- Joined
- Sep 23, 2021
- Messages
- 332
- Points
- 238
-
SUBSCRIBE TO SHIPS IN SCALE TODAY!
The beloved Ships in Scale Magazine is back and charting a new course for 2026!
Discover new skills, new techniques, and new inspirations in every issue.
NOTE THAT OUR NEXT ISSUE WILL BE MARCH/APRIL 2026 -
Win a Free Custom Engraved Brass Coin!!!
As a way to introduce our brass coins to the community, we will raffle off a free coin during the month of August. Follow link ABOVE for instructions for entering.
Cutty Sark, Vintage Billing Boats BB564, 1:75.
- Thread starter DomCee
- Start date
- Watchers 29
-
- Tags
- billing boats cutty sark
You also thanks, Dom. Who knows... maybe they'll do that with the Cutty Sark sometime too....
Regards, Peter
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2025
- Messages
- 11
- Points
- 48
I am in the process of building the same kit - with a few modifications. What I have found to be handy was to get the Campbell drawings scanned and rescaled to match the billings drawings (1.62% from memory). I have put up progress posts on this site
Good morning Dom Impressive work as always. Cheers Grant
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2021
- Messages
- 332
- Points
- 238
After I bought Campbell's plans I found out that the RMG will supply properly scaled prints to order. I'm at the stage that I am just going to soldier on with the standard prints and rely mostly on Longridge's descriptions of the rigging.
Good luck with your build, this kit has proved to be a real struggle for me, but the challenge was accepted at the start, so I knew what I was letting myself in for!
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2021
- Messages
- 332
- Points
- 238
Sadly, she will never see the sea again, they cut big holes in the hull and hoisted her up on steel beams and walled her in. There was a group that proposed to build a true replica Cutty Sark 2 a few years ago, but that came to nothing - too much £££/€€€, a pity.You also thanks, Dom. Who knows... maybe they'll do that with the Cutty Sark sometime too....
Regards, Peter
Dom
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2021
- Messages
- 332
- Points
- 238
Part 45 Fitting the 
s and Boats.
Too busy to spend time on the rigging, so not much to show his week. There were a few “housekeeping” items to finish off, mainly gluing things down that I had only temporarily fitted, tying the small boats on the top of the deck houses and fitting the anchors, so I got on with those tasks.
s: The Cutty Sark carried several types of anchors as required under Lloyd’s Rules: 3x Bowers (30 cwt. each), 1x Stream (12 cwt.) and 4x Kedges (2x 6 cwt. and 2x 3 cwt.). On the museum ship, the anchors are just chained on the outside and they have removed the anchor chains. At sea they would have been hoisted inboard and stored on the forecastle deck to prevent damage. For display purposes, I also placed the anchors under the Catheads (which is what most people do). There were a couple of anchors in the kit which I could have used, but they were the usual generic plastic ones and were not the correct scale size (and pretty rubbish), so I bought some metal replacements from Corel which were of a better quality and size and were nicely finished, so I didn’t even need to paint them.
30 cwt. Bower
I did find that the jibboom guys were a pain because they were in the way and I kept catching them, so simple solution, I cut them off! Not a big deal, I will reattach them later, I shouldn’t have fitted them so early anyway because there is some very fiddly work going to be needed when I fit the fore and jib stays and having them out of the way will give me better access. To provide a tying off point for the anchors I added some small eyelets and used lanyards rather than small chains to hold them in place. The only other thing needed was to blacken some chain and make a loop running to the hawses.
The Small Boats: Placing the boats was straight forward but I was in two minds about how they were mounted. I thought it was a shame to have the boats covered in canvas (as they would be) or turned over. Originally, there were only two lifeboats carried on the skids at the after deckhouse (which were placed upright on chocks), and a Gig, which was placed on batons upside down, on top of the forward deckhouse. Later, the lifeboats were moved outwards, the Gig placed upside down between them and a Jolly Boat was placed upright on chocks on top of the forward deckhouse. The photo also shows how the boats were tied down using chains and lanyards. I didn’t have any chain fine enough that would look in scale, so I used some of the tiny eyelets that I made for the jackstays to attach the lanyards to boat the gunwales, which worked well enough.
