Hello everyone,
I finally got round to adding footropes to the mizzen crossjack yard (thanks again for pointing it out Jim!). This was fiddly enough with the other ropes already in place, so I wanted to do it before the other masts would get in the way.
I also added some more details on the fore and main masts:
- Blocks under the tops, and the sections of ropes in between them. The other sections of the bunt- and leachlines etc. will be added later, but is easiest to have these pieces already in place now.
- Collars with blocks or thimbles for topmast (preventer)stays of the mast behind.
- The section of the lower yards trusses that sits around the mast.
With that completed, both masts are ready for installation:
But at first, only the mainmast is glued in place! I will explain why later…
After installing the lower yard truss pendants, and the remains of the mizzen stay and preventer stay, I added the lower shrouds and ratlines:
These were basically made in the same way as the topmast shrouds and ratlines.
But for the deadeyes, I used castings of more detailed masters I had made a long time ago (
viewtopic.php?p=966513#p966513):
Masters for the shroud deadeyes (upper):
Masters for the chain deadeyes (lower):
As you can see, I had made holes for the lanyards in the deadeyes. I had also drilled these out on all the castings. And I succeeded in weaving lanyards through these like the real thing!
But in this scale, the result was simply looking too messy. So, I turned back to the same technique I used on the smaller topmast deadeyes: simply glue small sections of lanyard on them… Much cleaner result!
It now looks like this:
With the shrouds in place, the main and main preventer stays could follow.
Like those deadeyes, I had made masters for the hearts too (
viewtopic.php?p=966067#p966067):
So I wrapped and glued twisted copper wire around their resin castings, and shaped the upper end into collars, constantly test-fitting around the lower mast top. Then they were painted.
And fitted in place:
I had to do this twice. The first time, I had woven one-piece lanyards through the hearts, but this tightened the stays too much and left them without any sag (which is so visible on the real ship). So I had to go all Dafi on the lanyard and redo it…
The reason the stays needed to be fitted after the shrouds, is because their collars wrap around the top ends of the shrouds.
I build up mouses for the stays with layers of Gesso, before touching up the paintwork.
The second version of the lanyards are not in one piece, nor woven between the hearts. Instead, they are in fact a bunch of separate short pieces, each glued in between the hearts. I’ll try to illustrate this better with the fore stays…
Whatever the method, the lashing in between the hearts would have been more difficult to do with the foremast in place. That’s why I left it of the model until now.
But now, I finally glued the foremast in place:
I did this before adding the snaking between the stays, because the snaking is fragile and I had noticed that placing the foremast makes the stays move quite a bit around.
But now, the snaking was added:
This is not copper wire, as I wanted something stiffer. Stretched sprue would have worked well, but since I will probably bump into the stays sooner or later during further rigging, I wanted something stronger. So I opted for the very stiff and strong 0,06 mm metal rigging wire by Shelf Oddity. Great stuff!
This is the lower end (after also adding main topmast preventer stay fall and lower yard truss pendants):
And the upper end:
