Norwegian sailing pram by Kenchington – Model Shipways – 1:12

[Kenchington]

5 hours ago, SaltyScot said:

What is a turk's head grip?

There is a very large (maybe unlimited) family of knots called "turks heads", basically regular inter-weaving of (usually) a single length of cord to make a tube -- normally formed around something solid, like a tiller, (though you can make turks-head bracelets if the material is stiff enough and there is someone in your life who would wear one!). They are hard to describe, so maybe an image extracted through Google:

 

Edited March 29 by Kenchington

[SaltyScot]

5 hours ago, Kenchington said:

They are hard to describe, so maybe an image extracted through Google:

 

Oh, yes, I am familiar with these. I wasn't aware they were called Turk's heads. Are you going to weave it onto the tiny tiller yourself or carve it out of wood?

[Kenchington]

IF I try (and it's still a big "if"), I would tie it in a fine thread around a dowel, then slide the finished Turk's head off the dowel and over the end of the tiller. That's the easy part. Taking the slack out of the weave until it was tight around the tiller would be the challenge. A simple Turk's head (like the one illustrated), tied in cord around a 1-inch dowel, is easy. Working in thread around a 1/8" diameter model tiller, with a longer knot? Maybe worth trying?

 

Have to make the tiller first. So far, I have thinned down some scrap jatoba, producing crude 1/4-inch stock. But trying to whittle a tiller out of that with modelling tools very quickly taught me why we work in basswood! I'll need to get busy with coping saw and Dremel, both its cutting and sanding attachments. It won't be quick but plenty else in the kit to keep me busy.

 

Trevor

[Kenchington]

Steps 36 & 37 (first metal parts) completed, Step 40 (display stand) advanced

 

While waiting for a chance to get serious with my replacement tiller, I have pushed ahead with other steps in the build. For one, the pram needs an eyebolt in the middle of the bow transom (for towing, hauling onto a trailer or whatever). The inboard end of that bolt bears a plate to anchor the lower end of the forestay. Although  the instructions make no mention of it, the kit includes a length of brass rod pre-bent to form the eyebolt. It also has the rigging plate as one item on a sheet of photo-etched brass. The model-builder is required to cut off a short piece from a (kit-supplied) length of 1/16" brass tube, to serve as an imitation "hex nut". The cutting went easily, following a recommendation (found here on MSW, not in the instructions) to insert a 1/32" brass rod into the tube, then roll it under a craft-knife blade. However, I did need to bell the end of the tube with a jewellery reamer. That also came into use to slightly enlarge the bolt-hole in the rigging plate.

 

When ready for fitting to the model, the three pieces seem tiny:

The instructions call for the eyebolt to be set into a slight groove around its bolt-hole, thus sinking the bent end out of sight -- the groove to be formed by pushing the blade of a very small screwdriver into the wood. That didn't really work for me but I did bed the bolt down nicely, none the less. Getting the plate and the tube-as-nut over the end of the bolt was challenging, but mostly because of poor lighting and poor eyesight. Once all was ready, it just needed a drop of CA glue, then the "nut" pushed home, while keeping the plate aligned with the pull of the future forestay. A few minutes for the glue to set and the end of the bolt could be clipped off. All looks OK:

 

Next up were the two chainplates ("stay plates" in the instructions), inserted into the slots previously sawn in the inwales. I don't know whether oiling the wood caused the slots to close up or perhaps I was just too scared to saw far enough. Whatever it was, the slots were way too small. Once I accepted that and sawed them longer, the chainplates (photo-etch pieces identical to the one for the forestay) fit easily. The problem is with the kit-supplied nails. As other MSW build-logs have noted, Model Shipways should provide their 0.7mm nails with this pram kit but they actually pack it with a supply of much larger nails, as in:

That's one of the chainplates (larger hole for the shroud, smaller for the fastening nail), with the kit-supplied nail above. No way that will go through the hole intended for it! To the left is an alternative nail that came with a rather nice Amati pin-pusher that I picked up at my local hobby store, but even that is too large. Below it is a 0.6mm nail from a supply I ordered in from Dry-Dock Models. (Those readers in the USA can go to the source and get extra nails from Model Shipways. I don't fancy the unpredictable delays at the border just now, with our respective governments edging into a trade-war!) The Dry-Dock nails proved OK in diameter but had to be clipped to half the length, lest they go right through the side of the boat.

 

Holes have to be drilled for the nails, of course. I thought that it would be a huge challenge to line up the nail (in its drilled hole) and the hole in the chainplate, while both were embedded deep inside the inwale. In practice, I pushed a mounted needle (i.e. a point set in a handle) into the drilled hole, used that to ream the hole out a bit, then jiggled the chainplate until the needle found the right hole. Pull the needle out, insert the stump of the nail, add a drop of CA glue, push nail home and all was well. Just needed a little bend of the chainplate to align with the future position of the shroud:

 

I tried moving onto the rowlocks (in Britannia metal) and the protective plates (photo-etched brass) that go on the pads seen in those two images. It proved too difficult without daylight, so that must wait for tomorrow.

 

Meanwhile, I have been pushing ahead with the display stand. That is needed sooner rather than later, as the model needs elevated support once the (projecting) rudder is in place. I'm still waiting on the weather, so that I can spray another coat on the baseboard but I have made up the supports:

The top pieces are kit-supplied and shaped to match the hull (needing only a little bevelling, after removing char). I decided to paint them, so that they are distinct from the boat itself. I toyed with the idea of a metallic finish but decided on less-prominent white. The kit includes a 1/4" dowel for the supporting pillars but the instructions suggest acrylic rod and I figured that would be nicer. Its also turned out to be very easy to work. Whichever material is chosen, there have to be slight flats where the wood supports fit over the rods. The acrylic yielded very easily to a file. After the first flat began to take shape, I laid it flat on top of a box, then worked the file on the other side of the rod, parallel to the box-top -- flipping the piece over every few file-strokes, until the supports just fit over matching, equal flats. I suspect that would have been much harder if done in wood.

 

A dab of CA and tops were glued to rods. They do need a little care to ensure that the horizontal axes of the tops are perpendicular to the length of the rods.

 

One annoyance yet to be faced is that the laser-cut holes in the baseboard are much larger than 1/4". As I have some adhesive-backed metallic-copper tape on hand, I am wrapping enough of that around the bottom end of the acrylic rods to make a firm push-fit. Most will be out of sight, down in the baseboard, but I'll add a final neat turn to give a flash of colour. That, however, must wait on the weather for outdoor spray painting, then the fitting of the supports to the baseboard.

