HM Armed Cutter Sherbourne by Dan Poirier - Vanguard Models - 1:64

[Dr PR]

Dan,

 

What material are you using for rope and seizing? Every material I have used (cotton, silk, polyester) is a bit springy, and knots will try to come undone. However, silk becomes totally limp when wetted with white glue, and this prevents unwinding while the glue dries. Cotton is not quite as good, but it does lose most of its springiness when wet.

 

Polyester rope is very springy, and knots will come untied if they aren't fixed with some type of glue. Unfortunately, the only glue I have found that will stick to polyester is CA (cyanoacrylate, super glue), and I am not sure just how good that bond is. White glue will not stick to polyester!

 

I glue the larger rope strands together with a small drop of CA and then wrap the seizing, with a bit of white glue after the seizing is done to hold it.

 

I normally dilute the white glue 1:1 with water, but I have also used about 70% glue and 30% water.

[Dan Poirier]

The rope and seizing materials I'm using came with the Vanguard Sherbourne kit, and I can't find anything in the instructions to say what they're made of. I can't tell by looking at it.

 

Maybe someone else familiar with this kit knows what the thread is made of?

 

[JonVonWeston]

Hi Dan,

 

I've just finished the Sherbourne as my first wooden kit build and experienced the same issues as you - planking issues and lashings coming undone - Planking I think is just practice, practice and then a bit more practice. (Thank goodness that the hull was painted). For the lashings, I found that a tiny tiny dab of CA gel (I found the gel easier to apply rather than the thin stuff) was enough to stop it unravelling. I used Gorilla Glue Gel (Green cap)

 

Jon

 

[Dan Poirier]

I think what'll I do is:

 

1. Measure a 50:50 dilution of white glue more carefully and see if that works any better than what I've been using, which I just kind of threw together by eye.
2. If that doesn't work, then use a tiny bit of CA on each one. Maybe if I'm careful, it won't soak through the seizing and into the shroud, and if I need to redo anything, I can just cut off the seizing.

[Dan Poirier]

Just a quick update today.

 

First, my 50-50 glue seems to be working better so far. Maybe my previous attempt was too thick to really soak in or something. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

 

Second, I started putting together some blocks for the backstays. My first try was with some wire I had, but it ended up out of scale and looked awful anyway. I'm switching to using some dark "rope" instead.

 

 

And now that I see the picture, I realize I got the blocks in the wrong order there! Oh well, I'll try again tomorrow.

[Thukydides]

On 5/17/2025 at 10:10 PM, Dan Poirier said:

Well, I'm getting a wee bit frustrated. My seizings on my shrouds keep coming undone after I trim the loose ends. I'm tying a square knot and soaking it well with dilute white glue, then giving it a day or more to dry, so I'm not sure what I might be doing wrong.

 

Maybe it's my dilute white glue? I keep reading "dilute white glue" but nobody actually says how dilute it should be - 50-50? 90-10 glue? 90-10 water?

 

Or maybe something else. It tempts me to reach for the CA glue, but I'm trying to avoid that if I can.

I used a combination of matt acrylic varnish and CA glue (not together).

 

If your rope is natural fibre then diluted white glue will work well. However if using polyester rope I found that white glue just did not hold. I used CA when I needed it to be strong and varnish when I needed it to just help a bit. You have to be really careful with the CA as you want to use only the tiniest amounts. As much as possible use non glue methods to secure things (the actual knotts that were used, running thread through other ropes to secure it etc…).

 

I discussed some of the specific solutions I used in my Alert log. Just note I was learning as I went along so I would recommend my later techniques over my earlier ones.