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- Jun 16, 2026
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And that leads us to an inserted step of rigging the guns. There are some basic assumptions in this about the size rope used on 9-pound long guns since this sets the size of blocks. I used the basic values that AI came up with and seemed to match what published values I have found gave. That is the tackle used would be two-inch circumference rope which has about a 0.64" diameter. Based on that diameter at scale it would be 0.25 mm which requires a block of 3 mm length according to AI. That number is a little large. References I found gave the block length as being closer to 8x the diameter which would be 2 mm length. This is where you run into problems with making tackle at scale using wood. The wood blocks simulate the pulley system by drilling holes. Those holes have to pass a 0.25 mm diameter thread. If you actually have holes this size the walls of a 2 mm long block, get too thin to allow the hole to be drilled. I purchased some samples of Model Exp's new "Beautiful" blocks to test. I don't think I could get a 0.25 mm thread through there 2 mm block or be able to drill the hole large enough to allow it. Which is why I suspect AI came up with the 3 mm recommendation (it is just repeating things it found on sites like SoS). But even at 3 mm I found I need to drill out the holes to 0.5 mm to past the thread through. Because of this I upped the size a little more to 3.5 mm blocks because I was afraid I would lose to many blocks to breakage from drilling.
The breeching rope was less of a problem since it didn't have to pass through blocks. The AI recommended 4-inch circumference rope which translated to 0.5 mm thread diameter. That still required me to drill out the eyebolts since the blacking added just enough change is opening that the thread wouldn't pass through them.
The next problem was how to make the hooks that would fasten the tackle to the eyebolts. For this I used black steel 28-gauge wire. My main objective being to make the hooks as small as possible because they tended to add considerably to the length of the final tackle.
Since working on the actual deck was too crowded with the parts added earlier, I made a jig to handle setting up the rigging and gluing it where possible except for the connections to eyebolts and deck.
I would rig the gun on this first before transferring to the ship, below. Note the size of the blocks over to the left.
I also made a small (8 mm wide) gig to make "Running" coil which is what you see next to the gun. This is something the AI came up with. Its reasoning was:
"If your ports are open and your guns are run out ready for battle, a tight Flemish coil is historically inaccurtate. It takes too long to unravel when the gun recoils. Instead, crews used a running coil (or "faking down"), where the rope was laid back and forth in long, loose, overlapping loops so it could run free instantly."
This was basically layers of figure "8" coils 1.5 to 2 feet long (6-8 mm scale).
The breeching rope was less of a problem since it didn't have to pass through blocks. The AI recommended 4-inch circumference rope which translated to 0.5 mm thread diameter. That still required me to drill out the eyebolts since the blacking added just enough change is opening that the thread wouldn't pass through them.
The next problem was how to make the hooks that would fasten the tackle to the eyebolts. For this I used black steel 28-gauge wire. My main objective being to make the hooks as small as possible because they tended to add considerably to the length of the final tackle.
Since working on the actual deck was too crowded with the parts added earlier, I made a jig to handle setting up the rigging and gluing it where possible except for the connections to eyebolts and deck.
I would rig the gun on this first before transferring to the ship, below. Note the size of the blocks over to the left.
I also made a small (8 mm wide) gig to make "Running" coil which is what you see next to the gun. This is something the AI came up with. Its reasoning was:
"If your ports are open and your guns are run out ready for battle, a tight Flemish coil is historically inaccurtate. It takes too long to unravel when the gun recoils. Instead, crews used a running coil (or "faking down"), where the rope was laid back and forth in long, loose, overlapping loops so it could run free instantly."
This was basically layers of figure "8" coils 1.5 to 2 feet long (6-8 mm scale).
