Yacht Mary by catopower - Mamoli Dusek - 1:54 - An Inherited Model

[catopower]

Gregory,

 

I just used them right out of the bag. There is some color variation between batches of blocks. But, not enough to worry about. I'm very happy with the deadeyes.

 

Also, the 3D printed stuff seems pretty sturdy. I've had wooden blocks split when trying to wire strop them. But, not the 3D printed blocks.

[catopower]

Patrick, please tell Felix that Sebastian says 'hi'.

 

[catopower]

The next issue on the Mary is to fix the positioning of these fittings that work like cleats or kevels. Does anybody know the proper term for these Dutch belaying points?

These fittings were mounted so low on the bulwarks that there was no room to wrap lines around them. I had to debond the glue that was used on them, which was some kind of rubbery adhesive. It made them easy to remove, but left a lot of rubbery glue spots and some hard to remove residue on the model. I did what I could and re-attached the fittings with thick CA glue.

 

This allowed me to finally rig the lines for hauling up the lee boards. Rope coils to come later.

Looking ahead at rigging the vangs, I noted that an image of the Utrecht reconstruction showed small pin rails at the bulwarks, aft. So, I added those to the Mary. I didn't have a whole lot of room to do this, as the forward wall of the stern cabin is about an 1/8" further forward than the plans show. This was an adjustment made by the original modeler. Made the spacing a little tighter, but I think the new pin rails should be okay.

 

Edited April 5 by catopower

[catopower]

I FINALLY made some progress on setting up the shrouds on the Mary. I find this to be a lot of work and am usually much happier when I get to the part where I can just mindlessly tie clove hitches for the ratlines.

 

Took me quite a while to be happy with the work I was doing, first seizing the shrouds around the mast head, then adding the deadeyes, and then seizing them into place. This was a good project for easing back into this process, since there are only four shroud pairs total.

 

Note that the shroud lanyards are not yet secured, since the setup is only temporary, to make sure everything lines up okay. The slight variation in the line of upper deadeyes should mostly go away when I secure the lanyards. They're still loose enough to cause that bit of variation.

 

This is also kind of a practice run for rigging the shrouds on my HMS Wolf card model, which is currently on hold, but I'll be getting back to shortly.

 

All the rigging here is Syren's Ultra Scale Rope, and the deadeyes are also Syren's 3D printed swiss pear colored resin deadeyes. It's been a while since I made my own chain plates of this type, and stropped deadeyes with them. I had to handle and work the parts a lot to adjust the fit, which is why so much of the blackening has worn off the deadeye strops. I'll get back to working on my technique in future builds.

 

While I was working on the model, I also decided to secure the anchors and run the hawsers around the windlass and down the chain pipes. The cat heads were made by my predecessor and had only one sheave, so I had to get a little creative with the rigging of the tackle. I think it works okay.

The more I work on the model, and the closer it gets to completion, the more that rudder gap bugs me. I'm getting closer to the point where I'll probably just cut off the hinges, and pin the rudder into place.

 

I hope to have the model done by the next meeting of the South Bay Model Shipwrights in Santa Clara. We had our most recent meeting this past Saturday. This month's was a small gathering, but we meet in a rather small meeting room anyway, so it wasn't crowded. I didn't really make that much progress on the model since the last meeting, so I decided to leave it at home and bring something that would hopefully inspire me to get back to.

 

Below, you can see my 1/72 HMS Wolf model, sitting in front of a 1/72 Master Korabel kit of the Russian tender Avos. There's also a 1/72 Disar kit of l'Hermione, the French 32-gun Condorde-class frigate. And in the second photo is a USS Constitution cross section, and the Spanish treasure ship, Nuestra Seniora del Pilar de Zaragoza.

 

Anyway, next, I will need to come to a decision on the rigging of the Mary's cannons. There are only 6 or 8 guns depending on what information source you use, so it shouldn't be TOO bad. But, I've been having such a hard time working with the small blocks needed to rig the gun tackles. Wish me luck...

 

 

[catopower]

Okay, I broke down and started rigging the gun tackles on the Mary's cannons. The way I'm building her, she'll only need six guns. And, given that at this scale, they're not too tiny, that's about as easy a rigging job as there could be. It's not going to get any easier in the future, and perhaps this will help me decide if and how I can rig the guns on my smaller HMS Wolf model.

 

First, in order to mount the guns securely, I've been pinning them to the deck. In this case, a sewing pin cut off and inserted into a hole I drilled into the bottom of the gun carriage. Don't ask me why I chose sewing pins and not just some brass rod. The pins are a hard steel and hard to cut. 