 

 

Still have to do the tiller etc. (Step 35), the rudder, with its metalwork (Steps 38 & 39), the oars and rowlocks (Steps 45 to 48 ... the first of two "48s") -- and then it will be on to the sailing rig (Steps 42-44, 48-57).

 

 

Trevor

[SaltyScot]

25 minutes ago, Kenchington said:

That, however, must wait on the weather for outdoor spray painting, then the fitting of the supports to the baseboard.

 

There is definitely an unpredictability to our weather here right now. Yesterday and today we had 81F, fantastic weather to be outside doing stuff. Tonight we are expecting thunderstorms and highs tomorrow of 57F. Grab the sun while you can I guess  I hope it shines up there, Trevor, so that you can get out and get your spraying done.

[Kenchington]

11 hours ago, SaltyScot said:

I hope it shines up there, Trevor

Heavy rain today, but not complaining: It's the same system that coated much of Ontario with ice, bringing down power lines and cutting power to many. It's passing to the north of us, fortunately for me, though not for those living around the Gulf of St.Lawrence. And hard on anyone making their living at sea, as ever.

 

And for me, more rain now means more water in the well, come July and August!

[SaltyScot]

7 hours ago, Kenchington said:

And for me, more rain now means more water in the well, come July and August!

 

I know that feeling!

[Kenchington]

Step 48 (first "48", rowlocks) advanced, Steps 42, 43 & 44 (spars) commenced

 

With daylight for aid, I got the brass rowlock-pad protection on. First thing was to drill the rowlock holes down into the inwale (previously, they only passed through the pads). In a full-size boat, the holes would need to pass right through, so that a length of cord or light chain, attached to the rowlock, can hang down inboard, preventing loss of the rowlock but allowing it to be unshipped when not in use. That's great but drilling so deep risked damage to the sheerstrakes, so I only went far enough to accommodate the kit-supplied rowlocks.

 

Placing the photo-etched brass protective pieces wasn't hard. I impaled each one in turn on the point of a bamboo cocktail stick, touched a tiny dab of CA to each end of the brass, inverted the boat, put tip of stick into rowlock hole, flipped everything upright, assisted gravity in getting the brass into place, then gently pressed it down. The only trouble was when I had too much CA, letting the brass swim around before the glue caught. I then left the glue to set before getting onto the hard part.

 

Each of the four brass plates needs two nail holes drilled. (OK after the first one: That time, I drew the drill back too vigorously, it caught in the brass and pulled the metal off its glue. Back up and try over ...) Then each of 8 0.6mm nails had to be picked up with forceps, snipped for length, placed in its hole, lined up ... and pressed home. I think I snipped twice as many nails as I placed, though where the others went, I cannot say. Anyway, the job was done and adds some nice, shiny brass to the model:

Rowlock (technically a "crutch") only inserted temporarily, as I don't want it causing trouble until the rigging is finished.

 

While the CA was setting, I got the three spars out of their basswood sheets. The mast is in two halves that have to be glued together, back to back:

Lots of clamps and yellow glue -- yellow for strength and because the edges where it might ooze out will be sanded for char anyway.

 

Once the two halves were united, they formed a spar with rectangular section. That will need to be taken down to square, including the tapering towards head and heel, matching the laser-cut sides -- all before taking off the corners (making it "eight-square") ad rounding off.

 

The boom has its own complications which can wait for later. I did begin work on the yard (which the instructions bizarrely call a "gaff"). Its lower edge needs to be straight, to receive the straight-cut head of the sail, but its upper edge can taper from the slings towards either end. I just gave it straight tapers. The basswood stock was thicker than the laser-cut piece was wide, so the spar started with a rectangular section throughout. I have shaped the upper and lower surfaces into half-rounds but, so far, I have not tried to reduce the thing to circular. Strength and stiffness would be better with some depth to the section. later, I'll take another look and see whether I like what I have. I might sand more.

 

Enough for now!

 

Trevor

[SaltyScot]

23 hours ago, Kenchington said:

though where the others went, I cannot say.

 

Been there, Trevor. My shipyard is in a spare bedroom here in our home. When I get the vacuum out and get in here, I hear all the bits of nails (and the odd tiny cleat) scuttling on up the vacuum hose.

[Kenchington]

Step 40 (Display Stand) completed

 

Finally had some half-decent weather, though colder than the spray paint would like (10C, meaning 50 for those who still follow Herr Fahrenheit), so I warmed it and the baseboard over a heater vent before heading out to a windless, sunny spot. Paint went on well despite the challenges, though my masking was less than perfect and I will need to re-touch the oil on the display-stand's plinth. Still, once the paint was dry the model supports went in nicely, all square without trouble (and a drip of CA in each hole to keep them that way:

That's kit supplied basswood baseboard (sprayed with hardware-store primer and gloss white), glued to a $5 offcut of jatoba (run across my router table with an ogive blade mounted, then oiled and wax-finished), acrylic-rod supports (optional extra recommended in kit instructions), with copper tape for filler and decoration, topped with kit-supplied basswood supports (primed and painted with kit paints). Far from perfect but much, much better than my dory model has (so I am learning!).

 

Looks nice with the (still incomplete) model on it too:

 

I have been working on the spars too, but they will keep for a later update.

 

 

Trevor

Edited April 4 by Kenchington

[druxey]

Looks nice? Agreed!

[Kenchington]

Steps 42 (mast-making) completed, 43 (first of two "43s", mast fittings) advanced & 44 (yard) completed

 

Thus far, this log has dealt with topics that mostly belong in the province of the boatbuilder -- which I am not, though I am an end-user and have maintained their products. As the build progresses into the pram's rig, however, I am moving into areas that properly belong to the sailor and there I do claim some expertise. That work begins with three spars: mast, boom and yard. (The rig is technically a boomed standing lug. Lug sails have their heads bent to "yards", which are hoisted by a single halliard at the slings, not to "gaffs", which have jaws encircling the mast and are hoisted by both peak and throat halliards -- albeit some clever arrangements make those from the same length of line).

