts. Once I’ve done the reading on them, I start to see what’s missing and whether I want to remake that part. This has been fairly easy so far as the ‘body’ is relatively simple, but nevertheless I’m figuring out some stuff, like the deck height, too late in the day.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Made myself a serving machine 🙄. I hedged my bets, gave myself the option of 1:1 gears and 1:2. The latter works fine. The gears are a bit noisy, even though it has bearings I found in a drawer, but serving is quite a relaxing thing to do, isn't it. I'll sort out those long set screws once I've found a bit of wood for the base.

 

[Hubac's Historian]

I’m beyond words, here, Kevin!  Simply incredible!  You may not think so, but I certainly do.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Marc, I can’t take too much credit, the software has a handy gear generator and the rest is just simple engineering. It was a nice little side project as I’ve paused for a moment while I build a heated enclosure for the resin printers. I’m getting too many fails right now, which I think may be down to the garage always being a bit cold.

 

This is a very simple machine to make and I’ll happily share the (scrappy) F360 / STL files with anyone that wants them.

[bcochran]

On 5/12/2022 at 10:24 PM, Kevin-the-lubber said:

Shipman - now there’s a thought. But one I’d only turn to as a last resort. As a variant on that theme, it’s quite easy to model and print rope I.e. to remake the revell parts but better, but I know I’ll get far more satisfaction from doing it for real. 
 

Rob, wise words. I don’t want to get bogged down and, a bit like bcochran, wil be happy enough if the end result looks reasonably “shippy” and not too much like some plastic moulded toy.

 

bcochran, you and me both. But I have a feeling that between the three of us, including Bruma, we’re going to learn a lot more about rigging by the time we finish. I also really struggle with the very fine detail and small parts. These hands were made for building full size ships, not miniatures. I think the revell blocks have ring bolts don’t they, and I’ll probably do the same, just pretty them up by serving the ropes.

 

Ian, I think that’s the nail being hit on the head. At this point my reference is the kit parts. Once I’ve done the reading on them, I start to see what’s missing and whether I want to remake that part. This has been fairly easy so far as the ‘body’ is relatively simple, but nevertheless I’m figuring out some stuff, like the deck height, too late in the day.

I will be real happy if I complete my model with rigging and get it on a shelf somewhere under a protective enclosure.  I never intended it to look like anything other than a plastic model. Any more work than I am putting in, and I would give up at some point down the road.  I understand rigging is tedious and monotonous at times,  but I look forward to learning how a sailing ship's gear worked.  So rigging will be a learning experience for me.  All my life, I kept busy learning new things. It's good brain exercise.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

I don’t think yours will look plastic in the ‘plasticky’ sense, it’s already had too much tlc for that. And I bet that, over the years to come, many a person will assume it’s something other than a kit.

 

I’ll probably be happy with standing rigging if needs be. I barely understand where any of the ropes connect to at this point so the whole thing will be a learning curve. My trouble is that I’m reluctant to settle for a kit part if it looks relatively easy to make a better version, one thing leads to another and I end up where I’m at, remaking almost everything.

 

ps. The boats in the kit are also out of scale compared to Campbell. They should be about 15% bigger. I’m just playing around with remaking one at the moment, to understand how to do a hull in F360, and noticed that when I brought the plans into the software.

[bcochran]

3 hours ago, Kevin-the-lubber said:

I don’t think yours will look plastic in the ‘plasticky’ sense, it’s already had too much tlc for that. And I bet that, over the years to come, many a person will assume it’s something other than a kit.

 

I’ll probably be happy with standing rigging if needs be. I barely understand where any of the ropes connect to at this point so the whole thing will be a learning curve. My trouble is that I’m reluctant to settle for a kit part if it looks relatively easy to make a better version, one thing leads to another and I end up where I’m at, remaking almost everything.

 

ps. The boats in the kit are also out of scale compared to Campbell. They should be about 15% bigger. I’m just playing around with remaking one at the moment, to understand how to do a hull in F360, and noticed that when I brought the plans into the software.

By the time we are done, we will have a whole list of Revell's Cutty Sark's inaccuracies.  The downside of it is that I know of them.  Since I am not going to change the kit that much, I'll have to live with them. It would be neat if some company would learn from us and remake the kit without all of them. (Kevin, you could make a set of 3D printed corrections and sell them on Shapeways.) The one that bugs me the most is the shallowness of the bullwarks.  Having watched all the YouTube Cutty Sark videos, it is so evident when looking at the deck houses from outside the ship at that level.   Revell's deck houses stick up too high.  I also have looked at many Cutty Sark wood models (not scratch built ones) and they almost all look worse than Revell's.   In an ad for Billing Boats' Cutty Sark, it says about the kit's fittings, "most are in perfect scale", meaning some aren't. 

 

In the next life, if I become an expert scratch builder ...............

Edited May 18, 2022 by bcochran