HMS Diana by DavidEN - Caldercraft - 1:64

[DaveBaxt]

Well done david with those pesky CC deadeye wire strops. I had the same problem with them on my Endeavour build. I like your idea of using a polystyrene block and pinning them to get the correct distance apart. I used a similar idea which but made jigs instead of the polystyrene. I think the next time I do the lower chain plates I will end up soldering them. Good luck you are going great guns. 

Here is a photo of how I managed it . Not my initial idea,but it worked pretty well. Hope this helps.

 

Edited June 7, 2023 by DaveBaxt

[DavidEN]

My strops arrived from Amati. The delivery was quite swift. I opened them up to accept the deadeyes before giving them a coat of rattle can matt black. I figured that I would do less damage to the paintwork if I just had to close them rather than open and close them once painted. I added a splash of weathering powder and then give them a spray of poly to give the coating a fighting chance of staying on but it is a slim chance.

 

I employed the same jig as before and attempted a version of the complicated twisted lashing around the deadeye as detailed in Lees. It is a real exercise in frustration to do and the result is quite clumsy. Still once all the ratlines and lanyards are in place, they should not be that visible. I gave the lanyards an experimental yank and this time everything stayed in place. Happy days although tempered by the knowledge that there are many more still to go.

 

In an attempt to get the served lengths of the shrouds to line up I clamped a length of wood to the mast although this was only marginally successful as the served length ended up getting longer as I worked through the shrouds and have a distinct downward slant rather than the neat horizontal I was aiming for. Not the end of the world as it is barely visible.

 

After plodding away for a while, and taking many sanity breaks, I completed the lower foremast shrouds. The spacing between the shrouds is not the best. They are too widely spaced in some areas and are too narrow in others such that they interfere with the cannons. In an ideal world these should be relocated but it would be too catastrophic to try that now so I am just going to live with it. As I progressed the stack of shrouds at the tops continued to grow to an alarming height. This seems to be higher than others I have seen. Perhaps I did not tamp them down firmly enough when installing them.

 

To break up the shroud installation I had a go at completing the strops for the futtock shrouds. For these I resorted to plain 0.5mm diameter brass rod. It is slightly thicker than the annealed black wire I was using previously. The result is not as good looking but I can get a much stronger solder joint using the plain brass variety. I hope they will be passable once they have a coat of paint.

I tightened up all the lanyards and attempted the convoluted lashing pattern as shown in Lees but with an additional hitch at the top to prevent them unravelling. They are a bit of a mess but that is what comes with learning in the job.

 

I installed the futtock stave at the top using a 1.0 mm diameter black annealed wire pulled straight I normally use the two-plier method but for the larger diameter I had to resort to wrapping it in the vise and then pulling upwards while standing on it. These were lashed in place using some dark brown Gutterman thread. I mocked up the futtock shrouds and these distort the lower shrouds quite dramatically. I will have to install the catharpins first before I rig these.

 

 

I guess I should have a go at some ratlines now rather than wait until all the lower masts are finished. That way I will break up the tedium of doing them all in one go.

 

 

 

[dunnock]

David, I can feel your frustration. I felt much the same when working on Diana's shrouds but yours look great so it was worth the effort.

 

David

[DaveBaxt]

Great work Dave and I like the look of those strops from Amati and seem to work better than the Caldercraft ones. Your tops of the shrouds look really neat and tidy and so far your rigging will compliment the rest of your excellent work.

[DavidEN]

22 hours ago, DaveBaxt said:

Great work Dave and I like the look of those strops from Amati and seem to work better than the Caldercraft ones. Your tops of the shrouds look really neat and tidy and so far your rigging will compliment the rest of your excellent work.

Thanks Dave It is certainly worth you while to swap out the kit supplied strops with these. I would have ideally liked to get the pre-blackened versions from HiS Models but they were out of stock and I could not be bothered waiting. You still have plenty of time to get an order in though.

 

Regards,

David

[DavidEN]

22 hours ago, dunnock said:

David, I can feel your frustration. I felt much the same when working on Diana's shrouds but yours look great so it was worth the effort.

 

David

Thanks David. I have been enviously studying your ratline post. I was puzzling about the size of rope to use. Steel notes these should be 0.19mm in diameter but I do not have any dark brown rope at this size. I saw that you have used a 0.25mm diameter rope and the result looks very good. I think that is the route I will go down as well.