The Jolly Boat
Kevin at KTL sent me some chocks for the Jolly and Gig but in the end, I decided to turn the Gig over but leave the lifeboats and Jolly uncovered. The Gig is only tied down, so if I ever change my mind, it would be easy enough to flip over. I will make some small masts and wrap some sail material around them to go in the boats later.
Next up: Back to the rigging!
s and Boats.Too busy to spend time on the rigging, so not much to show his week. There were a few “housekeeping” items to finish off, mainly gluing things down that I had only temporarily fitted, tying the small boats on the top of the deck houses and fitting the anchors, so I got on with those tasks.
s: The Cutty Sark carried several types of anchors as required under Lloyd’s Rules: 3x Bowers (30 cwt. each), 1x Stream (12 cwt.) and 4x Kedges (2x 6 cwt. and 2x 3 cwt.). On the museum ship, the anchors are just chained on the outside and they have removed the anchor chains. At sea they would have been hoisted inboard and stored on the forecastle deck to prevent damage. For display purposes, I also placed the anchors under the Catheads (which is what most people do). There were a couple of anchors in the kit which I could have used, but they were the usual generic plastic ones and were not the correct scale size (and pretty rubbish), so I bought some metal replacements from Corel which were of a better quality and size and were nicely finished, so I didn’t even need to paint them.30 cwt. Bower
I did find that the jibboom guys were a pain because they were in the way and I kept catching them, so simple solution, I cut them off! Not a big deal, I will reattach them later, I shouldn’t have fitted them so early anyway because there is some very fiddly work going to be needed when I fit the fore and jib stays and having them out of the way will give me better access. To provide a tying off point for the anchors I added some small eyelets and used lanyards rather than small chains to hold them in place. The only other thing needed was to blacken some chain and make a loop running to the hawses.
The Small Boats: Placing the boats was straight forward but I was in two minds about how they were mounted. I thought it was a shame to have the boats covered in canvas (as they would be) or turned over. Originally, there were only two lifeboats carried on the skids at the after deckhouse (which were placed upright on chocks), and a Gig, which was placed on batons upside down, on top of the forward deckhouse. Later, the lifeboats were moved outwards, the Gig placed upside down between them and a Jolly Boat was placed upright on chocks on top of the forward deckhouse. The photo also shows how the boats were tied down using chains and lanyards. I didn’t have any chain fine enough that would look in scale, so I used some of the tiny eyelets that I made for the jackstays to attach the lanyards to boat the gunwales, which worked well enough.
The Jolly Boat
Kevin at KTL sent me some chocks for the Jolly and Gig but in the end, I decided to turn the Gig over but leave the lifeboats and Jolly uncovered. The Gig is only tied down, so if I ever change my mind, it would be easy enough to flip over. I will make some small masts and wrap some sail material around them to go in the boats later.
Next up: Back to the rigging!
A happy Sunday afternoon Dom. In my opinion you got the display of the open boats just right for the look and feel of your Cutty Sark. Lovely work as always. Cheers Grant.
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2021
- Messages
- 332
- Points
- 238
Part 46 Rigging Part 3. Fore Mast Standing Rigging.
It's stupid hot in the UK at the moment!
Rather than post in bits and pieces, I decided to finish all the standing rigging on the Fore and just post as one section (I will do the same for the Main and Mizzen), so this is rather a lengthy part.
Suffice to say, trying to decipher the rigging plans has been driving me bonkers! None of the plans agree, and the drawings that I have are rubbish!
To make sense of things, I have resorted to DOM-CAD to sketch out the standing rigging for each mast - a piece of white wallpaper, a ruler, a pencil and a good old-fashioned rubber start to make things a lot clearer! The running rigging will be much harder as there are many, many errors that I have already spotted where the runs, sizes of ropes and types of blocks are not consistent (I will have to delve deep into my references).
