Hello , and thanks again for showing an interest and for your likes.
I couldn't fit models on my bench and use it for a work area at the same time so I made this table up from an old office chair that I found at the tip. I took the seat off and replaced it with a 20mm piece of MDF, it's suitably heavy and stable but unlike a fixed table I can spin it around like a turntable and raise or lower it, it's especially useful for when rigging, oh and it didn't cost anything.
I blackened the supplied rope with a suede leather dye, that gave a deep rich black. I stretched the rope, put some dye on a small piece of rag and rub it in. The rope is one of the best that I've had from any kit but there was nowhere near enough so had to buy more.
I completed fitting the dead eyes to the shrouds. It didn't take too long after I'd got the hang of getting the finished height and tension about right so that when the lanyards are attached they would be at a uniform height. I used a wire jig for this, from what I'd seen this seems to be the simplest and preferred method of doing it. The first ten took me about the same time as the next forty. I'd made it a bit difficult for myself, I don't know why but I'd made up twelve shrouds for the fore and main masts instead of the ten needed and got a bit confused. In fairness to Euromodel this was why I found myself very short of cord and there was perhaps sufficient if I'd done it correctly.
Next I started the lanyards.
I finished the lanyards on the fore mast shrouds, after quite a few re fits they eventually came out ok. I hadn't realised just how many mistakes that one could make doing what looks a not too difficult task, not just mistakes but making the same ones over and over again. I found that getting the height of the deadeyes uniform was the trickiest part.
Talk about doing things over again, I decided that I needed to redo the bowsprit rigging again. After I'd fitted the mast shrouds I realised that I'd used the same diameter thread for the bowsprit as for the mizzen, I wasn't concerned about exact scale but I thought that things should look in proportion, in isolation they looked ok but against the rest they looked too thick, anyway I thought that the second time around they came out neater, that's practice for you.
I finished the lanyards and put in the lower batons on the shrouds. I made fewer mistakes this time around, I got about 80% right first time, the other 20% I had to redo, sometimes more than once, but it ended up to my satisfaction.
For the ratlines I first tried the method of using marked grid lines behind the stays to get the correct spacing, in theory it sounds like a good idea but in practice I found it impossible. To make it work you needed to place the lined paper immediately behind the shrouds but this prevented passing the cord through and guiding it from behind with your other hand. In order to be able to thread them the paper needed to be placed and supported away from the shrouds, but this then gave a different perspective of the spacing especially as you're working from slightly above. I gave up and just did it bye eye, I found them fairly quick and easy to do and only needed to slightly adjust a few when done. I put the sheaves in last to line up with the upper ratline and I didn't have much problem getting the tension right to keep the shrouds even. They came along nicely and once I'd got into the rhythm I even found doing them was therapeutic.
For the future, if it matters, from Lees's Masting and Rigging English Ships of War, page 22 (ISBN 0-87021-948-0)
