HM Cutter Speedy 1828 by oakheart - from plans drawn by Bill Shoulders in 1972

[oakheart]

1 hour ago, Gregory said:

a little 'tapping' with hammer might be necessary.

I just made one, tapered as you suggested, works a treat, thanks again.

 

Tim

[oakheart]

I have decided to leave the 'welps' off for the moment.

Pleased with the way it looks

 

 

 

just noticed, I still need to line the gunports.....

 

Tim

 

[oakheart]

Managed to get a bit more done, winch and fife rail.

 

 

Ignore the wonky Belaying pins I have new ones in the post from Cornwall Model Boats.

 

 

the close up photograph really shows all the warts. I think a bit of fettling is in order.

 

Tim

 

There will be a bit of a break now as I have my eye surgery tomorrow, so will not do anymore till I can see straight again. 

[oakheart]

On 9/2/2024 at 4:52 PM, oakheart said:

eye surgery

Thanks for all the likes, means a lot.

Surgery went well, with just local anesthetic, I was  awake for the whole 3 hours. A very strange experience.

With one eye now sewn shut for some days, it's hard to judge distance and scale so don't think I will try and do any work on Speedy.

 

all the best

 

Tim

 

 

[iMustBeCrazy]

9 minutes ago, oakheart said:

A very strange experience.

With one eye now sewn shut for some days, it's hard to judge distance and scale so don't think I will try and do any work on Speedy.

Well,it sounds like it hasn't affected your brain anyway. 😁

 

10 minutes ago, oakheart said:

all the best

Likewise.

[oakheart]

7 minutes ago, iMustBeCrazy said:

it hasn't affected your brain anyway

Ha Ha - let's see on that score............... 🙂

 

Tim

[oakheart]

Having a lot of spare time over the last few weeks with nothing to do but listen to the radio was frustrating.

Becoming bored I instead found yet another rabbit hole to explore right here on MSW – scale rope making…..

 

Much reading and planning later,  I got so much good information from Phil Kroll, Delf @DelF, Dubz , Olha Batchvarov, Paul Nixon, vaddoc @vaddoc, gregory @Gregory, michael mott @michael mott, wefalck @wefalck,  dziadeczek @Dziadeczek, bob cleek @Bob Cleek, snug harbor johnny @Snug Harbor Johnny and of course Chuck @Chuck plus many others –

 

There is such a wealth of good information here.

https://modelshipworld.com/forum/82-discussions-about-rope-making/

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/19706-gutermann-polyester-thread-for-making-rope/

 

Anyway after much bodging with parts found around the workshop, here is my 3 hook  rope walk and some sample ropes

 

the gears are from an old RC boat, the shafts run in simple brass tubes, all powered by a Como Drills hand piece running at about 900rpm

 

the bucket of nails weighs 150 grams

 

topper made from some plastic part from a dismantled ink jet printer.

 

The ropes shown here are all made from Gutermann Sew All polyester thread which is 0.1 mm dia.  the colour is No 265 ( warm fawn or wheat ) which looks similar to hemp or hessian rope, which I can get from both Dunelm and Hobbycraft locally. 100m for £2.50

I found I can make all the rope sizes I need from this single yarn, the recipes are:-
0.4mm  dia. : 1 x 3  ( that’s one thread on each of the hooks )
0.6mm dia. : 3 x 3, gun tackle rope
0.8mm dia. : 5 x 3  breeching rope
1.6mm dia. : 14x3  a chunky hawser laid rope that would do for an anchor
Then using 3 of the right hand 3x3 ropes I made a 1.6mm dia. left handed cable laid rope for the anchor. Thanks to Olha on YouTube for explaining how.

 

The four ropes I have settled on after much testing are :

 

left to right = 0.4mm, 0.6mm, 0.8mm, 1.6mm cable laid rope

 

here are the breeching rope and anchor cable roughly place on  Speedy.

 

 

for such a simple machine it produces some excellent ropes, so thanks to all those out there for their help.

 

This is so much fun, I may just decide to rig this cutter!

 

Tim

 

 

Edited September 26 by oakheart

[Gregory]

Great results for a first shot at rope making!  I don't think I've seen better scale rope.

[vaddoc]

Indeed, great rope! My experience with polyester thread is that it produces quite stiff rope, especially if multistrand but yours looks fine.

[oakheart]

10 hours ago, vaddoc said:

it produces quite stiff rope

Thanks for the compliment @vaddoc

when first made the rope is already pretty flexible but becomes even more so when cooked at 170C for 6 mins.

 

Tim

Edited September 27 by oakheart

[oakheart]

16 hours ago, Gregory said:

I don't think I've seen better scale rope.

Thanks @Gregory flattery indeed but I think others have produced better.

Crazy Craig @iMustBeCrazy will be along soon saying all this will go to my head 🙂

 

Tim

 

[iMustBeCrazy]

28 minutes ago, oakheart said:

saying all this will go to my head

If I have to...

 

Your little toy seems to do a nice job but perhaps you need something more man sized like my grandfathers rope maker.

The little guy in the pic will eventually become a crew member for my Bounty launch.

 

[oakheart]

1 hour ago, iMustBeCrazy said:

my grandfathers rope maker.

That looks like it could make some serious rope, have you used it?

 

Tim

[iMustBeCrazy]

9 hours ago, oakheart said:

have you used it?

No, and I doubt my grandfather used it more that once. Town wasn't that far away and he had a model T truck. When the farm track was flooded he tied ropes to the corners and had the kids try to keep him out of the ruts Life was different then.