DOM-CAD to the rescue!
Order of Rigging the Fore Mast: Because it is extremely easy to pull the mast over with the Upper Fore and Back Stays, I started with the lower shrouds to stop any side-to-side pull, followed by the Back Stays working fore to aft and then bottom to top followed by the Fore Stays, again bottom to top. I gave the ropes just some very light tension as I rigged and did not lock anything. With all the stays in place I gradually fully tensioned everything, starting with the shrouds. To keep the mast from pulling over I tensioned the Cap Stays and then the Fore Top Stay first. I then repeated for each pair of Fore/Back Stays working up to the Royal. Needless-to-say, the plumb bob was rigorously checked at every stage. With everything tensioned I locked everything into place
Lower Shrouds: There are five pairs of shrouds on all the masts. The first shroud forward runs down the centre line of the mast, and the remaining shrouds are equally spaced aft. On the Cutty Sark all the lower deadeyes are placed on the inside of the bulwarks along the main rail which makes access very tight (invoking a few salty words!). I made up several sets of jigs to hold the deadeyes level so that I could set the shrouds & stays as two pairs per side at a time to avoid pulling the mast out of true. Campbell’s plans state that the gap between the lower and upper deadeyes on the shrouds and stays should be roughly 2ft (8mm at scale) and all the other deadeyes are laced at 3ft (12mm). Because there are two sizes of deadeyes (2.5 and 3.5 mm), I made up the jigs so that all the spacing of the deadeyes would be the same when pulled taught (but as you can see in the image it’s not an easy task to achieve). You can also see in the picture that the lanyards for the deadeyes are thicker for the heavier shrouds than on the upper. For the shrouds I went with 0.6mm rope and 0.35mm for the lanyards, ideally, they should be ~0.45mm, but I could not get the rope through the holes in the deadeyes and it’s too late to start drilling them out now! (note: in the picture you can see that each of the shrouds have fairleads attached which are for the leech, bunt and clew lines for the corresponding sails, starting at the lower course and working backwards up to the royals, this repeats for each mast and will help later when sorting out the running rigging).
Deadeyes for the Lower Fore Shrouds and Back Stays – Note the Triple and Double Blocks for the Lower and Upper Topsail Yard Halyards.
Before stepping the mast, I cut all the shrouds to the approx. length and seized them around the mast top. I decided to use a little bit of glue in the mast socket to prevent it turning rather than to rely on the rigging to hold the masts square. Fortunately, the effort I made placing the mast sockets at the start of the hull work has paid dividends at this stage. After I fitted the mast with a few drops of glue and then hung my plumb-bob to check, I found that it was perfectly plumb to the deck and the rake was spot on (not even a nudge needed) – well pleased - at least something went right!
I set the lower shrouds as two port and starboard pairs at a time starting forward and working aft, and with such tall masts, I was checking with my plumb bob (with utmost paranoia!) after pulling each pair taught before seizing the lines.
Setting the first pairs of shrouds before seizing
Rinse and repeat for the rest of the shrouds and then I laced them all to the same tension.
Back Stays: There are seven pairs to fit. The Back Stays are all attached to the mast using eye splices. I used 0.5mm for the Top Mast Back Stays (three pairs of), and 0.3mm for the Top Gallant Stays (two pairs of) and also for the Royal Back Stays (single pair). There is also a pair of Cap Stays which uses the same diameter rope (0.6mm) as the main shrouds. The Cap Stays are very awkward to place because the dead eyes are between the first and second Top Mast Back Stays. The smaller deadeyes used 0.25mm rope for the lanyards.
Fore Stays: There are six Fore Stays to deal with. The Fore Top Stay and the Fore Top Mast Stay are seized around the mast, all the other stays are attached to the mast with an eye splice. The thinnest wire is the Fore Royal, then the Flying Jib and Fore Top Gallant (which are the same size single wires) followed by the slightly heavier single Jib Stay wire. There was very little difference in scale size between the Fore Royal, Flying Jib and Fore Top Gallant so I opted to use 0.35mm rope for those and 0.45mm for the Jib Stay. The Fore Topmast and Fore Stays are double wires (the Fore being the heaviest), and I went with 0.5mm and 0.6mm ropes.
