Armed Virginia Sloop by GuntherMT - FINISHED - Model Shipways - scale 1:48

[GLakie]

Congrats on reaching this milestone Brian.   Those shrouds look splendid, and I like that jig you used for the dead-eyes. Clever!  

 

Cheers  

[antanasp]

All done very very vell! Wonderful! Only maybe the shrouds there are too small in diameter. Maybe...

I like Your approach to modeling, Brian. Good luck.
 

Regards, Antanas
 

[GuntherMT]

Thanks Chuck, George, and Antanas for your comments and thanks for all the likes everyone.

 

All done very very vell! Wonderful! Only maybe the shrouds there are too small in diameter. Maybe...

I like Your approach to modeling, Brian. Good luck.
 

Regards, Antanas
 

 

The plans and the alternative rigging schedule that is floating around for the model both call for .040 shrouds.  I'm using Syren rope which comes in .045 or .035 size.  My general feeling is that rigging is generally oversized on models, and when given a choice I will always downsize instead of upsize when presented with a choice like this, so I use .035 line for the shrouds.

 

So yes, they are 'smaller' than the plans call for, but I don't think my eyes could honestly tell the difference between .035 and .040, but if yours can, they are certainly sharper at picking out that detail than mine are.  I'm not sure if I envy you for that, or am glad I can't!

[xken]

Brian, you are safe with your choice; the average human eye can only distinguish down to .010" difference between objects. 

[NMBROOK]

Fabulous work Brian!!

 

Kind Regards

 

Nigel

[dgbot]

Brian what did you to serve them ?

David B

[GuntherMT]

Thanks for all the kind comments, and the likes.  Nigel has flooded my 'like box'.  Haha.. 

 

Brian what did you to serve them ?
David B

 

I'm not sure I understand your question David.  I have a photo of the Syren Serv-o-matic that I served the rope with, and the roll of thread that's on the machine in the photo is what I used.  What exactly did you want to know about it?  I'll be happy to answer anything that I can.

[dgbot]

The size of the seizing you used to serve the shroud, My mistake.

David B

[GuntherMT]

The size of the seizing you used to serve the shroud, My mistake.

David B

 

Ah, gotcha.  Way back when I was working on the Carmen I realized that I would need some thread for seizing, but didn't really know what I would need (other than black) in order to match the tan rigging line.  I was perusing thread on Amazon (my favorite store, I should really own a bunch of their stock), when I ran across this package of various 'earthy' colors of thread, so I bought it - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00I4EVA9O?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00

 

It no longer appears to be available, but the label on one of the un-opened colors says 100% long staple cotton satin finish thread  "Essential" from ConnectingThreads.com, Size 50, 1200 yards.  So yea, it appears to be size 50, and I have 1200 yards of it.  No danger of running out before I finish up!

[dgbot]

Thank you for the information. Great work.

David B

[GuntherMT]

With the shrouds attached to the dead-eyes, it was time to add the shroud cleats.  I hated the look of the kit brittania cast cleats, so I ordered some boxwood shroud cleats from Syren.  They look.. somewhat nicer than the cast ones.

 

Things have been going far to good for quite a while now, so troubles were bound to happen, and tonight.. was the night.

 

The starboard side is coming out great, all rigged up and set for final adjustments before I wrap the lanyard around the shroud and seize the end.

 

The trouble was on the port side.  Even though I measured both sides the same, and everything still measures the same relative to the chain plate locations, the ship is clearly not perfectly symmetrical, as this happened.

 

 

Stupid swivel gun post is interfering with one of the shrouds, and in a big way.

 

There is really nothing to do except deconstruct it, but man I'm afraid of this, those suckers are attached pretty firmly, and goodness knows how much damage I'm going to do getting it removed.  Oh well, it's got to be done, but I'm going to let it rest for the night and start fresh on it after work tomorrow I think.  Maybe I should import Dirk to help me  

 

Wish me luck!

 

 

[dgbot]

Your deadeyes look perfect, Well done,

David B

[mrangus]

Hey Brian, I'm going to use these pics for when I get to my shrouds and setting up the deadeyes. They look great... the closeups of the seizing on the shrouds is very helpful and gives me some ideas. One question - why are some lines served and others not?