 

The yard is the simplest of the pram's three spars. I had that more-or-less shaped last night but it was about 3mm deep at the slings, say 1.5" full-size equivalent, which seemed excessive for such a small sail. So I reduced that to about 2mm (1"), restored the tapers and rounding, then gave it a first coat of Model Shipway's clear finish. (It will need a quick rub-down to remove raised grain, then a second coat.) As supplied in the kit, the yard has a top-to-bottom laser-cut hole in each end for the earrings (to stretch the head of the sail along the yard). Those would be better drilled side-to-side but I won't mess with such a small spar. The piece also has two holes at the slings for an eye for the halliard, which leads me to ask:

 

What kind of a sailor drills bolt holes through a spar, at the point of greatest load?

 

Resisting the temptation to question someone's sanity, I suspect that the answer is: The kind of sailor who thinks that rigging a boat starts with a visit to a yacht shop to buy nice, shiny, stainless-steel fittings!

 

The proper way to attach our pram's halliard to its yard is a stuns'l halliard bend (Ashley's #25) -- simpler, quicker, lighter and cheaper than any metal fitting. Plus, it is easy to move the halliard along the yard, if you think that some adjustment would improve the set of the sail. So, while I won't bother about filling the two tiny holes, there will be no metal eye.

 

 

While the yard is better with more depth than width, the mast definitely needs a circular section throughout, yet the two thicknesses glued together made it very much greater in one dimension than the other. Fortunately, while buying miniature plane and chisels for shaping planks, I also picked up a tiny marking gauge for marking bevels on inside curves on a table I was building. That came with a matching double gauge which I never expected to use but which proved ideal for marking the required amounts to take off the mast blank:

The miniature plane then made short work of thinning the mast-blank down. (A case of having the right tools for the job ... though they don't come cheap.) Both ends of the mast are very gently tapered, so the planing had to be followed by some careful sanding. With everything "four-square", it was time to drill any holes. The mast comes with only one hole, for the halliard, laser-cut. That only needed cleaning up with a drill bit (mostly because the two parts of the mast blank were not absolutely aligned). The instructions call for a second hole and some shaping to give the appearance of a sheave for the halliard, set in the mast. I would not do that full-size for such a small boat and hence there is no need in the model. {With such a small, light sail, a "dumb sheave" (a shaped hole, with no rotating sheave inside) is fully adequate, whereas an actual sheave would require a large slot cut through the mast, with a second hole at right angles for the axle -- together a major (and quite unnecessary) area of weakness.} What the halliard-hole does need is a bit of a groove on either side, so that the halliard isn't hauled across any sharp angles. Those grooves were easily worked with a suitable jewelry reamer.

 

Next below that hole, the mast will get two brass photo-etched tangs, for the upper ends of the shrouds. The instructions want each one fastened by its own nail, with those cut so short that they do not interfere with one another -- meaning about 1mm long. That would be madness. I will use one nail and peen its cut end into a second head after all is assembled. However, it did need a hole drilled through the mast, from side to side. No problem.

 

Lastly, the instructions call for two more holes to be drilled, to take an eye for the tack downhaul to reeve through -- though they do not explain where that line should be belayed. That, again, makes no sense. What the tack downhaul needs is a cleat, not an eye.

 

So, with little more than a single hole drilled, it was time to turn the four-square mast into an octagonal section one ("eight-square" in the terminology of mast-making) then round off to circular. The kit includes a "spar shaping jig" -- a narrow board with a stop-block at each end and 5 notched supports that hold a four-square spar with one angle upwards for sanding to an octagonal section. (The kit only provides 4 of the 5 supports but the Muscongus Bay sloop kit has the same rig with another 4, one of which can readily be pirated.)

That worked well, though the previous planing had (inevitably) removed the laser-burn marks showing how much to take off to achieve a regular, octagonal section. I just judged it by eye. Careful work with sanding sticks and paper then produced a nice, rounded mast.

 

There are two, or in my case three, wooden fittings to be added to the mast after it is rounded. The first is a cleat (in the original nautical sense of that term, meaning a projection from a spar or other object, usually to stop something sliding along the parent piece), in this case for the upper end of the forestay. The kit-supplied cleat is tiny, even before char removal, and would hardly be there at all after cleaning up. It was easy to shape a replacement at double the size:

To get that to sit on the curved surface of the mast, I followed the instructions and wrapped 220 paper around the mast, then sanded the base of the cleat to match the spar's curvature. My attempt to glue it in place using white glue failed because it was too difficult to hold the cleat in place while the glue set. A dab of CA solved that one by the much-reduced holding time.

 

The other two required fittings are cleats for belaying the halliard and tack downhaul ("horned cleats" in original terminology, before "cleat" came to mean, amongst the yachting fraternity, any belaying point). Again, the kit-supplied one was grossly inadequate. It was under 1/4-inch, meaning 3" full-size. I might use one like that to belay a flag halliard on a small boat (if our pram was to show any flags) but it is laughably inadequate for either halliard or downhaul. I made two new ones, of 1/2-inch (6" equivalent) size. They turned out clunkier than I would like but that will mostly be hidden by the lines belayed on them:

Note the kit-supplied version in the second image.

 

Once those were glued on also, I had a mast fit for its first coat of clear finish, hence to two near-ready spars:

 

Tomorrow: Boom, maybe rudder and/or tiller. Or maybe I will turn to sailmaking. That should be fun!

 

Trevor

 

 

[Kenchington]

1 hour ago, druxey said:

Looks nice? Agreed!

Thank you for the approval!

[Kenchington]

Last evening, I got ahead with the instruction's second "Step 43", preparing the boom.

 

In use, it serves purely in compression, to spread the foot of the (loose-footed) sail -- if it is sensibly rigged (not as in the instructions) at least, and very nearly so even with the weird way that the book has the sheet rove. As such, the most efficient cross section should be a circle but the laser-cut piece tapers to such a fine outer end (where there is a relatively large hole and an inexplicable slot) that I was unwilling to thin the other dimension to match. I did reduce the thickness a bit, tapering it slightly to match the laser-cut dimension. I also drilled a transverse hole to take one end of the clew outhaul, since the kit provides no good way of securing that.

 

Then I turned the upper and lower surfaces of the spar into half-rounds, while leaving flats on either side, rather like I did with the yard (where that shape makes more sense). It is also necessary to leave the forward end of the boom (to a measured length of 9/8 inch) square at that stage.

 

There are then two wooden fittings to attach. First is a hook-shaped piece that glues to the flat side of the forward end of the boom. Together, they form jaws that bear against the mast. (The instructions call the "hook" a "goose-neck", though it resembles neither the anatomy of a goose nor the nautical fitting which bears that name.) Once the glue had set, I sanded the extra piece down to match the reduced thickness of the boom, then smoothed off the various edges, including extending the half-rounds along the open side of the boom (opposite the "hook") as quarter-rounds.