Arrangement of the Fore Stays: The Fore Royal, Flying Jib and Fore Top Gallant stays pass through sheaves in the Jibboom and are held in place by cleats on the Martingale and are then set up with two pairs of deadeyes and lanyards per side which are attached to the hull just under the name board. The Jib Stay passes over a roller on the jibboom rather than through a sheave. The upper stays are tied off so that they alternate starboard-port, starting with the Fore Royal.
The Fore Top Mast Stay is doubled so that it loops around the Top Mast head and is seized just in front of the Top Mast, in the middle and also just above the end of the bowsprit, the wires then split so that each pass-through rollers on the sides of the bowsprit and the ends are secured using deadeyes and lanyards attached to the front of the Knightheads on each side with an eye bolt.
The Fore Top Stay is seized just in front of the Top and then both wires run down to the back of the Knightheads and are seized around stout hearts and secured with lanyards (Note: Longridge says that the Fore Stays are also seized just above the Forecastle deck, but pictures show that is not the case). The bottom hearts are stropped to the Knightheads with iron bands.
I did make the mistake of not fitting the eyebolts under the name plate to attach the deadeyes to the hull earlier, which was “rather annoying” to say the least! It took a lot of bad language to strop the deadeyes in such a tight space without damaging anything. I used some brass wire bent around the deadeyes and glued them into holes under the name plate. In the end they looked fine, but it was an absolute pain fitting them and then lacing the lanyards.
Arrangement of the Stays on the Jibboom
Arrangement of the Stays on the Bowsprit and Martingale
Arrangement of the Stays at the Bow
Arrangement of the Fore Top Stays and Fish Pendant
Fish Tackle/Pendant: Technically running rigging, but the pendant was used bring the anchors on board. The pendant is looped around the Top Mast with an eye splice and shackled to a large triple/double block purchase with a hook at the end which was used to lift the anchor. When not in use, the Fishhook is tied to the pin rail at the Knightheads. The pendant uses a strong wire with heavy rope for the purchase to handle the weight of the anchors and chains, so I went with 0.5mm rope for the pendant and 0.45mm for the purchase.
All my ducks in a row
Bow sprit and jibboom
Tying off the Fore Shrouds at the Bow (that was hell!)
Fore Mast Standing Rigging complete
Next up: Main Mast standing rigging, and I will reinstate the jibboom guys (but I need the weather to cool off a bit before I do anything else!)
Note: I thought that I had made a reasonable estimate of the amount of rope I would need for all the rigging, but the Fore Mast used up a lot more rope than I thought (they are tall masts!), so I ordered some more from Ropes-of-Scale, and hopefully I will have enough so that I don’t run out when rigging the other masts (which would be annoying!). Any extra will end up being used on my next build anyway.
Last edited:
My great respect for this part of the rigging, Dom.
Part 46 Rigging Part 3. Fore Mast Standing Rigging.
It's stupid hot in the UK at the moment!
Rather than post in bits and pieces, I decided to finish all the standing rigging on the Fore and just post as one section (I will do the same for the Main and Mizzen), so this is rather a lengthy part.
Suffice to say, trying to decipher the rigging plans has been driving me bonkers! None of the plans agree, and the drawings that I have are rubbish!
To make sense of things, I have resorted to DOM-CAD to sketch out the standing rigging for each mast - a piece of white wallpaper, a ruler, a pencil and a good old-fashioned rubber start to make things a lot clearer! The running rigging will be much harder as there are many, many errors that I have already spotted where the runs, sizes of ropes and types of blocks are not consistent (I will have to delve deep into my references).
View attachment 614759
DOM-CAD to the rescue!