[GLakie]

You've done a great job Brian , and it's just the angle of the shrouds messing with you.  I'm no authority, but if there's nothing else going on the top of that main rail, besides the swivel-gun, you might be able to save some work by only removing the offending dead-eye on each side and re-design the pivot's post by filing it back almost flush to the main rail on a slight angle, and extending the post out on top of the rail towards the center-line with a short piece of wood. The pivot-pin will still need to be moved inwards and mounted down through the rail, but it would solve the problem without removing all the dead-eyes.

[GuntherMT]

Looks like I am going to have the same problem ,so I was thinking that maybe should place the top row of deadeyes higher and avoiding all the hassle to damage/repair the ship.

 

 

It depends on the rake of your shrouds, remember that the top dead-eyes are not inline with the lower ones, they are at an angle.  When I placed my mounts, I tried to accommodate this by measuring the angle to the top of my fake mast, and placing the mount where I thought it would be between the upper dead-eyes, but I obviously 'missed' on this side.

 

 

Hey Brian, I'm going to use these pics for when I get to my shrouds and setting up the deadeyes. They look great... the closeups of the seizing on the shrouds is very helpful and gives me some ideas. One question - why are some lines served and others not?

 

The standing rigging on ships was served to protect them from chafing/wear in locations where they might rub against things.  So if a line was protected from being chafed (like the inner shrouds are by the outer shrouds) then they were not served.  The first and last shroud could be chafed by the sails, so they were served down to the dead-eye (and I should have served them all the way to the end, instead of stopping at the dead-eye and having the end of the seized shroud un-served, but I'm not going back and re-doing the shrouds to fix that).  The inner two shrouds were only served a bit below the mast top, as all of them are served where they wrap the mast-head and a bit below that.

 

You've done a great job Brian , and it's just the angle of the shrouds messing with you.  I'm no authority, but if there's nothing else going on the top of that main rail, besides the swivel-gun, you might be able to save some work by only removing the offending dead-eye on each side and re-design the pivot's post by filing it back almost flush to the main rail on a slight angle, and extending the post out on top of the rail towards the center-line with a short piece of wood. The pivot-pin will still need to be moved inwards and mounted down through the rail, but it would solve the problem without removing all the dead-eyes.

 

I have no intention of removing the dead-eyes or chain-plates George.  I plan to remove the lanyard from the interfering dead-eye (the lanyards are only secured with alligator clips right now) so that it's out of the way, and then remove the swivel gun pedestal.  If it removes cleanly, then I can simply clean up the paint slightly further back to re-secure it, and then do some sanding and repaint the area, as that will be the simplest fix.  If I destroy the pedestal, it can be re-made relatively easily.  The big danger is damage to the cap-rail, planking, or channel in the process of removing the pedestal.  Hopefully I can avoid that.

[GLakie]

Sounds like a good plan Brian! 

[GuntherMT]

Repairs went far better than I could have expected.

 

 

Lanyards on the port side are completed.

 

Starboard side will be another day.

[GLakie]

Nice fix Brian. It seems like that was one of those rare occasions where perfect symmetry actually worked against you.

[thomaslambo]

Brian,

 

Simply magnificent work on the shrouds and dead-eyes....it's a pleasure to follow your log 

[mrangus]

I've learned a lot just from looking at the close-ups of the lanyards Brian. That is going to help me considerably when I get there.... Looks great.

[GuntherMT]

Thank you all!

 

I've learned a lot just from looking at the close-ups of the lanyards Brian. That is going to help me considerably when I get there.... Looks great.

 

The lanyards are not done correctly, so be careful using them as a direct example!  The proper way to do it is for the lanyard to go between the shroud and the deadeye as it comes up, then circle around from the front to the back where it goes under itself where it enters the gap between the shroud and deadeye, and then twist around the shroud and get seized at the end.

 

I didn't leave enough gap between the shroud and deadeye on all of my shrouds, so rather than make some of them right, and some of them wrong, I did them all wrong for consistency.

 

Here is what I mean - 

 

The red line is the lanyard coming up behind the deadeye from the bottom deadeye.  As you can see it passes from back to front between the eye-seizing and the deadeye, and then loops back around under itself.  That's what my goal was, but since I got the gap too small on some of the deadeyes, I couldn't do it that way, so mine loop under themselves next to the shroud instead.