I tested out each gun in position, to locate where I need to drill a hole in the deck. Note that they don't line up quite right, but that's because the locations of the gunport in the hull are off slightly. But, that's the way it was built, and it's not actually very obvious.

Then, test fitting each one. This particular gun gave me the most trouble. I don't think the carriage is quite square.

I'll probably shorten the pins a little. Some are longer than they need to be. They seem pretty well hidden underneath those carriages, and then definitely keep the guns solidly in place.

 

Now, I'm in the process of rigging the gun tackles. I'm using Chuck's 3/32" 3D printed blocks. To be safe, I drilled out the holes with a #78 bit, which worked well, and allows me to pass a his .008" Ultra rope through it pretty easily. I decided to do a simplified job of it, using no hooks, just tying the strop through the eyebolts.  

 

I don't have a photo of them, but I have double-blocks stropped through eyebolts that will be attached to the bulwarks. Oh, and I realize that this particular gun is missing the trunnion caps. That's because it was one of two "spares" I decided not to use. Then, during the rigging process, one of the eyebolts got stuck and broke off. So, I just put one of these spares back into service. It'll get it's trunnion caps shortly.

 

My work schedule changed today, and I think I may actually have enough spare time today and tonight to complete these! 🤞

[catopower]

A minor update, but fairly significant for the model. 

 

Today, I got sick of the enormous gap between the sternpost and rudder and I clipped off the pintles and just pinned the rudder into place. I think it makes the model look a whole lot better!

 

Yes, it's not perfect, and you can see one of the pins if you look closely. But, I'm not striving for perfection here. I'm just going for a better appearance, and I think this works.

 

Now, I can move on to other things, as this is the last item that just bugged me!

[Baker]

bug professionally removed 😉
indeed much better.

[Jim Lad]

I agree - a vast improvement.

 

John

[catopower]

Thanks Patrick, John! I'm much happier with the appearance now. De-bugged, indeed!

 

Meanwhile, since I was in the process of trying out the gun tackles, I went ahead and just rigged them all. Was a bit of a challenge with only a small amount of cursing.

 

During the process of making the gun tackles, I'd managed to lose a couple blocks to the rug monster. Later, I decided to hunt around for scattered debris. Interestingly enough, I not only found the blocks I'd lost, but two other, larger blocks, that I didn't recall losing. And then, most important of all, the yellow item on the right side of the photo below.

That's one of two sweep port lids, from my as yet unfinished HMS Wolf model, that I didn't realize I'd lost! 🤣  It's now safely in storage for when I return to work on that model. Hopefully, that will be sometime late next month.

 

 

 

[druxey]

Glad to see that you snugged up the rudder, Clare!

[catopower]

Thanks Druxey. Nothing like a snugged up rudder. It's so nice to look at the model and not be instantly drawn to that huge gap!

 

Well, I'm turning my attention to the rigging now. I've already simplified the rigging of the topsail and spreader yard, based on the great photos and paintings people have contributed. Now, I'm looking at the rigging of the gaff and mainsail. 

 

Below is from the Mamoli kit drawings. My plan is to make some small modifications based on the photos of the Utrecht replica. Special thanks to Gregory and Patrick(Baker) for the painting and Utrecht images. 

 

1. I'm going to replace this block(Fiddle block?) with a single sheave block attached at the gaff.

2. This brail block will be moved down the gaff slightly.

3. This brail block will be move down and replaced with a double block, so the brail from block 2 will pass through and down to the deck.

4. No need for this extra block, since block 3 will have a pretty clear path down to the belaying points at the deck.

Something else I noticed about the Utrecht replica and wondering about this on the Mary, is the lack of ratlines on the shrouds. It's been my plan to rattle down the shrouds. But, there's really no need for anyone to climb up the mast, except maybe a lookout. In the following excerpt from Ab Hoving's new book "Dutch 17th Century Ship Models in Paper", he shows another state yacht with no ratlines. Since this is essentially what the Mary was, would it have been without ratlines? Or, being a ship of the British Royal Navy, would they have added ratlines?

 

I'm not quite at the stage where I have to worry about the ratlines, but we're getting very close. Any thoughts?

 

Oh, and in the meantime, I decided to practice working with my laser cutter to make the 5-hole deadeye for the mainstay. I think this one is large enough, but I made parts for a slightly larger one. I guess I'll go ahead and make that one and see which looks better.

