Mary Rose by djford - Caldercraft - 1:80

[djford]

Another update! I've made a start on the standing rigging.

 

Here's some eyebolts in the hull for the deadeye chains:

I added in the bolts at the top of the sterncastle as Caldercraft's original placement was no longer anywhere near the right place for the bonaventure mizzen's shrouds.

 

At the front, I put the bolts in quite low on the hull, though still higher than those for the mainmast. Here they are with chains on:

I'm a little on the fence about these as the chains are much longer than the others, but in order to meet the channels at a decent angle they had to be a bit lower - I could still move these up, but then I'd have to fill in the holes... I'll see how it looks once I've got some deadeyes in place.

 

On the subject of deadeyes, here's the forestay deadeye attached to the bowsprit:

Pretty pleased with that! I've decided to use the 'natural' hemp provided by Caldercraft for my seizings, at least where they'll be most visible, as I like the contrast. Perhaps not traditional, but if I'm putting the work in I'd like it to be a talking point. As a side note, I took the rectangular spacer off of the bowsprit shortly after this photo, as I wanted to adjust where the stay would lie.

 

After this, I decided to attack the main yard parrel. I mostly wanted to do this as it was concerning me how fiddly the process would look, and I wanted to get the feel of attaching one before there were shrouds up blocking access, especially on the already quite blocked-off main mast.

 

Here's the parrel mid-assembly:

Caldercraft's kit provides 1mm seed beads and etched brass ribs for the parrel. In the instructions, they say to paint the brass black. Honestly, as the parrels would have been wood anyway, I felt like painting it is just sorta hiding the material mismatch - and the brass looks quite nice against the walnut I've been using as it is. I'm leaving them unpainted for now.

 

The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast dedicates a few pages to parrel construction, and in it Anderson muses on a few different ways these would have been tightened off from the deck. He also offers a simple option, which is just to have two loops for the yard, threaded onto the centre of the parrel. That's what I've done - I'm not professing to be an expert in rigging at all, and I think keeping things simpler where possible will be a boon later down the line.

 

On that note, here's the smallest bowline I've ever tied:

 

And here is the yard mounted with the parrel:

You can see the hoisting assembly, which goes to a block lower down on the mast. I've just taped that to the mast for now, as I really do need to get the standing rigging in place before I start messing around with the belaying on the sterncastle.

 

And speaking of standing rigging, here's the shrouds on the foremast:

I've also put two pairs of tackle pendants at the base of the masthead here, following Anderson's instructions. I wasn't sure if the Mary Rose would have had them, but I figure I can cut them off a lot easier than I can put them in under the shrouds!

 

The top still fits on:

 

And now for a really fun challenge; making a mouse!

I followed Anderson's instructions directly in this: a piece of wool wrapped around the stay, then fine thread tied around it at each end before a criss-cross of sewing around the whole structure. It's a little misshapen, but I'm quite pleased with it!

I siezed the eye at the end instead of splicing it - definitely not that brave.

 

This was all in aid of getting the forestay in place, and so here we go:

I've only loosely tied this off for now with a few half-hitches as I'm sure it'll need adjusting once the other bits of rigging are in place. I think in reality I should tie it off on the stay above.

Here's a top view - the spaghetti begins.

 

That's all for today!