 

The other fitting is a cleat for the clew outhaul. The 1/2 inch (=6" full size) that I made for the mast would be grossly too large, while the kit-supplied 1/4-inch one is far too small, so I made one at 3/8-inch. I managed to make that less clunky than the two I did for the mast, so I made another pair of 1/2-inch ones, cut the others off the mast and replaced. (They look much nicer now.) The boom one needs a bit of care in placing. It has to be far enough away from the mast that the outhaul can exert a good pull on the clew, without being so close to the outboard end of the boom that it interferes with the slot and hole that (in my build) will take a sheet fitting. Fortunately, the boom seems plenty long enough.

 

With two coats of clear finish (rubbing down raised grain between), that completed the woodwork on the three spars:

 

The mast and boom still need metal fittings but I will delay those until rigging the model. Before that, I need to face my fears and get immersed in the metalwork for the rudder. (Still waiting on tide and weather to get the tiller-blank to my Dremel for shaping.) Then there will be oar-making, sail-making and rigging to finish the model.

 

Trevor

 

 

[Kenchington]

Step 38: Rudder gudgeons

 

A very, very frustrating day, trying to get started on the serious (for this kit) metalwork.

 

The pram, like most sailing dinghies, has two pintle/gudgeon pairs linking the rudder to the hull. The two gudgeons are fastened to the transom, the two pintles to the rudder. Today was the gudgeons. Each is a combination of a strap (photo-etched brass) and a short length of 1/16-inch brass tube, cut from a supplied piece.

 

When I cut some of that tube for the "hex nut" on the bow eyebolt, I just cut it cold with a knife and it went well. This time, I followed instructions and annealed the tube first to make it more readily workable. A new mini butane torch working over an old ceramic tile saw the end of the tube red-hot in seconds. Quenched it in a coffee mug of cold water and all seemed well. Trouble was the tube had become so malleable that it squashed as I cut it. Would have been much, much better to skip the annealing.

 

Next up, the instructions call for drilling two 1/16 holes in a piece of 3/32 wood, inserting the two off-cuts of tube and filing them down until flush with the wood, thus producing two little bits of tube of equal length. Ever try inserting a fragment of 1/16 anything into a 1/16 hole? Not a good plan. So, ream out the hole a bit and insert brass tube. Start filing and find that basswood is so soft that the fragment of tube enlarges its hole and falls onto a diagonal. Grip excess tube with fine forceps and try filing again. Discard the basswood and just use forceps ... Eventually, I got to a good approximation, at which point the four pieces looked like:

Next task is to attach one bit of tube to each strap. The sensible way would be soldering but I have almost zero experience with solder and this was definitely not the time to start practicing, not when I only had one of each kind of strap. Next best might well be epoxy glue but the instructions call for CA, so I went with that. Bad mistake.

 

Before applying glue, the instructions do sensibly call for careful cleaning of the metal. They recommend fine sandpaper. On those tiny pieces ??? Maybe somebody could do it. I couldn't. I gave them a bath in acetone instead (more exactly in nail-polish remover). That worked, so long as the acetone was given plenty of time to evaporate after removal of the brass pieces.

 

OK, so it was then time to pass some 1/32 brass rod through one fragment of tube, place it on the strap, add a drop of CA on each side and leave it to set. Sounds lovely. Except that the tube needs to be centred on the strap, while its hole is perpendicular to the long axis of the strap. Then it has to stay there while enough CA is applied but not too much. And the 1/32 rod has to be removed before it gets glued in the tube, without disturbing the tube. My first one went surprisingly well. The second needed three attempts, then the tube came away after the strap was glued to the transom. Before that disaster, I did get to have two reasonably presentable gudgeons (one seen here with a drill bit temporarily inserted):

The gudgeon with short straps goes on the pad earlier placed on the lower transom, just above the keel plank. With a drop of CA to hold it in place and an inserted drill bit (all of my remaining 1/32 brass rod being bent by then) to serve as a guide for aligning the hole with the centre of both skeg and sculling notch, it should have been easy. It wasn't. However ... muddled through in the end. Then drilled one of the fastener holes in the strap and into the pad, clipped short a nail, inserted it, did the other and added a touch of low-viscosity CA to keep the nails in place.

 

Giving time for the glue to set, inserted a drill bit through the upper gudgeon and into the lower one, to make sure that the holes were aligned. Slid the upper gudgeon along the drill bit to get the right height (using the pintles' laser-marked positions on the rudder for a measure of spacing), marked that, aligned the drill bit to the centre of the notch:

Then touched some CA to the pencil mark, brought the gudgeon into place, pressed it there for the glue to bite, tried to remove the drill bit ... and the gudgeon left its glue. Cleaned up. Tried again. And again. Finally got the strap in position by the expedient of having the drill bit rip the tube from the strap!

 

At that point, I decided to at least get the strap fastened down. So ... how to drill through the brass (enlarging the etched holes enough for the nails to pass) and into the transom without going right through the wood? How to both snip a nail short enough that it wouldn't go right through and get the super-short snipped end into the drilled hole? I know I couldn't do it. Solution: Drill right through, push nail right through (after dipping the head in CA to hold it in place), then snip off the ends of the nails and file them down flush with the inboard face of the transom:

If anyone asks, the gudgeon is through-bolted to the transom, with countersunk bolt heads on the inboard end and dome nuts on the outboard. That's my story anyway!

 

Then it was clean up the loose bit of tube (again!), roll the drill bit between margarine-coated fingers to give it enough grease that the CA wouldn't stick, insert the drill, line everything up, drops of CA on either side, gently pull on drill, twist, pull, twist and pull ... and the tube was firmly glued to the drill bit, not the gudgeon strap! Clean up that mess, apply another drop of CA, then simply place the fragment of tube with forceps, figuring that I will compensate for misalignment when fitting pintles to rudder but ...

 

Lo and behold, I can see light through both gudgeon holes together! They are not perfectly aligned but I may yet produce a rudder that actually moves on its gudgeons:

Might have been a whole lot worse, though the end result owes more to luck than to skill on my part.

 

I dare say that I am ham-fisted and that other builders of this kit have done better but this step in the build does seem overly challenging. There ought to be a better way. (Maybe straps long enough to wrap around the tube? Perhaps duplicate straps for when someone messes up a first attempt?) To anyone reading this log before their own build, I would say do not use CA glue when building your gudgeons. At least use epoxy and if you have the skills (or are willing to step aside from the pram and develop the ability), then solder instead.