 

Regards,

David

[DaveBaxt]

10 minutes ago, DavidEN said:

Thanks Dave It is certainly worth you while to swap out the kit supplied strops with these. I would have ideally liked to get the pre-blackened versions from HiS Models but they were out of stock and I could not be bothered waiting. You still have plenty of time to get an order in though.

 

Regards,

David

HiS models?

[dunnock]

https://www.hismodel.com/

Based in the Czech Republic. Good range of accessories and very reliable in my experience

David 

[dunnock]

Quote

8 hours ago, DavidEN said:

I saw that you have used a 0.25mm diameter rope and the result looks very good. I think that is the route I will go down as well.

Thanks David, Yes I used Gutterman dark brown thread. The ratlines take a lot of thread so it would be expensive to use anything else. 

David

 

[DavidEN]

Time to start phase one of the dreaded ratline tying stage. I decided to give myself a leg up and have a bit of a practice before leaping onto the model. I knocked up a quick frame out of some scrap wood and then approximated the run of the shrouds. I had read in Steel that the ratlines should be 0.19mm in diameter. I did not have that size in my stock of dark brown thread but noticed that Dunnock had used 0.25mm diameter in his Diana build to good effect. I experimented with some 0.25mm diameter Gutterman polyester thread, some slightly thicker Gutterman thread and the 0.25mm dark brown from Ropes of Scale. Unfortunately for my bank balance the 0.25mm RoS was the most pleasing to my eye. I initially thought that I could use a seized eye at either end but I was unable to get seizing small enough so I resorted to the tried and tested cow hitch at either end and clove hitches in the middle. I could not help doing a triumphant moo every time I completed a well tied cow hitch though this soon turned into a mournful lowing as I realised that they are very fragile and tend to unravel once the excess thread is trimmed close to the knot. Once this happens it is not recoverable as there is not enough material left to retie the knot which means the whole row must be replaced. I only discovered this after I finished installing all the lower fore mast ratlines so I will have to look for an alternative knot for the remaining masts.

 

Lees gives a distance between ratlines of 13-15 inches so I split the difference and settled on 14 which comes out at about 5.5mm at 1:64 scale. I drew up a series of suitably spaced lines on the CAD and printed this out to act as a template. Conventional wisdom suggests that one should first tie every 5th row to prevent the awkward hourglass shape to the shrouds so this is how I progressed but it was not enough to prevent distortion.

 

I was in two minds whether to continue the ratlines above the futtock stave as the shrouds are very close together in this area but looking at the condition on HMS Victory and HMS Trincomalee it would appear that they did carry on up past the futtock stave. Drat. After what seemed like months of work, I completed the lower foremast ratlines. The result is not great and there are some real wonky ones but the dark colour and thinness of the rope means they tend to fade into the background a bit when you are not focusing on them so they will have to do.

The whole ratline tying exercise is a real mixture of tedium and frustration. It is very challenging to get the rope to sit in the right place, to hang in a pleasing manner and to stop it distorting the run of the shrouds. It will probably take me to the last shroud on the mizzen top mast before I have any semblance of technique. Unfortunately, while the RoS rope looks the best it also has the annoying propensity of not wanting to stay knotted so I gave each knot a splosh of diluted white glue to help encourage the correct behaviour but sadly this did not help with the cow hitch conundrum.

 

I added the catharpins. There seems to be many methods of constructing these as well as the methods of attachment to the shrouds. While I liked the look of the served variety, I decided to go with a plain 0.8mm diameter rope seized directly to the shroud. There is a lot going on in this area so I decided a less is more approach would be appropriate to reduce the clutter. I initially fixed these above the futtock stave but then cut them out and installed them below to prevent them creeping up once they were tensioned. I tied them fairly loose thinking that they would tighten up once the futtock shrouds were tensioned. They did but are still a touch loose. I am hoping that the top mast shroud installation will provide the final bit of tensioning.

I installed the futtock shrouds. These were 0.8mm diameter rope. They had a PE hook seized into the one end and were then wrapped once around the futtock stave and then lashed to the adjacent shroud with three seizings as detailed in Lees. These were then finished off with a few ratlines. Once in place I felt that the proportions were a touch off and I could have done with moving the futtock stave slightly further down the shrouds however I am not going to dismantle everything to see if this is a worthwhile improvement. They will ultimately be partially obscured by the yards and other rigging so any minor adjustments would be a waste of time.