 

 

 

 

 

[catopower]

Didn't get any feedback on my questions from my last post, but I'm moving on now.

 

Looking at the flags in this Mamoli/Dusek kit. They appear to be printed nylon. They're not really dissimilar from the flags in the Woody Joe Charles Royal Yacht kit, but those flags could be shaped quite nicely. These don't seem to hold my attempts at shaping.

 

 

I've found what I think is appropriate artwork on the Internet, so I'm considering printing the flags on my color inkjet printer. I think I want to print both sides of the flag and fold over and glue. I'm considering trying to print on silkspan if I can get that to work. Any suggestions on how to do that successfully? 

 

I just don't want them to be look too thick. I just noticed that the first flag is truncated slightly on the left side. I think I can fix that without too much trouble.

 

 

Alternatively, anyone know of a source for the needed flags?

 

 

[Baker]

I printed my flags on tissue paper 

Link is post 704, starts at post 700

 

 

[catopower]

Hi Patrick, thanks for the link! That's exactly what I've been thinking of doing. I hope I can get my flags to look as nice as yours!

Edited May 2 by catopower

[catopower]

Made my first attempt at printing flags on tissue paper and couldn't get the paper to not jam up in the printer ☹️

 

I was able to print on regular paper and thought about folding them over, but I know how thick that ends up. Decided to see how good the alignment consistency is on my printer. Turns out, if I'm careful and have the images perfectly centered, I can print one side, flip the paper over, and print on the other, and it's pretty darned close.

 

I have three usable flags done this way now, and just the pendant left. I don't have any artwork for that flag, so I'll have to draw it up from scratch. Pretty basic, so it shouldn't take that long to do.

 

I only folded the flag above. I didn't try to wet it at all. I'm not sure of the colorfastness of this ink. I'm using some cheap third-party ink, so I think I have to spray this with something to keep the colors from running. But, I'm not sure if that's just going to make the whole flag itself waterproof, and prevent me from using water to shape it. It probably doesn't matter, as I think the flags will shape nicely, even without wetting them.

 

 

The one thing I forgot about is the white edge of the paper. It's just like paper modeling, one needs to color the edge to take off the bright white color. 

 

Note that I tried to give the above flag some texture, but I made it a bit too wrinkly. I'll keep that in mind for the final flags.

 

 

[Gregory]

What is your technique for getting the folds?

 

When you tried with the tissue paper, did you tape it to a plain piece of paper.  I have had pretty good success doing that.

 

 

[catopower]

Hi Gregory, for the folds, it's hard for me to describe. It's basically a matter of holding the mounting edge tight, while pulling down on the top edge of the flag.

 

I start closest to the mounting edge. I guess the trick is to fold back and forth, just keeping in mind how gravity keeps pulling down on it, while the wind is trying to push out on it. Because it's plain paper, it keeps its shape pretty well. I haven't decided yet just how windy the conditions are for the ship!

 

On the tissue paper, yes, I taped it to a plain sheet. Did that a couple times. The way my printer, a Canon IX6820, feeds, it doesn't feed it evenly, and I end up with a crumpled mess. I might try again in the future, but for now I'm pretty happy the way the single-thickness plain paper is turning out.

 

 

[Baker]

Maybe this will work.
print the flags on regular paper first
apply glue (pritt) around the area of the printed flags.
and certainly up to the edge of your tissue paper.
let it dry well.
print.

and cross your fingers 😉

 

I did mine on the (expensive) laser printer at work.

After retiring, this is the only thing I miss now...

[catopower]

Flag work aside, and with all the main detail work done, I finally made some progress on rigging. 

 

[catopower]

Forward, Back, Cha Cha Cha...

 

That's the kind of dance it's been the past couple days on this project.

 

I made the standing portion of the vangs. Are these pendants? Anyway, made all four of them with 8mm fiddle blocks stropped in their ends. Then, I realized that I didn't rig them with beckets. Had to redo all four... 😖

 

Today, I fixed the issue, cut away the temporary line I had in place of the vangs, and rigged the vangs. All looks good. They're not permanently in place, since I may have to remove the gaff when I rig the sails.

 

During this last step, the stropping of one of the double blocks (the very last one I was working with, of course) gave way, so I had to remove the eyebolt for that block. It didn't want to come out, but finally did. I destroyed the eyebolt in the process, so had to replace it and re-strop the block to it before finishing up... three-four... cha cha cha...

 

Now, I'm all set to get to work on the sails. They're basically cut and ready to finish up. More on that next time.

