Sail seams

[michaelpsutton2]

First I am a painter not a model maker...

 

So when drawing 18th & 19th century British naval vessels at 16' to the inch or 1/192, I draw the sail seams as a single line. I just don't have a pen fine enough to do a double line seventy-eight ten thousandths of an inch apar.

 

The clothes usually start out at 24" wide minus the lap at the seams. Steele & Lee call for a 1.5 inch double flat seam.

Should I be drawing the seams on my sails scaled to represent 22.5 inches apart or is there other losses in a double flat seam?

 

Thanks as always

Edited August 5, 2013 by michaelpsutton2

[russ]

I would just measure off at 24 scale inches and draw single lines for the seams. At that scale, 1 1/2" = 1/128 of an inch. That difference will not be noticed.

 

Russ

[JerseyCity Frankie]

The only consequence of using 24"would be if you KNOW the sail you are modeling has, say, EXACTLY 40 full width cloths in it at a given dimension. Now if you make 40 cloths that are each 24" wide you wont have the proper number of cloths in the sail. Or you could be left wondering if the person who drew up the plans took the same 24" shortcut. 

[michaelpsutton2]

I can only think of one or two occasions when I have ever had a list of how many clothes there are in the sails of a particular ship. But it would be fantastic if I did. 

 

If you read Steele, he has some rules about how many clothes but gives some wiggle room as in this from the section on main topmast staysails: there are from 1 to 3 cloths more in the foot than the leech is yards in depth.

 

That would give you the room to adjust the number of seams