 

 

[DaveBaxt]

Great work on those rat lines Dave and good to see you managed to secure both ends and I think by your drawings you can see both methods of using a clove hitch and hopefully that has worked out well for you.. I found that tying the ratlines above the futtock stave particularly difficult and can see you have done an excellent job of this. Once again your workmanship is a credit to you. 

[DavidEN]

22 hours ago, DaveBaxt said:

Great work on those rat lines Dave and good to see you managed to secure both ends and I think by your drawings you can see both methods of using a clove hitch and hopefully that has worked out well for you.. I found that tying the ratlines above the futtock stave particularly difficult and can see you have done an excellent job of this. Once again your workmanship is a credit to you. 

Thanks Dave. I have just started the rigging but I can see that it is going to be a lot more challenging than I initially thought. It looks like you have made some good progress on your Diana. You will be rigging in no time.

 

Regards,

David

[DavidEN]

I decided to tackle the bowsprit. I had been avoiding it as I was unsure as to how I was going to be able to construct the geometry at the bees. I eventually followed the same method I used when building the masts and I constructed the bowsprit shaft and head as separate entities. This meant that I would not have to redo the entire assembly if I botched one of the many cuts that comprise the end section. I then dowelled the two sections together using some 2mm diameter brass rod and the join was covered up by the woolding.

 

As suspected the end section was quite tricky transitioning from a tapered cylinder to a tapered square with an angled cap tenon further complicating matters. I milled out some slots for the bees. The bees and bee blocks were made from walnut. It will all be painted black so the wood does not need to match.  I noticed from several sources that the sheaves in the bee blocks are one each side and staggered however the AOTSD drawings show two sheave holes per side. I went with the one either side staggered arrangement. A 1mm diameter brass rod was inserted to simulate the bolts through the sheaves.

 

The end cap was cut out of some 5mm thick walnut. Getting the holes at the correct angle was quite challenging but I ended up eyeballing it. I drilled a groove down the starboard side of the cap to accept the jack staff and added some simulated bolts as shown in Steel. I should have used a smaller diameter wire for these as they are somewhat oversized. I spotted in Steel that there was an eyebolt midpoint at the top of the cap. I do not know what this is for but saw that HMS Trincomalee has the same arrangement. This does not seem to be in use in its parked-up configuration but I decided to include it anyway as it was no great bother.

 

I scratch built all the saddles and cleats that appear on the bowsprit as I had followed the dimensions in the AOTSD which resulted in the kit items not fitting the larger diameter I ended up with plus the kit items were made from the dreaded walnut ply so were not that appealing. The saddles were all cut out of 15mm diameter dowel sections. I drilled a hole in the center corresponding to the diameter of the bowsprit at the saddle location. The height and profile were then formed using some shaped mill bits. They are quite delicate structures but should be OK once glued in place or so I thought until I realised that I had glued the fairlead saddle askew and then managed to crumble it to dust while trying to remove it.

 

I formed the cleats from some 2 x 1.4mm walnut planks. I clamped eleven planks (9 + 2 spare) together in the vise and then milled them all at once for consistency. I then put the bowsprit into the dividing attachment and milled recesses corresponding to the cleat locations. This allowed me to get an even spacing of the cleats though it was quite a fiddly exercise.

 

For the jibboom I started off with an 8mm diameter dowel. I needed the additional girth so that I could mill the octagonal section at the heel and form the stop at the other end. I had painted the bowsprit in the ochre colour with black at the overlap. I decided to keep the rest of the jibboom natural to mimic the mast configuration and I used the miniwax Puritan Pine stain to match the masts. I am now wondering if I should not have painted it in the ochre colour. I think I will wait and see if the natural colour grows on me.

 

I added a strip of stainless steel sheet to simulate the lead sheathing that sits forward of the spritsail sling saddle according to Lees. It is a bit shiny so I will have a go at dulling it down using some paint.

 

The woolding was made using 0.5mm diameter dark brown RoS rope which is the closest I have to the diameter indicated in Steel. I used cherry shims to form the protective hoops as per the main mast. I still must decide if I am going to paint these black or leave them natural.

 

I decided to stop the process here and remove the jibboom as I will be working on the rigging which means that I will be spinning the ship around from port to starboard and the delicate jibboom assembly will not survive a hard clonk against the desk lamp. I may install the bowsprit though as this will allow me to further progress the rigging and add the fore stay and preventer stay.

