Frigate Chapter Fourteen: Masts
IThe masts took up a huge amount of time. In completing them I also noticed a couple more issues with my previous snake model. When installing the caps on my first model I had used the large hole to create the joint over the lower mast (i.e 8mm mast 6mm hole) .That was wrong I should have used the 4mm hole. The joint here is not needed to be large but the next mast up needs a larger hole to fit through. This explains why I had to make the next masts up on the Snake look like annorexic rabbits legs.....
Also the plans were inaccurate at this
point. They are supposed to be to scale but would say things like spar420 mm yet
the plans versions were 400. Another plan quibble here is that the spars are
incorrectly named with 2 main spars (better to have a foremast main spar and
main mast main spar than to create confusion) small quibble though).
As before I would recommend painting before you glue anything. For the block attachments I switched to figures of eight with a stopper knot above. Again drill the blocks before inserting.
This time I decided to add furled sails. INitially worried about thisit ended up being much easier than I expected. The approach taken was to
1 Cut some sail cloth egyptian cotton in my case) to around a third of the size of the sail
2 Turn over the upper end and glue over a piece of string. Leave overnight with weights on to set
3 Use a large needle to poke holes at 7mm intervals through the bent over section of the sail.
4 Attach the sail to the yard with tan string using the holes hor purchase.
5 Wet the sail and then fold the corners in before rolling up with the help of some 1.5mm copper bar. When at the top attach at various locations to the yards. Repeat.
Probably not perfect though I thought the look is fine. It may be worth considering leaving some loose black thred in the center as I forgot the need to attach to the yards later and pushing through the secured furled sail was remarkably difficult,
Next up the masts and yards were stepped before the rigging started.
First u was the trusses and here I hit another gotcha (every time....) I checked the plans here for missing blocks and discovered I had forgotten all the blocks on the undersides of the fighting tops (what a bastard to get those in upside down would have been way easier before stepping the masts). Added some more blocks to the mizzen mast (missing from the plan) and then noticed had not added the cleats to the masts - again not on the plan or instuctions so these went on and due to tightness of fit not as easily as I would have liked. So big tip here is to do missing block search using rigging plans before gluing masts (as opposed to my previous model hint of before rigging).
Apart from that the trusses were fine though I left to little white string for the main mast ones. For these the black upper string goes around the outside of the double block then the light string goes around the single and one end attaches to a ringbolt then the loose end goes up to one hole of the double back down through the hole in the single, back up to the other hole in the double befor securing on the mast.