 

Maybe I will do better when I get to the rudder.

 

 

Trevor

Edited April 6 by Kenchington

[Kenchington]

Step 39: Pintles and hanging the rudder

 

In my last, I suggested that the build might go better if the gudgeon straps were long enough to wrap around the bits of tube. For the matching pintles, that is exactly what the instructions show. Progress! Or not.

 

For a metal strap to extend around half the circular section of 1/16-inch tube and reach out, on either side, to just contact the solid surface that the tube is lying on (in the current build: to reach the leading edge of the rudder), that strap would have to be 4.081mm (to the nearest micron!). {That's pi times half the diameter of the tube, plus twice the half diameter.} The shorter of the two photo-etched straps (and I have no idea why they are different lengths) is less than 5.5mm between its nail holes. So, wrapping the strap around the tube, as per the instructions, would place the centres of the nail holes about 0.7mm from the edge of the rudder, at best. That's clearly not viable. I can only assume that the kit's pintles are to be built up the same way as the gudgeons (with the tube glued outside the strap) and not as shown in the instructions!

 

Maybe the best advice to anyone following along would be to get some very thin brass stock and cut out much longer (and somewhat thicker) straps. I did not go that route.

 

With the experience of the gudgeons behind me, I decided to fit the pintle straps to the rudder, then glue on the bits of tube (with epoxy, not CA). That worked. Not easily but it did work.

 

I had intended to round the leading edge of the rudder, so letting the straps extend a bit further from the extreme edge. But then I figured that a broader flat surface would help when gluing on the bit of tube. As I had already extended the rounding of corners a bit too far, during the preliminary shaping of the rudder, I had to mount the lower pintle a little higher than intended, lowering the rudder a bit beyond the corner of the skeg. Not a problem, though I did re-shape the rudder a little so that the mistake would be a bit less visible and took the opportunity for a bit more tapering and shaping to improve hydrodynamic efficiency.

 

Under Step 28, the initial shaping of the rudder, the instructions say "file shallow grooves on the edge of the rudder for the rudder pintles". I could not make sense of that at the time and left it alone. Part of the trouble was that I could think of a couple of reasons to groove the leading edge of a rudder near the pintles, requiring different depths of groove in different places. One purpose would be to make space (between the pintle's pin and the wood of the rudder) for the gudgeon -- all the more necessary if the design has the rudder extending forward of its axis of rotation and so closes the gap between rudder and hull. That can make sense full-size but seemed a bit excessive at 1:12. Another reason might be to set the pintle straps into the wood of the rudder, thus producing a flush surface. Nice in full-size work but absurd at scale, especially when the strap is a thin bit of photo-etched metal. Yet, looking again at the instructions, there seems no doubt that that is exactly what they call for -- even though they also intend the the tubes, rather than the straps, contact the leading edge of the rudder. I simply ignored the call for grooves.

 

Otherwise, the first task was bending a strap into a flat-bottomed U-shape, with right-angled corners. One side is easy: Hold down the strap where you want the angle, slip a knife-blade under and bend. How to do the other side and have the two nail holes lined up to take the same nail? Push, pull, walk away, walk back, push ... and repeat. But I got there in the end. Then mark for the hole, drill and pass a nail through one side of the strap, through the rudder and ... go back to shaping the strap to better align the nail holes. {The instructions avoid some of that trouble by calling for the pintles to be glued in place, with what it calls "bolts" reduced to little more than nail-head decoration (separate ones on each side and not extending through the thickness of the rudder.} Still, it worked in the end, so I could snip off excess nail, lay the rudder on a vice as a substitute for an anvil, give the nail-end a couple of taps and all was good! When fitting the second pintle-strap, there is a need for care in matching the distance between them to that between the two gudgeons, where they sit on the transom. But that did not prose any difficulty.

Next, I cut off lengths of tube. None of the instruction's complexity this time. I just laid the tube on the scale marked on my cutting board, set a knife blade 3/32 from the end (by eye) and rolled the tube under the blade until it cut through, then reamed the hole a bit with a mounted needle. Made three of them, so I had a spare without backing up. Dropped the three in acetone to degrease and scraped the surface of the straps with a knife blade, to clean those up and give the glue something to grip.

 

After the disaster of making the gudgeons with CA, I went to the hardware store for some 5-minute epoxy. Paid a bit more for name-brand product but found that one of the two components wouldn't flow. I poked around and got some out but the two evidently did not flow evenly as the glue did not set in 5 minutes, nor 5 hours. (It did harden overnight.) Before discovering that problem, I put a drop of epoxy on each pintle strap, positioned a bit of tube on the glue and then added more epoxy on each side:

When I looked again, one tube-bit had fallen away under its own weight, so removed that, cleaned up and left everything for the night. Today, I returned to the fray, with the spare bit of tube and enough epoxy to do a thousand model pintles -- which much increased the odds of getting the right mix of the two glue components:

Once that had had much more than 5 minutes to set, I cut away some of the excess epoxy, gave the rudder a final sanding and painted on tung oil, to match the rest of the pram. 

 

The instructions expect that the pintle pins will be pieces of the supplied 1/32-inch brass rod. I figured that there was zero chance of my having exactly aligned the four bits of tube (two on gudgeons, two in pintles), so even if I could get the rod into each tube, it would then bind. Instead, I dropped a 0.6mm nail into each pintle tube -- 1/32 being about 0.8mm, I got a little scope for misalignments. Holding rudder to model boat and getting nails into gudgeon holes was fiddly but nothing too bad. Then a tiny dab of CA on each hail-head and the rudder was finally attached!

What amazes me even more is that the rudder actually turns on its hangings. I am sure that that was more luck than skill but I'm not complaining! The whole gudgeon/pintle/rudder saga has certainly been the most awkward part of this build so far. All I can say is that it is done (and, for those facing their own pram builds, that means it can be done by someone learning ship modelling).

 

Trevor

 

 

 

[JacquesCousteau]

Nice job! Metal work remains the most difficult part of modeling for me, but it's gotten slightly easier with more practice. Having a bit of thin sheet brass (K&S metals sells a variety and is pretty widely available) on hand to replace and remake parts as needed certainly helps.

[druxey]

Well done, overcoming obstacles. Often one needs to invent workarounds of one sort or another, whether it's a kit or scratch-built model. Succeeding gives one a great feeling of accomplishment.