 

 

 

[Beef Wellington]

Your bowsprit came out very well indeed!  Love the headshots and the bow detailing, really shows off the quality of your work and the period look you've achieved.  I continue to eye your timber heads enviously, hoping I can get something close carving out of wood!

[DavidEN]

17 hours ago, Beef Wellington said:

Your bowsprit came out very well indeed!  Love the headshots and the bow detailing, really shows off the quality of your work and the period look you've achieved.  I continue to eye your timber heads enviously, hoping I can get something close carving out of wood!

Thanks for the kind words Jason but I am sure that, even if you have a bad day, your carved timber heads will make my efforts seem quite clumsy

 

Regards,

David

 

 

[allanyed]

On 7/4/2023 at 4:46 AM, DavidEN said:

The whole ratline tying exercise is a real mixture of tedium and frustration.

You are absolutely right, but it is worth it to do it correctly.  Yours is not only beautifully executed, the contrast in sizes of the ratlines and shrouds is fantastic.  We see a lot of models that have ratlines that are oversized in circumference.    Your rigging overall should be seen by everyone as it is a great example to try to  emulate.

[DavidEN]

Now that the bowsprit was positioned, I began to look at the rigging for the stays to the fore mast. Turns out I have neglected to include a slew of thumb cleats that keep the collars in place. To be fair they are not that well highlighted in the documentation but it now means I will have to be mangling my finished paintwork to get these installed. I constructed them using the same method as the gammoning cleats and again milled slots in the bowsprit to locate them.

I did some research into how the stays were rigged and turns out it is quite a complicated exercise. I realised that I had made a strategic mistake in not ordering replacement heart blocks when I upgraded the rest of the blocks. The kit supplied items seemed quite OK at first glance but looking in Lees these seem to be from a slightly earlier time frame than the Diana and the fore and fore preventer stays appear to be rigged with a combination of open and closed heart blocks. The Vanguard blocks look like a good offering but I have been experiencing delays with the UK postal service of late so I foolishly decided to have a go making my own as I did not have the patience to wait for a delivery and I thought there were only 6 of these. Steel indicates a different size block for each of the four stays scaling to 7.6mm, 6.7mm, 5.5mm and 4.7mm but the smaller sizes were too challenging for my clumsy hands so I rationalised them into two sizes (big and small) and exaggerated the dimensions slightly to give me a fighting chance (9mm and 7mm). I based these on the drawings in Lees but the end results are a bit agricultural however I was able to get a double groove in the open hearts to accommodate the collar configuration. Once they are festooned with rigging, they should be fairly anonymous.

 

I used the first of these in the collar for the main stay. For this I served a 1mm diameter rope. It should be a little bit larger but I had drilled the hole in the gammoning knee a very long time ago and it is no longer accessible to make larger. It was not that easy getting the rope in there to be sure.

 

I thought it would be wise to install as much rigging as I could on the bowsprit before I fixed it in place. The bobstays were the first to go on and first dilemma. I suspect that these should be closed hearts but deadeyes seem to be an acceptable alternative. After having made the initial batch of hearts I was loathe to have to make a whole lot more especially as these are 3.5mm in size which is smaller than I dare attempt. Still, despite swearing that I would not make these I ended up having a go anyway. I used some dowel that was lathed down to 5mm in diameter. I then drilled a hole down the centre. I then lathed a series of grooves at 1.25mm centres which would give me a 2.5mm thick block with a centre channel. The final shape was milled out and then finished off by file. The result was not the best and I had a high failure rate due to the relatively large grain of the beech dowel. I really needed a different timber type to be able to make these successfully. I noticed that the ones on HMS Victory look almost circular in shape so I thought that drilling out a deadeye might make an acceptable compromise. These deadeyes are boxwood so much more robust when working at the small scale. I also decided to mix it up and use deadeyes for the bowsprit shrouds. I think that the deadeyes will also be easier to rig.

 

 

Installing these blocks onto the bowsprit was harder than anticipated. I decided to use served rope as per Lees which further complicated matters. I had a real problem. getting the length of served rope correct and managing to seize the blocks as close as possible to the bowsprit. Trying to produce the double served rope that holds the open hearts in place was a real low point.

 

Time to fit the bowsprit permanently. I had seen some very neat gammoning before but that was beyond my skill level. I used 0.8mm rope and despite several attempts I was unable to achieve the elegant spiral depicted in Lees.