[catopower]

The shrouds are now "rattled down". I didn't get too fancy and just did my usual clove hitches all the way across. It's the way I've always rigged the shrouds, but in the future, I think I will try using cow hitches at the ends as someone suggested. I can see where this could actually make the ratlines easier to do, as well as make them more secure. It's not easy to trim those end knots and for them to stay secure. So, I gave them a strong dose of PVA to hold them.

 

Not perfect, but it's done! I redid a few of the ratlines where I needed to do some adjustments and had a few knot failures. But, it's all secure now. Also, the photo is before I added one more ratline at the bottom end.

 

By the way, for the fun of it, I decided to record myself tying ratlines, and I posted the video on Facebook and Youtube. Nothing fancy, just video...

 

 

 

 

But now, I'm dealing with the sails. My sails usually turn out fine, but I'm never happy with the process.

 

I've done other sails on other models and used fabric stiffners and glued all the tablings and reinforcements, and I'm very happy with how those turned out. In the future, I'll be trying out making silkspan sails. But for this model at this scale, I wanted to follow a more "traditional" process, where I sew all the tablings, and that's slowed me down a lot, mostly because I'm thinking about things too much.

The first sail completed with a glued-on boltrope is the topsail. Folding over the fabric at the foot was sure a pain. I wasn't able to do a double fold, so it's not as sharp on the back side as I'd like. And, oops, somehow I managed not to take a photo of that side... 😬 

The main issue I have is, of course, the mainsail. I'm not done with it yet, and thinking maybe I'll just get the jib and staysail done first, since they're pretty straight forward. But, here's the first issue with the mainsail...

I've constructed my model with higher peak, so I can't use the kit pattern as is. I cut a new pattern with the added area highlighted in red, above.

 

Now, I guess I'd better be off to start working on these remaining sails. Still not sure about the bonnet and reef points, so maybe I will just start with those head sails...

 

 

Edited May 25 by catopower

[catopower]

On 5/3/2025 at 11:44 PM, Baker said:

Maybe this will work.
print the flags on regular paper first
apply glue (pritt) around the area of the printed flags.
and certainly up to the edge of your tissue paper.
let it dry well.
print.

and cross your fingers 😉

 

I did mine on the (expensive) laser printer at work.

After retiring, this is the only thing I miss now...

Baker, sorry I didn't reply to your flag printing suggestion before. I think I'm happy enough with the double-sided, plain paper flags, but I may give your idea a try, just to see how it works out. And maybe it will be useful in a future build. Thanks!

Edited May 26 by catopower

[catopower]

After making the head sails and the topsail, I can honestly say that I hate how these are turning out.

 

I can sew just fine, but the tablings are too bulky, and they're ruining the appearance of the whole thing. It's hard to get the corners done nicely, and all. I think I'm going back to making the sails in the way that I can do best, which is making them almost the same way others make paper sails. I think the process will also go much faster, which is a good thing, because I'm getting tired of remaking sails. 

 

The topsail isn't great, but it's actually okay. Still, if I'm going to change the way I make one sail, I have to change them all. 

 

I'd just love to be able to move on. Unfortunately, I probably won't have time to do much until closer to the weekend. But, on the positive side, there are only four sails to make, so we'll see.

[catopower]

Not much to actually report, except that I've been trying to get these sails done for a couple weeks, and since I switched my sail making technique, I managed to make good progress over two days.

 

I probably mentioned this before, but I'm using unbleached cotton muslin. This was hand washed and then treated with a fabric stabilizer called Terial Magic. This has to soak in for 15 minutes, wrung out, then the material is ironed. The resultant material acts like paper. The stabilizer can be left in or washed out later.

 

 

Topsail and head sails were initially sewn and cut to shape. 

 

I cut some strips of fabric and sprayed them with Fray Stop, which is like the fabric stabilizer, but it doesn't wash out. It smells a lot like lacquer(!). I'm doing this, because I think I'm going to wash the Terial Magic out of the sails later (maybe), and I'm a little concerned that later the edges of these strips might start to fray.

I'm gluing the strips using Aleene's Fabric Fusion, which is a clear, permanent fabric glue. I've never used it before. It's possible that my using the Fray Stop may keep the fabric glue from sticking as well. Not really sure about that. I didn't really consider that when I cut and sprayed those strips. We'll just have to see how it goes.

