Advice of rope work

[bwross11]

Greetings all,

 

I have been most impressed by the miniature rope work I've seen on the various projects here and thought perhaps the forum could help me with a small rope idea I have.

 

I am currently in the midst of scratchbuilding a 1/144 Fletcher and Sims class destroyers, and the other day I had the great idea to fake down some mooring lines on deck as you see in numerous dock photographs.  I know how to do it on full size line but I'm having no luck with small presentations.  I have tried using a flat surface with double sided tape to hold the line in place but I can't get it to stay in place long enough to apply some white glue.

 

So, anyone out there in th NRG world got any better ideas?

 

thanks

Bruce

[barkeater]

The trick for me is holding (mashing) it down with a probe angled across the coil while I make the next coil with another probe or tweezer. You have to keep pressure on all the time then hit with a drop of the pva and put a weight on top until it dries. Also there was a thread awhile back on making a jig out of wood which you should be able to find.

Richard

[Bob Cleek]

The trick with coils, etc. is to make them off the model and then glue them down on the model when they are finished. By running the bitter end of a line beneath the pre-made coil, it can be made to appear to be part of the separately attached coil.

 

In very small scales, for uniform coils, such as on pin rails, some will drive a couple of nails or pins a sufficient distance apart and wrap a suitable length of line around the pins to form the coil. For faking mooring lines, a similar approach is used.

 

What I generally do is to take a piece of scrap styrofoam packing sheet stock (always a good idea to keep a few pieces around) and I wrap it in kitchen plastic wrap. (If I want a number of uniform sized coils or fakes, draw a pattern and place the pattern on the piece of styrofoam beneath the plastic wrap.) The plastic wrap will make it easier to remove the finished shaped line from the block when it's dry. Following the pattern seen through the plastic wrap (or not if you don't use a pattern,) I use sewing pins pushed into the styrofoam block to hold the line in place as I want it to look when attached to the model. You can put pins on either side of the line or through the line, however best suits the occasion. 

 

After the line is pinned to the block, take a paintbrush and saturate the line with clear ("white") shellac. ("Orange" or "amber" shellac, which is also available, has an amber color and will work the same as "clear" shellac, but for most modeling applications, you don't want the color.) The shellac, right out of the can, is the consistency of water and will soak right into the fabric of the line. Only one application is required. Just a touch with a loaded small brush and the line will soak up the shellac. Let it soak in well but don't overdo it.  Now, let the shellac dry. As the shellac dries, the saturated line will gradually stiffen and you will be able to shape the line further as you may wish, using tweezers or the pins, whatever works for you. (Fingers aren't such a good idea because the shellacked lines will readily stick to your fingers and you may end up with a "tar baby" of string on your fingers.) If, after the shellac hardens, you want to further adjust the coil or fake, you need only apply some alcohol and shellac will soften again until the added alcohol evaporates. When the shellac is completely dry, which will be within a matter of minutes because its alcohol solvent evaporates very quickly, your line will appear as it did before, since the shellac becomes invisible, but it will be stiff and "cemented" into the position you shaped it to. (Blow on to speed up the process, if you want.) You can then remove the pins and carefully peel the line off the plastic wrap, which shouldn't stick too much to the line. and you can then attach the finished coil or fake to the model with glue or a bit more shellac..

 

This technique can also be used to secure the ends of rigging thread from unraveling and to shape catenaries in things like footropes, or to stiffen rows of reef points so they hang naturally against a sail. Somewhere along the way, many folks have come to use PVA adhesive for similar purposes, but I became familiar with using shellac in the days before PVA became popular and never found watered down PVA to be much use for anything as an alternative to shellac, mainly because I found shellac easier to handle, it has better adhesive properties, and the drying speed of its alcohol solvent is far greater than that of water. Shellac is a perfect sealer for model work. Its archival properties are well-proven, it is readily cleaned up  alcohol, and is is completely safe for man or beast in all respects. I buy white ("clear") shellac (de-waxed if I can get it) by the quart and denatured alcohol by the gallon can (from which I decant it into plastic squirt bottles,) at any paint or hardware store. It's relatively inexpensive, has a relatively infinite shelf-life and a myriad of uses in modeling. It is also completely compatible with all other oil or acrylic coatings which might be applied over it.

 

[Oldsalt1950]

Bruce, make a jig using some wood and a couple of pins. Being an ex-fantail line handler i know the look you want shouldn't be to hard. Just take it slowly and weigh down the line a bit 

 

Jim

 

[dvm27]

Great tip Bob. I have found that a 50% white glue/PVA solution sometimes leaves a bit of a whitish crust on my darker rope. I'll certainly give the shellac a try.

[bwross11]

My thanks to all!  Have some great ideas that I will most definitely be trying out.

 

Cheers to all,

Bruce

[AON]

Clear Shellac!

There is always something new to learn here.

Thank you.