In anticipation of fitting the stays, I had a go at making a mouse. I could not find much information regarding the size but scaling off the drawing in Lees I came up with a proportional formula where it appears that the largest diameter should be around three times the diameter of the stay with the length three and a bit times the diameter. Which I have just realised could be Pi and the length is equal to the circumference of the stay which would be quite an elegant formula if true. I inserted some beech dowel into the lathe and carved the mouse out freehand using a file. I then covered this using some sticking plaster to get the woven pattern which was painted with an ink mixture that tried to mimic the dark brown colour of the stay. Quite a performance given the waterproof properties of the sticking plaster. My first effort looked a bit odd but I subsequently read in Steel that the mouse should be shaped like a pear and not like the black pudding I ended up with. I decided to have another go where I reduced the diameter at the thin end to achieve a more pear like shape. Each stay is a different diameter and thus a different size mouse. Once I had the whole family of mice assembled, I positioned it on the stay and then served it in place.  The fore stay was 1.65mm diameter cable and the preventer stay 1mm diameter rope. I installed the preventer below which seemed to be a modeller's choice type of decision.

 

 

The colour variation of the mice seen in the photographs is not as apparent as it seems. My phone camera loves to over saturate the images. I suppose I could improve it though.

 

I fixed the stays in place using the homemade hearts and seized them together with some 0.5mm diameter lanyard.

 

 

Now that they are in place, I feel the urge to add some snaking but I am reticent as I think that it will be very difficult to achieve an acceptable end-product. I may give it a go though as I am treating the fore mast as a test bed for rigging elements.

 

 

 

[DaveBaxt]

Great work on the mouse and very realistic David. Thanks for showing us which sticking plaster you used as I have been unable to get such good woven effect. Also making those open hearts are not for the  feint hearted so well done as I think you have made an excellent job of them. Good to see you still at it during the summer months.

[DavidEN]

12 hours ago, DaveBaxt said:

Great work on the mouse and very realistic David. Thanks for showing us which sticking plaster you used as I have been unable to get such good woven effect. Also making those open hearts are not for the  feint hearted so well done as I think you have made an excellent job of them. Good to see you still at it during the summer months.

Thanks for the kind words Dave. When you live close to the equator every month is a summer month.

 

Regards,

David

[DavidEN]

I did attempt to snake between the fore stays. As I feared the result was not great. It is very hard to get all the legs tensioned enough without pulling the two stays closer together so it ended up looking very shoddy. I will probably keep it as it will be hard to remove without damaging the stays. Perhaps I can tweak it a bit using dilute PVA glue and tweezers to get the snaked rope to sit in a more convincing manner. I will have to come up with an alternative solution for the main stay.

In the spirit of experimentation, I decided to have a go at the crows feet. I always liked the look of crows feet so decided to include them on my model. Touch and go with the date they fell out of use by but I think it still sneaks under the cutoff. I constructed the euphroe block from some walnut. It was cut to the approximate length and width and then freehand shaped using the dremel and a sanding drum. The block is a little bit longer than the dimensions indicated in Steel otherwise I would have had trouble accommodating the required number of holes. The holes themselves are 0.4mm diameter which should be a delight to thread. I added the blocks which are 3.5mm singles from HiS Models. These were seized to the euphroe block using 0.5mm ROS tan rope.

For the crows feet I used some 0.1mm rope I had lying around. I think it is Caldercraft. Steel gives a scaled diameter for this element at 0.12mm so it is close enough and I have heard that thinner is better when dealing with crows feet. I rigged it according to the diagram in Lees. I had 23 holes which equates to 11 per side and one in the centre which gave me 12 holes in the euphroe block. This agrees with Lees who states that the euphroe block generally had between 12 - 14 holes. Once installed I realised that I had bungled the counting and I have 25 holes. I should have drilled 13 holes in the euphroe block. I am just going fill in the unused holes in the top as threading this was a real pain. It was quite the tug of war to get everything taut. I did not know how far down the stay to fix the euphroe block but looking at historical models it would appear that in early 18th century ships it sat quite far down the stay but this seems to have retreated further up the stay as the century progressed. In the end I just picked a location on a whim and then moved it twice until I was vaguely happy with it. I somewhat naively thought that a good tug on the euphroe block would cause all of the crows feet to snap tight but I soon found that this was not the case and each line has to be pulled taut in sequence cycling through line one to line twenty three several times over which caused much grinding of teeth. The result is still a bit floppy but I think I will let the ropes rest for a bit before giving them a final tensioning.

