Part 29: Under the Weather - Making the Jibboom - Now I Have to Watch it!
I wasn’t able to do much this last couple of weeks after picking up one of the Winter viruses that are going around the UK at the moment………. I have learnt to leave well alone when feeling bad, you only end up going backwards - very fast!
I am still aiming to get the hull work finished before the Spring weather arrives in the UK so, with my batteries still recharging I have just been pottering about in the shipyard with a few smaller jobs.
I started with the fairleads at the bow and the stern. I didn’t have the correct single bollard type for the bow but I found some etched brass ones on-line which were OK for the job. The stern ones are just the standard chock style and I used the ones in the kit. With that fairly simple job done I marked out where the rigging blocks on the deck and main rails need to go whilst I still have good access and I will fit them next. After that I was not sure which job needed to be done so after consulting the plans and looking through Longridge, I decided that I needed to sort out the jibboom and the martingale before going any further.
The Jibboom: The jibboom requires quite a bit of rigging to hold it in place as well as a number of fittings on the hull for the jib stays as can be seen in the images. The kit only comes with the bowsprit cap, a piece of 2mm rod for the martingale and a small strap for the lower clamp. Checking my photographs and the plans, the boom also needs two shackles (which were not included in the kit) for the martingale chain stays and the jibboom guys. The martingale back braces come up to the catheads where they are secured using lanyards with bullseyes and the jibboom guys are held in place with the whiskers protruding from the catheads and are then secured to the bulwarks just behind the anchor plates. There are also the bowsprit chain guys that are fixed to the cap and come back to some eyelets under the name plate and are fixed with lanyards. The other main piece of rigging is the chain bobstay which is attached to the bowsprit behind the cap with lanyards and to a shackle on the bow running through a short stand-off to keep the chain away from the figurehead. There were a few other fixings that I had also missed like the eyelets on the top of the rails which are for the hand ropes which go to the eyelets on top of the bowsprit cap.
Details of the bowsprit cap/martingale and the jibboom
Once I cleaned up the boom I made the shackles from some brass tube and fitted the eyes for the chain stays. The boom itself sits against a wooden board (often missed in many models) to support it at the Knight's head and the base of the boom is angled to fit against that. Interestingly, the base of the jibboom is square from the knight's head up to the clamp and there is a steel sheath beneath the bowsprit but again, very few models I have seen have that detail and, since I also missed it, neither has mine! I cut down a brass rail stanchion to use as the stand off for the chain bobstay and an eyebolt for the anchor point and I will use a long link to attach the chain to it.
Martingale: The martingale in the kit was 2mm which I thought was out of scale so I made a new one from a 1.5mm rod. The martingale has some clips for the jib stays and a bracket for the chain stays. I decided not to make the bracket (too fiddly for me) so I drilled some holes through the rod and used some 0.5mm brass rod and bent the ends over a 0.7mm drill bit to make some hooks to attach the guys and chains to - I think that will serve perfectly well. The end of the martingale also has a short spike on the end so I cut down a brass belaying pin and soldered that on - good enough. After a trial fit I decided that the lower clamp strap needed to be a bit more robust so I made a new fitting by soldering some brass tubes together like the cap - it’s not correct but I think I prefer to give the boom some more support (for when I catch it!) and it also helps to keep everything properly aligned.
I varnished the middle section of the jibboom with light mahogany and painted the bottom and the tip in gloss white. I have temporarily fitted the jibboom while I finish off Nannie because she will need to be attached before I can fit the stay chains, guys and and bob stay. I also need to make the whiskers for the catheads.
Rigging - making a start on planning: While I was not building I decided to gather my thoughts on how to go about the rigging.
My first thoughts, after looking at the rigging and sail plans, was……. to make a run for it! However, when faced with such a daunting amount of work the best thing to do is…. START!
The big decision to make is which rigging thread to use? I have tried a variety of “standard” threads that come with kits and some are better than others but, to do the job properly, I have decided to go with the polyester ropes supplied by Ropes of Scale. In actual fact, all of the standing rigging on the Cutty Sark is steel cable so for me the polyester seems quite suitable for the Cutty Sark. For the standing rigging I will go for black and use light beige for the running rigging. According to Cambell there are 10 sizes of rope/cable but obviously scaled down, the smaller diameters are so close in size I can just go for the nearest. Fortunately Campbell does list all the sizes but I have to decipher which size for which run - such fun! HisModel have sent me a list of the rope sizes recommended for the blocks that they supplied and they have rounded to the Amati equivalent sizes of 0.1, 0.25 and 0.5mm.
The heaviest runs for the Cutty Sark are the lower shrouds and the main stays which scale to a diameter of 0.54mm, so I will go with either 0.5 or 0.6mm (to be decided). The shroud sizes step down quite a lot on each mast so the top mast is 0.3mm and top gallant is 0.2mm. I am putting the sails on so there will be an enormous amount of running rigging needed and most of that will be 0.2/0.3 and possibly some at 0.45mm.
Once I have guesstimated how much I will need of each size from the rigging plans I will order that up from Ropes of Scale. The only caveat is that it is very difficult to know how much “extra” to buy to allow for wastage but it will probably be used on my next build anyway so it’s not a problem.
Next up: Finish off and fit Nannie, fit the jibboom guys and stays and start stropping the lower deadeyes.
P.S. I am taking bets on how long it will take before I catch the bowsprit and break it!
. Cheers Grant