 

[HIPEXEC]

Great deadeyes!

[dgbot]

Nice recovery.

David B

[GuntherMT]

Tonight's update is for two different things.

 

1) Finished the starboard lanyards, and took some pictures.  I included one of the now completed swivel guns, just because I like it!

 

 

Shrouds are now complete (I think), with the obvious exception of the ratlines.

 

2) Part two of this update I blame completely on Dirk.  

 

The bowsprit is now attached to the ship (not the jib boom).

 

The base (foot?) strap is made of 5 pieces of brass soldered together, and 4 tiny little brass rivets that actually do pin into the bowsprit and the deck.

 

 

The cast gannon strap that came with the kit was somehow lost by me some time back, but instead of asking for a replacement from MS, I just made a new one out of brass, and attached it with 4 more tiny little rivets.

 

Pretty happy with both of these items, and the rivets should make them quite secure, even if they aren't correct for the model (I have no idea if they used big bolts to secure this sort of things in the time-frame of this ship - 1768).

[UpstateNY]

HI Brian,

 

Love those shots of the shrouds with the swivel gun, deadeyes and shroud cleats all completed! Looks great and your bowsprit straps are amazingly precise. Great work..really enjoying watching your AVS come together.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

 

Edit. By the way, all your recent serving work adds so much to the realism in your build...looks like I'll also be ordering a Servomatic soon as well!

Edited August 20, 2015 by UpstateNY

[GLakie]

Nice work Brian. The swivel looks great setting between the shrouds. And the precision of the bowsprit foot and strap, are outstanding. Very nice. Are you saying Dirk's a bad influence? 

[rafine]

Really great looking work Brian. The fix was perfect and well worth the effort, given the final result.

 

Bob

[riverboat]

just catching up on your build..... she's looking really nice..... your rigging work is excellent , I wish I could get mine to look as good .

nice fix too!!

 

frank

[GuntherMT]

Catch up time!  Several days since the last update, so a fair number of pictures for not a huge amount of progress.  But hey, progress is progress!

 

I'm getting to learn how to do new things on almost every line now.  

 

First up, The Bobstay.  The end of the Bobstay is attached with a collar arrangement that is two eye-splices with a bullseye in the middle.  The eye-splices wrap around the bowsprit, but don't meet up, they are lashed together around the bowsprit with rope.   Another bullseye is on the end of the Bobstay and the two bullseyes are lashed together with a lanyard.

 

The last picture shows a bit of the foot-ropes.  I'm working on getting these to hang naturally by soaking the rope in 50/50 white glue & water mixture, then clipping little alligator clips to them for weight and letting it dry.  It's sort of working but it's got a ways to go.

 

The next piece of rigging is the thickest rope on the entire ship except for the anchor cables, the forestay.   I made the mouse by sticking a small dowel in the lathe and drilling a hole through the dowel just large enough for the forestay to fit into, and then shaping the mouse with a file and cutting it off (saw this method in a post here on MSW!)  I then glued the little wooden mouse to the rope, painted it brown so it wouldn't show the light wood through if I left any gaps, and then served the forestay right over the wooden mouse.  It came out pretty good.

 

The bottom end of the forestay is attached to the bowsprit by the means of two hearts.  One heart is attached to the bowsprit with a lashed setup just like the end of the bobstay, and the other heart is wrapped by the forestay and seized.  Then a rope goes back and forth between the hearts, gets tightened up, and seized to itself.  The kit provided hearts are terrible, so I replaced them, just like so many other things on this build, with 7mm closed hearts from Syren.

 

The eye-splice on the end of the forestay.

 

The top of the forestay showing how the mouse and eye-splice work to fix the rope in place.

 

The kit hearts are the ugly charred things on top.  The new hearts are on the bottom.

 

The top of the forestay wrapped around the top of the main mast.

 

The bottom end showing the heart lashed to the bowsprit and the rope between with the three seizings where it's tied off to itself.  Those seizings sucked.

 

And the 'big picture'.

[GLakie]

Nice work on the bobstay and forestay Brian. Not exactly easy steps there, and your making good progress.