 

 

I started looking at the hammock cranes as I realised that I should get some of these installed before I fit the shrouds for the main and mizzen mast as there would be access problems once these were in place. The PE kit supplied items are quite serviceable but to get the thickness they have sandwiched two layers of brass sheet and the join is visible along the side. I was also distressed by the fact that they are rectangular in cross section rather than square. Minor points I know but once you have an itch you must give it a good scratch. A spot of research showed that there was quite a bit of variation in the design of these items so that gave me a free hand in coming up with something I could manufacture in-house. I thought about using the same thin-walled brass tube that I constructed the handrail stanchions from. I then used a 1x1mm section of styrene to complete the bottom member but the styrene did not have the required stiffness and tended to flex too much. I then went out on the hunt for some 1x1mm brass square section to replace the styrene but this proved elusive. I eventually found a model supplier in the UK that sells it online so I ordered some. It is quite small but probably slightly larger than the real section used however this is the smallest I could go before it became impractical. Once I had the 1x1mm brass section I realised that I could form the hammock crane by simply bending it into shape.  Getting a nice tight radius was quite problematic as was drilling the holes vertically into the ends to accept the eyebolt. I may use a modified version of this method for the waist hammock cranes but continue with the brass tube method for the quarterdeck locations.

 

The kit drawings show 15 hammock cranes per side at the quarterdeck while the AOTSD indicates 17 per side. I ended up with 16 which made sense for the spacing of gunports that I have. To install these, I inserted a section of 1mm diameter brass tube flush with the top of the rail. This will theoretically be able to receive a 0.5mm diameter brass rod that I will insert through a hole in the bottom member of the hammock crane and should hopefully keep them in place although it seems a bit tentative. Drilling the 0.5mm diameter hole in the brass sections really tested my patience but I had started so I had to finish. I snapped quite a few drill bits trying to force the pace. They were all held together with epoxy and given a bit of a grinding with the dremel to smooth the transition between the vertical and horizontals and hopefully, but ultimately unsuccessfully, make them look like they were beaten from an iron bar by an angry blacksmith.

 

I inserted a 1.5mm diameter blackened PE eyebolt from HiS models into the top of the legs. I made a bit of a mock-up showing different rope sizes for the top rope. The tables in Steel are a little ambiguous as to the size of this rope. It could either be equivalent to 0.5mm diameter or 0.35mm depending on how you interpret them. I suspect the 0.35mm is the correct one which would be the 3inch circumference rope to the "stantion in the wafte" noted in Steel but I do not mind the heavier rope.

 

It is quite the task to complete these and I did them in batches of eight as I found that this is the maximum I can assemble before the epoxy hardens. It is another one of those endeavours where there is a lot of work for a marginal gain on the kit supplied material.

 

 

They are finished with a coat of matt rattle can black, some weathering powder to make them more iron like, a coat of polyacrylic and then glued in place. They are a bit chunky looking but that is as small as I can go without learning some new techniques. They would look better on a 1:32 scale ship.

 

 

 

I will now have to hit the textile shops to see if I can source some convincing netting material.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[scrubbyj427]

Beautiful work David! Your rigging work is incredible! Makes me want to rig my Winnie.

 

JJ

[DavidEN]

20 hours ago, scrubbyj427 said:

Beautiful work David! Your rigging work is incredible! Makes me want to rig my Winnie.

 

JJ

Thanks JJ I am still quite a beginner in the rigging department but I have found that upgrading the ropes helps draw the eye away from the clumsy knots. I just had a browse through your HMS Winchelsea build which looks fantastic. I really like the look of the admiralty board style but judging by the work on your cannons it will be a piece of cake for you to rig it beautifully.

 

Regards,

David 

[scrubbyj427]

5 hours ago, DavidEN said:

Thanks JJ I am still quite a beginner in the rigging department but I have found that upgrading the ropes helps draw the eye away from the clumsy knots. I just had a browse through your HMS Winchelsea build which looks fantastic. I really like the look of the admiralty board style but judging by the work on your cannons it will be a piece of cake for you to rig it beautifully.

 

Regards,

David 

Hi David,

Thank you, I think I’ll stop at rigging the guns on this model but I have to say I do enjoy rigging, it’s wonderful semi instant gratification. I agree with you, since I have discovered aftermarket rigging, there’s no turning back and that’s very clear on your model. Keep it up!

