Most people either pin or glue the yard to the mast. Adding diluted PVA glue to the lines will stiffen them up a bit, but usully not enough to make them appear taut. What if you glue the line in the sheave above the mast, so the line leading up from the deck remains taut?
Doc K, sounds like you pinned down the answer to the problem!
Did you mount Truss Pedands? I had very same situation + with jeers blocks touching each other. This is most likely lack of Truss Pedands for main and for yard and parrel ribs for topsail yard and yards above
I used thin brass rod and friction fit... I bumped into the yards all the time and knocked them around but as the rigging was placed things got much more stable. I tried the authentic non-pinned approach but as you have observed things were just not heavy enough to maintain an authentic look. The Vasa did not have truss pendants (or at least that's where my research took me) so I couldn't include those...
No problem, Don. When I first rigged the first yard, the ties and halyard also appeared slack. Later in the build, this was solved when installing the parrel, whose line passes through all the trucks and ribs before passing over the top of the yard, then down to a tackle on the deck. The parrel line, when taut, draws the yard downward, creating the tension you want on the ties and halyard supporting the weight of the yard. It all worked out in the end. Using the parrel line to pull the yard down is necessary for models that don't have sails and rely on the sails to weigh the yard down.
I also used small brass rods for this. They won't break. They can be pulled out, but then pushed back in. I found that doing this first, locating the mast in place (and at the desired angle to the keel) held everything in place making all the rigging to the yard and sail easier (in essence, adding one more finger or hand).