Order of Rigging the Fore Mast: Because it is extremely easy to pull the mast over with the Upper Fore and Back Stays, I started with the lower shrouds to stop any side-to-side pull, followed by the Back Stays working fore to aft and then bottom to top followed by the Fore Stays, again bottom to top. I gave the ropes just some very light tension as I rigged and did not lock anything. With all the stays in place I gradually fully tensioned everything, starting with the shrouds. To keep the mast from pulling over I tensioned the Cap Stays and then the Fore Top Stay first. I then repeated for each pair of Fore/Back Stays working up to the Royal. Needless-to-say, the plumb bob was rigorously checked at every stage. With everything tensioned I locked everything into place
Lower Shrouds: There are five pairs of shrouds on all the masts. The first shroud forward runs down the centre line of the mast, and the remaining shrouds are equally spaced aft. On the Cutty Sark all the lower deadeyes are placed on the inside of the bulwarks along the main rail which makes access very tight (invoking a few salty words!). I made up several sets of jigs to hold the deadeyes level so that I could set the shrouds & stays as two pairs per side at a time to avoid pulling the mast out of true. Campbell’s plans state that the gap between the lower and upper deadeyes on the shrouds and stays should be roughly 2ft (8mm at scale) and all the other deadeyes are laced at 3ft (12mm). Because there are two sizes of deadeyes (2.5 and 3.5 mm), I made up the jigs so that all the spacing of the deadeyes would be the same when pulled taught (but as you can see in the image it’s not an easy task to achieve). You can also see in the picture that the lanyards for the deadeyes are thicker for the heavier shrouds than on the upper. For the shrouds I went with 0.6mm rope and 0.35mm for the lanyards, ideally, they should be ~0.45mm, but I could not get the rope through the holes in the deadeyes and it’s too late to start drilling them out now! (note: in the picture you can see that each of the shrouds have fairleads attached which are for the leech, bunt and clew lines for the corresponding sails, starting at the lower course and working backwards up to the royals, this repeats for each mast and will help later when sorting out the running rigging).
View attachment 614760
Deadeyes for the Lower Fore Shrouds and Back Stays – Note the Triple and Double Blocks for the Lower and Upper Topsail Yard Halyards.
Before stepping the mast, I cut all the shrouds to the approx. length and seized them around the mast top. I decided to use a little bit of glue in the mast socket to prevent it turning rather than to rely on the rigging to hold the masts square. Fortunately, the effort I made placing the mast sockets at the start of the hull work has paid dividends at this stage. After I fitted the mast with a few drops of glue and then hung my plumb-bob to check, I found that it was perfectly plumb to the deck and the rake was spot on (not even a nudge needed) – well pleased - at least something went right!
I set the lower shrouds as two port and starboard pairs at a time starting forward and working aft, and with such tall masts, I was checking with my plumb bob (with utmost paranoia!) after pulling each pair taught before seizing the lines.
View attachment 614761
Setting the first pairs of shrouds before seizing
Rinse and repeat for the rest of the shrouds and then I laced them all to the same tension.
Back Stays: There are seven pairs to fit. The Back Stays are all attached to the mast using eye splices. I used 0.5mm for the Top Mast Back Stays (three pairs of), and 0.3mm for the Top Gallant Stays (two pairs of) and also for the Royal Back Stays (single pair). There is also a pair of Cap Stays which uses the same diameter rope (0.6mm) as the main shrouds. The Cap Stays are very awkward to place because the dead eyes are between the first and second Top Mast Back Stays. The smaller deadeyes used 0.25mm rope for the lanyards.
Fore Stays: There are six Fore Stays to deal with. The Fore Top Stay and the Fore Top Mast Stay are seized around the mast, all the other stays are attached to the mast with an eye splice. The thinnest wire is the Fore Royal, then the Flying Jib and Fore Top Gallant (which are the same size single wires) followed by the slightly heavier single Jib Stay wire. There was very little difference in scale size between the Fore Royal, Flying Jib and Fore Top Gallant so I opted to use 0.35mm rope for those and 0.45mm for the Jib Stay. The Fore Topmast and Fore Stays are double wires (the Fore being the heaviest), and I went with 0.5mm and 0.6mm ropes.