[DavidEN]

The installation of the quarterdeck hammock cranes allowed me to carry on with the main mast lower rigging. I had to switch out the deadeye strops from my homemade ones. I bought some new deadeye strops from HiS models. These are PE and blackened which saves me a step or two over the Amati ones.

 

 

The shrouds themselves are pretty much the same as the fore mast. They are 1.2mm diameter RoS dark brown rope which is closest to the 1.14mm diameter noted in Steel.

They are rigged in the same fashion in pairs fore to aft alternating between starboard and port. The first leg is served all the way with the others only in the section around the mast until just below the futtock stave. It is a bit of a chore having already laboured on the fore mast but it would look funny if I left them off. The task is made all the more laborious as my homemade serving machine is beginning to wear out and the joints have become a bit loose. Seeing as I built it myself, I did not think about including a lifetime guarantee. I will have to do some maintenance or make some replacement parts I suppose.

 

Once all the shrouds are in place it is back to the ratline tying. I mixed this up with the installation of the main stay and main preventer stay. The main preventer stay was 1.2mm dark brown rope but for the main stay Steel gives a diameter equivalent to 1.76mm at scale. I did not have anything of that size in the dark brown but I had some 1.8mm diameter beige cable-laid rope so I mixed up some ink to approximate the dark brown colour and dunked it in. Not a perfect match but it looks OK to my eye.

 

I used the mouse I made previously, covered with the same woven sticking plaster, and painted with the same ink mixture I used for the rope. Serving was completed till about 29mm past the mouse and the other end was wrapped around the homemade heart block which was then lashed in place. When I returned to the model a couple of days later, I saw that the main stay had gone all floppy. I suspect that the process of soaking in the ink had caused the rope to shrink which then relaxed once tension was applied. I resorted to hanging some weights from the end and I will leave this arrangement in place for a while in the hope that it will eventually return to its original length and the long term creep will stop.

While photographing the mouse, I decided the sling looked too puny. I rechecked Steel and discovered that I had bungled and it should have been made using a 1.14mm diameter rope rather than the 0.8mm that I ended up using so I remade both the fore and main mast slings with served 1.2mm diameter rope. As well as being historically accurate, the look of the robust version is more pleasing to my eye.

 

 

The futtock stave, futtock shrouds and catharpins were all as per the fore mast. The futtock stave is 1.0mm diameter annealed black wire lashed to the shrouds using Gutterman thread in a simple 3 move lashing. Looks a bit of a mess in macro but my eyes are not that good in real life. I struggled a bit with the catharpins this time around and tied them too tight causing the shrouds to distort more than I liked.

 

I eventually completed all the ratlines which turned out a bit more ragged than those on the foremast.

 

I guess I should complete the lower shrouds for the mizzen mast before I start on the upper level of rigging. I still have some work to do before I can fix the mizzen top in place. It is a slightly different configuration to the other two masts so I will have to check the various sources to make sure that I do not forget to install an essential piece of rigging hardware or miss drilling a vital hole.

 

 

 

 

[scrubbyj427]

Outstanding! One of the best rigged models I’ve seen.

[DaveBaxt]

First class workmanship on the rigging David and I agree with scrubbyje27.  Beautiful model ship throughout.

[allanyed]

5 hours ago, scrubbyj427 said:

Outstanding! One of the best rigged models I’ve seen.

Spectacular rope work Dave.  The seizings are beautifully done and add a lot to the overall work.  KUDOS!

Allan

[DavidEN]

Thanks for the kind words JJ, Dave and Allan but it is early days yet and you should not underestimate my ability to spectacularly botch it from here on in.

 

Regards,

David

[allanyed]

1 hour ago, DavidEN said:

you should not underestimate my ability to spectacularly botch it from here on in.

That sentence would work well in the Them Old Jokes forum here at MSW.  I think I speak for all who have tuned in, to use an old maritime phrase, we have every confidence you will finish with flying colors.

 

Allan

[AJohnson]

44 minutes ago, allanyed said:

That sentence would work well in the Them Old Jokes forum here at MSW.  I think I speak for all who have tuned in, to use an old maritime phrase, we have every confidence you will finish with flying colors.

 

Allan

And none of us will tell anyone if you do! 🤣  But like Allan, we says, have every confidence!  That rigging is, really really good!