[Kenchington]

2 hours ago, JacquesCousteau said:

Nice job!

Thank you, JacquesC!  I think its saving grace is the rake of the transom, hiding the mess from view.

 

Trevor

[Kenchington]

1 hour ago, druxey said:

a great feeling of accomplishment.

And thank you too, Druxey! At the moment, I feel more depressed but I dare say I will get over that. If nothing else, I get to play at sailmaking next and that is very much more to my liking.

 

Trevor

[Kenchington]

Yesterday, I made a first attack on my pram's tiller, taking a Dremel to the hardwood piece. I ended up sanding a bit too far in one place (down to 2mm thickness, when I intend to stop at 3). I will keep going with it all the same. Even if I cannot use it in the end, it will give me a better way to determine the shape that I really want in a second effort.

 

Today, with an unseasonable snowstorm, I turned instead to Step 48: Sailmaking.

 

I don't pretend to any expertise at that trade, but I've had to learn enough of the real thing to be able to maintain my own (full-size) sails and to once convert a foresail for points reefing. Even so, anyone who wants to know all that I do of sailmaking (and a whole lot that I forgot soon after reading) should get hold of Emiliano Marino's "The Sailmaker's Apprentice". I had read a lot else before coming across that book but I doubt there is anything that he did not cover better than most others have done.

 

One thing to understand for those who have only built sails for models: Normal cloth has limited stretch in the (perpendicular) directions of the warp and weft but almost no resistance to stretching at 45° to those fibres. (Spinnaker fabric and the ultra-modern materials of today's racing sails are different, but those are not of concern here.) The pram kit's instructions edge towards that point, calling for the provided cloth to be spread by length and width, before gently pulling on the corners. Then its sail pattern indicates that the warp (or weft) should run vaguely diagonally across the sail. But it does not explain why. Why is because unsupported edges of sails must be aligned with either warp or weft, otherwise, they will stretch out of shape, while casting wind-disrupting creases across the sail. In the case of our pram, the leech must be aligned with the fibres of the cloth -- or as aligned as can be, given that the leech is curved (curved into a "roach" by the universal usage of modern sailors, though in the days of working sail convex edges were called "rounds" and "roaches" were concave). The pram's sail's head will be supported by lacing to the yard, while the lesser forces on the luff and foot can be adequately supported by tabling and roping.

 

Those are full-size requirements, of course, but ones that can be replicated at model scale, within reasonable bounds.

 

In the case of the pram kit, the intent is to produce a firm, flat sail, suited to a display model. It will have all of the obvious features of the real thing but none of its curves, folds or flexibility. In practice, the first task was to iron the supplied cloth and smooth out the deep creases produced by its packaging. To iron it, then iron it again and then once more before all was smooth. (Not a problem: I had a load of laundry to work through!)

 

In parallel with that, I printed off three copies of the instructions' sail pattern:

That proved to be printed to the proper size (6-inch or 150mm length of foot) in the booklet but persuading my computer to output a hardcopy at the same size was annoying. One of the three copies, I trimmed to the size of the finished sail. The other two I cut up to show the four "tablings", meaning the extra layer of cloth along each edge of the sail. Tablings are not hems, or they should not be. (Some sailmakers economize by making "rolled tablings", which are hems by another name.) A tabling is a separate, extra piece of cloth, with warp and weft aligned with those of the main layer of cloth. In the case of the pram's sail, three of the tablings are just straight strips but the one for the leech must follow the correct curve. Its outer edge will be trimmed later (along with all other edges of the sail) but the inner edge will show on the finished sail and hence must be cut carefully -- which needs a paper pattern. Besides, while plenty of cloth is provided in the kit, getting all four templates out, while preserving the correct orientation of warp and weft is a bit fiddly. Having the patterns to push around helps.

 

The instructions call for the assembly of the sail to be done on a clean cutting board but other build logs report that that isn't enough to prevent staining of the cloth, so I followed the usual recommendation and first taped plastic food-wrap to my board, then the cloth on top, carefully laid flat and taped down. The instructions then call for diluting white glue "to about the consistency of cream" (with no hint of the grade of cream) and painting the cloth with it. I found that even the small amount of water I added needed a whole lot more glue before I got anything thicker than skimmed milk. However, I kept on adding more until it was somewhat thicker than homogenized milk but far short of whipping cream (let alone the Devonshire clotted cream of my childhood!). That seemed to work well enough.I brushed it on liberally:

It was fun, slopping on the glue with no need for the precision required when bevelling planks and transoms. Once all was dry, the whole-sail paper pattern could go over the larger piece of cloth, its leech oriented to the weave, and the four corners were marked in pencil. The key marks, though, are the locations of the ends of the inner margins of the tabling. Those have to be aligned properly, whereas the outer edges will be trimmed along with the rest of the sail. Then the tablings could be cut out, given fresh glue on one side and placed on the sail. 

 

Next up were the three battens (marked on the pattern), which are cut from 1/32 x 1/16 basswood stock provided in the kit. To simplify their placing, I marked each with the point where it should cross the inner edge of the leech tabling, while letting it extend across the tabling to the position of the leech itself. The cloth at that time extended much further, so cutting the sail out later would meant cutting to the end of each batten. Now, the kit instructions say to glue each batten to the sail, while wetting its other side to stop it warping. Though I have read of, often used and sometimes seen, various alternatives for handling battens (right up to the complexities of Chinese lug rig, being constructed by two ladies at the maritime museum in San Francisco), but I have never heard of a sail batten being glued to the sailcloth. I am confident that that was only intended as a simplified alternative for the novice model builder.

 

What the full-size pram most probably has is a pocket for each batten, made of an extra piece of cloth sewn onto one side of the sail. The inner end of the pocket would have a piece of elastic, to force the further end of the batten against the stitching of the leech. In order to get the batten in and out of the sail, such a batten pocket has a diagonal extension at the leech end, where the extended bit is not sewn to the tabling, leaving a slit into which the batten can be inserted. So I cut suitably shaped pieces of cloth (from the pre-glued and dried material), then glued those over the battens. What I had not allowed for was the 1/32 stock being much too thick for scale, so my "pockets" turned out as slight covers. At least they stopped the battens from warping and they can be easily replaced if necessary.

 

Once all that was well and truly dry, I followed the instructions, freed the developing sail from the cutting board and turned it over. Its four corners then got reinforcing patches (as a full-size sail would) that end up as triangular but, when first glued down, can be any convenient offcuts from the glued-and-dried material, provided that they are large enough to span the corner of the finished sail. The instructions would leave the cloth of the sail at that point but it is about 6ft (full-size) from leech to luff at its maximum. Nobody makes sailcloth that wide. I opted to "make" my pram's sail from three lengths of cloth, arranged parallel to the leech. In reality, I glued narrow strips, representing seams, down the sail from head to foot. One turned out wider than the other. That's OK by me: "Broadseaming" is one way that a sailmaker adds curvature into sail!

 

At that stage in its development, the sail was an ugly mess:

However, once all was dry again, the mess could be released from the cutting board, flipped over and trimmed to match the pattern, using a straight edge and a curved Exacto blade. I muffed the curve of the leech a bit but nothing too bad:

It still needs "eyelets" (for which the instructions offer a rather neat solution), some trimming of the corners around those, plus roping (which I will explain once it is done). But that's for tomorrow, when I should also get serious about the standing rigging.

 

 

Trevor

 

 

[SaltyScot]

You made a fine job of that, Trevor, I really like how the sail turned out. I don't have sails on my current build but this post will go to my "aha, that's how it's done" folder  

[Kenchington]

Thank you, Mark! And good to see you back on MSW 😀

 

I had had a little experience of the white-glue-on-cloth approach when making the fishing gear for my banks dory (taking the idea from the pram instructions, while reading ahead), but I had not anticipated the effect when using that approach for a sail. It makes for a very flat, lifeless appearance that is not remotely realistic. 

 

If the highest form of our art is taken to be the original "Navy Board" models, with their exposed and simplified framing, then a technique that produces a flat rendition of a prototype's sail-plan can have its place in a display model -- which is what I aim for with the pram kit. But anyone who wants a model to look like a real boat or ship needs a different approach. I'm already wondering whether the sails of my Muscongus Bay lobster sloop (next-up in the Model Shipways trio) might have the tabling and other reinforcing done with white glue but the belly of the sail left soft. Some round in the cut of luff and head (to be straightened when those are tight against mast and gaff) might then throw a bit of shape into the sail and make it more lively. I'll have to think about that and perhaps experiment a bit.

 

Trevor

[SaltyScot]

7 hours ago, Kenchington said:

And good to see you back on MSW 😀

 

I am finally home and have the moving truck full of stuff that we are keeping from the house unloaded, Trevor. I haven't been able to get in the shipyard just yet, the CEO's list of to-do's seems to grow longer instead of shorter  Tomorrow is a rainy day here (no sudden, unwanted snowstorms for us!) so I will be bale to sit down and get on with my build. I am very much looking forward to that.

[Kenchington]

I am still making progress with the pram, though other demands have drawn me away a bit. I have finished the sail and bent it on to the yard. It's getting late here, so I don't have time tonight to explain the details and my reasoning but, to prove that I have not been entirely idle, this is how the rig is looking so far:

 

[druxey]

Nice complication, pocketing the battens! That is not beginner level.

[Kenchington]

46 minutes ago, druxey said:

That is not beginner level.

But not giving the pockets enough width is a newbie mistake!

[Kenchington]

Some Thoughts on Rigging the Pram:

 

The pram, like most sailing dinghies of its vintage, has three pieces of standing rigging: One forestay and one shroud per side (though the kit instructions call them "back stays"). The lengths of each of those are to be measured in situ, as it were, with the mast stepped and each line led from its mast-end to its attachment point on the hull. The first problem with that is that the mast is free-standing in its step and can be raked at any of a wide variety of angles, limited only by the position of the forward thwart. The instructions call for the forestay to be created first but its length will depend on the rake chosen, while the instructions say no more than "Put the mast in place".  Past build logs on MSW show the mess that can result, with the outer end of the boom falling so low that the mainsheet cannot be rigged effectively -- while we should be building the boat such that a 6-inch sailor could duck under the boom at every tack. (Even if the pram is reckoned too small to be comfortably sailed by a burly adult man, she ought to accommodate a lithe and 5-inch tall teenager!)

 

If the intent was to actually sail the model on a pond, it would be necessary to adjust the rake until the centre of effort of the sail fell slightly abaft a vertical drawn through the centre of lateral resistance of the hull/daggerboard/skeg/rudder combination -- which would be quite far aft. As nobody is likely to set their model pram afloat (and I certainly won't), that step can be fudged but it is necessary to set the rake of the mast such that the clew of the sail (and hence the boom) are high enough to look plausible. And to do that, other than by guesswork, it is necessary to have the sail hoisted when determining the rake, hence before setting the length of forestay and shrouds.

 

Another problem that has led to comments in past build logs is that the free-standing mast won't support itself in the chosen position while the model builder fusses with the length of the forestay.

 

I figured that it would help with working through those two challenges if as much as possible was prepared in advance. In this posting, I'll try to explain what preparations I have made and why.

 

On Tuesday, I got most of the sail finished, though still needing some gentle cleaning up with a knife. The remaining tasks were to create eyelets and then to add a boltrope. A full-size sail for a light daysailing recreational boat would come from a commercial sail loft with plastic eyelets inserted by a hydraulic press, preferably with a metal thimble inserted in each to take the wear of whatever gear is attached. They look something like:

For a nice, traditional look, however, the pram should have hand-sewn eyelets, in which a rope (or, rather, twine) grommet is sewn to the canvas with radiating stitches (and again a thimble inserted), something like:

Though that isn't a great picture. (And isn't a great eyelet either but I did my best!)

 

Nobody's going to try that stitching at 1:12, of course, but the kit instructions offer a neat alternative in which blobs of paint are put on each side of the sail (to represent the stitching) and a hole drilled through. In reality, the sail twine would likely be white but that would not offer any colour contrast. The instructions suggest using buff instead and I did. I guess I could have gone all the way and added a touch of brass paint in the drilled hole but I skipped that! Anyway, the process went well, with one eyelet in each corner of the sail (set through as many thicknesses of cloth as were available) and 8 more, evenly spaced along its head. I did follow the instructions in using a #55 and a #60 drill bit (or the nearest metric equivalents) but later enlarged the holes with a needle.