Arrangement of the Fore Stays: The Fore Royal, Flying Jib and Fore Top Gallant stays pass through sheaves in the Jibboom and are held in place by cleats on the Martingale and are then set up with two pairs of deadeyes and lanyards per side which are attached to the hull just under the name board. The Jib Stay passes over a roller on the jibboom rather than through a sheave. The upper stays are tied off so that they alternate starboard-port, starting with the Fore Royal.
The Fore Top Mast Stay is doubled so that it loops around the Top Mast head and is seized just in front of the Top Mast, in the middle and also just above the end of the bowsprit, the wires then split so that each pass-through rollers on the sides of the bowsprit and the ends are secured using deadeyes and lanyards attached to the front of the Knightheads on each side with an eye bolt.
The Fore Top Stay is seized just in front of the Top and then both wires run down to the back of the Knightheads and are seized around stout hearts and secured with lanyards (Note: Longridge says that the Fore Stays are also seized just above the Forecastle deck, but pictures show that is not the case). The bottom hearts are stropped to the Knightheads with iron bands.
I did make the mistake of not fitting the eyebolts under the name plate to attach the deadeyes to the hull earlier, which was “rather annoying” to say the least! It took a lot of bad language to strop the deadeyes in such a tight space without damaging anything. I used some brass wire bent around the deadeyes and glued them into holes under the name plate. In the end they looked fine, but it was an absolute pain fitting them and then lacing the lanyards.
View attachment 614803
Arrangement of the Stays on the Jibboom
View attachment 614804
Arrangement of the Stays on the Bowsprit and Martingale
View attachment 614805
Arrangement of the Stays at the Bow
View attachment 614802
Arrangement of the Fore Top Stays and Fish Pendant
Fish Tackle/Pendant: Technically running rigging, but the pendant was used bring the anchors on board. The pendant is looped around the Top Mast with an eye splice and shackled to a large triple/double block purchase with a hook at the end which was used to lift the anchor. When not in use, the Fishhook is tied to the pin rail at the Knightheads. The pendant uses a strong wire with heavy rope for the purchase to handle the weight of the anchors and chains, so I went with 0.5mm rope for the pendant and 0.45mm for the purchase.
View attachment 614807
All my ducks in a row
View attachment 614808
Bow sprit and jibboom
View attachment 614809
Tying off the Fore Shrouds at the Bow (that was hell!)
View attachment 614810
Fore Mast Standing Rigging complete
Next up: Main Mast standing rigging, and I will reinstate the jibboom guys (but I need the weather to cool off a bit before I do anything else!)
Note: I thought that I had made a reasonable estimate of the amount of rope I would need for all the rigging, but the Fore Mast used up a lot more rope than I thought (they are tall masts!), so I ordered some more from Ropes-of-Scale, and hopefully I will have enough so that I don’t run out when rigging the other masts (which would be annoying!). Any extra will end up being used on my next build anyway.
View attachment 614806
And with the DOM-CAD is nothing wrong. I suppose you use the same version as my PeVo-CAD. A very nice balance of ropes thicknesses. You are not the only one who underestimates the amount of rope you need. But the investment through R-o-S is paying off now. And: 'a hobby is allowed to cost money'.Regards, Peter
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2021
- Messages
- 332
- Points
- 238
It's the first time I have rigged with RoS thread and it is very nice to use. I thought I had made a good "guess" at the rope and added 20% for wastage, but just the back stays used 8 metres, and with so many deadeyes, I forget how much rope is needed to tie each one and that added up to nearly 6 metres just for those!My great respect for this part of the rigging, Dom.
Regards, Peter
Fortunately, RoS are very good, ordered some on Sunday, arrived yesterday!
No more rigging for a while, I don't have the luxury of aircon, and this was the temperature in my hobby room this afternoon!