I glued the strips into place using Aleene's Fabric Fusion. I'm showing a rotary cutter in the photo below, but I actually ended up using a scalpel with a fresh blade for more of the cutting. The rotary cutter might have worked better if the blade was newer. It was fine really, but the fresh scalpel blade was better.

That curved edge of the topsail was the biggest challenge. I matched the cure as best I could in a larger piece of cloth, then glued the whole cloth to the sail. I then just cut the excess away.

All tablings glued into place. I considered just leaving the sails in this state, but I wanted to show stitching of the tablings. I also thought that the tablings might hold up better if I end up washing them after I sew them.

 

Finally, here are the first three sails. Just the mainsail to go. The tablings are all secured with one line of machine stitching. That part turned out okay, certainly a lot better than my earlier attempt. I still need to add the bolt ropes. I'm not too worried about that part. I'm just gluing them into place. But, I'll probably add the bolt ropes to these three sails before I make the last sail.

 

 

Edited May 31 by catopower

[Ab Hoving]

On 5/2/2025 at 5:56 AM, catopower said:

Didn't get any feedback on my questions from my last post, but I'm moving on now.

sorry for not replying your question. I just stumbled into this thread.

It is correct that if there is no need to climb the mast, ratlines were omitted. On the other hand, I have seen lots of statenjacht models having them. I think that is a misconception, caused by the English yachts. For some unclear reason the English used lifts, sheets  and braces for their topsail. In Holland the tradition was that the topsail was carried 'flying', which means that it was hauled on deck if not in use. The lower corners of the sail carried blocks, through which ropes ran, attached to the tips of the lower yard. They served as braces and sheets at the same time. Lifts were not necessary. The lower yard was carried by the topsail. If it was not in use, the yard was stowed upright against the mast, carried by a pendant, long enough to bring the lower tip of the yard within reach from the deck.

Thus ratlines were not necessary.

But of course it's your choice to apply them.

Edited May 31 by Ab Hoving

[catopower]

Thank you for the comments, Ab!

 

While the Mary was Dutch built, I assume it ended up operated by English sailors, with an English captain. So, I wonder if some changes were made to her at some point to accommodate English practices. I have considered both rig possibilities, but I'm too chicken to declare the rig to be one way or the other, so my model will end up somewhere in between. Probably, this will cause it to have a rig that was never correct. But, at least I'm learning (I think).

 

 

[druxey]

Another time, you might want to consider using SilkSpan....

[catopower]

Hi Druxey, I'm actually figuring on trying that on my HMS Wolf build, which I want to get back to soon. I want to try some furled sails and figure it will also be easier to do with silkspan. Also, the smaller scale of that model really calls for it (1/72).

 

For the Mary, in part, I wanted to build it the way I think the original builder would have done, though I have no actual evidence that he would have even added sails or what type. It's just more of a judgement from the "feel" of his building style.

 

Even the way I'm making the sails now doesn't seem quite right for his model. But, I needed to satisfy myself too. These cloth sails are somewhere in between. 

[catopower]

Slow going, but still progressing. I had to deal with jury duty this week, plus trying to deal with some work related bureaucratic junk. But, the worst thing was losing another ship modeling friend, just about three weeks ago. Just saw the guys two days before he died at a local ship model meeting. His name was Ken Lum, an NRG member. He was a great guy at the meetings. Hadn't built a ship model in, I don't know, 20 years or more. But, he was always very up to date on the ship modeling hobby news, and knew something about EVERYTHING, so he was always a big part of any historical or ship model discussion. I'll miss him very much for quite some time I think.

 

As for the yacht Mary, work continues. I finally finished making the sails, including the bonnet on the mainsail. Some blocks have been added, bowlines, etc. Sewing machine is now put away, and I'm ready to rig.

 

I've got some sheet blocks to add to the staysail and the mainsail, then I'll bend the mainsail. 

 

In the meantime, one thing confuses me a bit. I know the Mamoli/Dusek plans call for parrals to be added to the main gaff jaws, but I don't see any on the photos of the Utrecht replica that Baker posted (post #17), nor do I see any on Ab Hoving's English royal yacht model. Is this something the Dutch didn't bother with on such a small vessel? Like omitting ratlines as they were unnecessary?

 

And, before I add the sails, I'm now thinking again about reef points. The Utrecht replica has them on the mainsail. But, as Druxey pointed out, they don't seem to appear in paintings of the period. I'll give it some more thought, but still leaning towards leaving them off.

 

[druxey]

Bonnets were used instead of reef points, Claire. Neat work on those sails.

 

I'm so sorry about the loss of your friend Ken.