 

The instructions do not anticipate the pram's sail being roped and it is quite likely that such a small sail, if made of Dacron cloth, would not need any more edge reinforcement than the tabling. However, there is a problem seen in some past build logs -- and not only ones featuring this pram kit: It seems to be very difficult to bend model sails to model spars, without the lacing or robands ending up loose, which is unseamanlike and hence unsatisfactory to a sailor's eye (or at least to this sailor's eye). Yet, even at full size, bending a small sail tightly to a spar without crumpling the canvas outside the line of eyelets is awkward -- doubly so if that edge is just unsupported cloth. So I chose to add a boltrope to the head of the sail to make it easier to lace canvas to yard in a convincing way. Having decided to do that, I chose to suppose that my pram has a cotton sail, requiring that the roping extend down the luff. (The foot shouldn't need more than the tabling, while roping the leech would mess up airflow. (Anyway, the leech is well supported by its alignment to the warp of the sailcloth.)

 

In practice, I used some (genuine) hemp cord from the local fabric-store's supply for pre-teen "jewelry" makers, soaked it in dilute glue and laid it on the cloth. That got me to a finished sail: 

Next up was bending that to the yard. As noted in a previous post, each end of that spar has a single laser-cut hole for an earring and a hole cut vertically at that. There's no ideal way to pass an earring with that configuration but I ended up tying a stopper knot a bit back from one end of the kit-supplied line (0.3mm diameter) and passing both ends downwards through the hole. (I started with a figure-of-eight knot but one of them pulled through, so I added an overhand knot on top of the figure-of-8. That was big enough to hold.) The instructions call for the peak earring ("lashing" in the booklet) to be passed first and the sail placed equally along the length of the yard. Even if the earring holes were equally distant from the ends (which they are, very properly, not), that would be a dumb thing to do: The projecting forward end of the yard, beyond the throat of the sail, is liable to get caught up around the mast and standing rigging, so its length needs to be limited as much as reasonably possible. So ... I passed the throat earring first, tied that down, then passed the peak earring and pulled the head of the sail taut.

 

Each earring needs to both pull the head of the sail along the yard and hold one corner of the sail to the yard. In practice, with two ends of an earring projecting from the same hole in the yard, I passed one port-to-starboard through the sail's eyelet and the other starboard to port, pulled tight and tied a reef knot around the edge of the sail. I then passed the ends around the yard, knotted those again, added a drop of glue and cut off the surplus line. (Then messed up, messed about, repeated etc., but got it OK in the end.)

 

Having decided to tie the halyard around the yard, rather than relying on a metal fitting, it was best to get that done before lacing the sail tightly. The kit offers 0.7mm line for the halliard. That's 1/3-inch diameter (1" circumference, to anyone in the UK), which is very small for running rigging. I substituted some 1mm braided line that I had on hand. Not ideal for the role but OK.

 

Lacing the head of the sail was easy enough. I passed an end of 0.3mm line through the eyelet next to the peak, tied it there with a couple of half-hitches, then rove the lacing much as shown in the instructions -- which present the appropriate way of passing the line down the row of eyelets, though not how it is to be tied effectively. The idea is to pass the line through an eyelet, then around the yard, then tucked between lacing and sail, just next to the eyelet ... before moving on to the next eyelet. The instructions show the tucks made along the upper side of the spar, where they serve no function. The idea is to pull tight each turn around the yard, then tighten it further by hauling on it with the tucked-under end, which needs the tuck alongside the eyelet. Hard to put into words but easy enough once you try.

 

Worked that down the length of the head, then tied off the end of the lacing to itself, beside the last eyelet. And the result was:

Meanwhile, I got started on the standing rigging. The three pieces have six ends between them, of course. On the pram, the forestay is looped around the mast, so that will get special treatment later. The other five ends are attached to either small (Brittannia metal) hooks or else photo-etched brass rigging plates. At full size, each of those 5 ends must be passed around a thimble, as tight turns seriously weaken rope, while tight turns around sharp metal soon end with failure, if the rope is under any load. However, the kit offers no thimbles and I could not find any at the right size, so fudge that one.

 

Whether with a thimble or not, there are several ways to attach rigging to end fitting. The instructions offer the simplest: Just tie the line with a couple of half hitches. Simple but ugly and definitely not seamanlike. At the opposite end, they could be spliced. I certainly would at full size but I'm not even going to try at 1:12, so I needed some intermediate. As an optional alternative, the instructions suggest turning the stay back on itself, gluing it there and then clapping on a couple of seizings -- or rather faking them with turns of 0.3mm line. That would be OK, though 0.3mm twine would be way too thick for seizing the 0.7mm line provided for the standing rigging.

 

I opted for another version: Faking splices by gluing the stay (with CA), then covering the fake with a "serving" of thread. I know that serving of model rigging gets a bad name (unless done properly on a machine) but that's because the material used as serving twine is usually far too thick. I have a reel of fine sail-thread (for machine-sewn seams) in a suitable dark-brown shade, which can serve well enough as 1:12 tarred marline. It's still awkward stuff to work with but OK if bound tightly around something larger. To make that viable, however, I couldn't actually pass turns of the thread around the "splice", as in a true serving. Instead, I tied it on in the form of a West Country whipping: Passing two ends in opposite directions around the stay, tying half of a reef-knot every time those cross (i.e. twice in each round turn) and finishing with a full reef knot (and a drop of CA).

 

First step is to pass the end of the stay through the hole in its attachment fitting, then catch the loop in the line with a couple of turns of the thread, with half reef knots at the crossings. While the friction is enough to hold things but not so much as to resist a gentle pull, settle everything into place and glue:

It does need to be under tension while the "service" is put on. Working at the kitchen table, I rigged everything up between salt and pepper mills:

That image also shows the completed serving (before the ends were snipped), though it is not in focus. That's the lower end of the forestay on its hook. I fastened the upper ends of the shrouds to their rigging plates in the same way. Then I passed one brass nail through the further end of one plate, through the mast and through the other plate, clipped the point and peened the end of the nail. Took two tries but I ended with the shrouds attached to the mast.

 

I cut the halliard to more than twice mast height (as the model sailor will need to drop the yard into the boat and still have hold of the other end of the halliard), then got it through the dumb sheave at the masthead (with difficulty, but it went in the end). And that (finally!) got me to the image that I posted last night.

 

Next challenge will be supporting the mast while measuring the lengths of the forestay and shrouds. But I need to solve that before reporting what I did.

 

Trevor

 

Edited 2 hours ago by Kenchington

[JacquesCousteau]

Very nice work!

 

The serving looks great. For serving at smaller scales (such as on the lobster smack), fly-tying thread works well.

[Kenchington]

24 minutes ago, JacquesCousteau said:

Very nice work!

Thank you, JacquesC!