Pre-Served Shroud Ropes

[Signet]

You may be spending a lot of effort for no real reward. The small amount of archaeological evidence suggests that shrouds that early may not have been served, although most of the evidence is from northern Europe, rather than the Med.

As just one example, the only served cordage found on Vasa is on the clews of the boltropes in the sails and the gun breechings and breeching tackle block strops.. The finds included a set of seven shrouds from an older ship (taken on board as breeching material), which clearly had never had serving. There are some shroud remains from Mary Rose as well, but I do not know if there is any serving.

By the 18th century, partial or full serving of shrouds was relatively common, traditionally the lower parts of the shrouds to protect from water, and all of the foremost shroud on each mast to protect it from abrasion from the course yard and sail.

Fred

That was my last question in my original post: Would any lines in the 16th century even be served? Very possibly not, in this case of the 1500s.

 

[Stuart Little]

I felt that way too TKAM. We go to all this trouble to build an accurate model and then find out that nobody gives a damn anyway. 99% of the people who will ever see this model will never know what they are looking at and after your gone only another modeler would be interested in your models. The kids will set them on fire an give them a Viking funeral or put them in a dumpster some place.

 

[Uwek]

That was my last question in my original post: Would any lines in the 16th century even be served? Very possibly not, in this case of the 1500s.

I am not sure, better I do not really know where to find this information





Definitely you need for serving the serving mallet - so maybe it is somewhere written about the "oldest serving mallet" known

Collection Results | Royal Museums Greenwich

www.rmg.co.uk

Serving Mallet

Serving mallets were used by the Bosun’s party to ‘serve’ ropes. “Serving” was a method of protecting the end of a rope from getting damaged by wrapping it in twine. The mallet was used in a vertical position with the handle uppermost at 90 degrees to the rope and the groove in the head fitted...

collection.thedockyard.co.uk

 

[Stuart Little]

I felt that way too TKAM. We go to all this trouble to build an accurate model and then find out that nobody gives a damn anyway. 99% of the people who will ever see this model will never know what they are looking at and after your gone only another modeler would be interested in your models. The kids will set them on fire an give them a Viking funeral or put them in a dumpster some place.

There is another way of looking at this, & that's to know one has achieved something. As one becomes older & less able to get around, rather than sitting around getting square eyed staring at the crap on TV, UK in particular *, & becoming a 'couch-potato' supping beer or whatever, isn't it better to keep one's brain active & achieve something, & be able to say; "I built that with my bare hands"?
*I find more US & Canadian series to watch in the evenings than there are British productions. Soaps seem to have taken over here - ARRRRGH YUK!

 

[Signet]

I have found another supplier of served ropes: Modelbau-Takelgarn in Germany. Unfortunately, they only make them in the range of 0.9mm to 1.4mm, not large enough for my model's 1.9mm mainstay. Their page for these ropes also states that served ropes began use around the 2nd half of the 16th century. So perhaps my 16th century Carrack was from the 1st half, and I will use only Cable wound ropes for the larger stays.

 

[fred.hocker]

Serving mallets are mentioned and illustrated in sources of the 17th century.

As a detail, none of the surviving serving on Vasa cordage used parcelling, and only a little over half of the served rope is wormed.

Fred