19 - Rigging Part Two
I took a week of solid work to attempt to complete the rigging and it needed every day of it.. The next section up was the running rigging; this gave the ship a nice completeness and was not complicated to do so I will not say a huge amount more about it.
Finally you get on to the working rigging and here the complications got a lot worse. The major problem here is tying the knots onto the correct pin rails. I hit the following issues which it may or may not affect other beginners
A -
Terms and statements. The instructions say "Do not rig
the lower yard sheets, tacks and main brace until last as
these would severely hamper tying all other rigging lines"
- Maybe so but since the instructions at no point indicate
which lines these are it makes it a little moot. As it
stands I was lucky enough to get my hands on a useful book
called The Rigging of Period Ship Models: A Step-by-step Guide to the Intricacies of Square-rig
B -
Securing the lines. All books and the instructions would
have you tying a figure of eight around the pin rails. Fine
but trying to do this when any other rigging at all is in
place proved to be a time consuming and irritating business.
I had bought a set of probes (for want of a better word)
that I had bought from the Jotika site to assist with rigging.
They were not useful. Instead I would recommend making your
own rigging tool or buying a tool designed for it. Looking
at it a tool in a Y shape would be best though the top of
the Y has to be small as it should be big enough to catch
the rope but small enough that it does not slide of or lock
when you try and move it.
Another thing that helped me on difficult to tie lines was to tie a simple knot around the pin and glue it. Also if a particular figure of eight was coming undone just as you spent ten minutes getting it I also started sealing the rope placement with glue before continuing. It makes the placement sticky enough that it does not spring off again. A better rigging tool may obviate the need for this though as gluing makes the resultant knot look a a little plasticky.
C - Blocks. You will have noticed earlier that I recommend tying the blocks onto the mast before starting rigging as tying them after is difficult. But I would also recommend re-drilling all block holes before use. Many would not take the smallest sized rope and rather than find this out when tying a thread through a block 5 cm into a wedge of rigging drill first.
D - Supplies. It may be me (it probably is :) ) but these blocks are more efficient escape artists than socks or US Airman. I lost count of the amount that I dropped which then seemed to disappear into a parallel universe. If you are starting I would recommend getting extra in. Also try and purchase a small tool cabinet with drawers, label each draw for the block type contained within and add the blocks to each. If you are ultra efficient re-drill the holes en-mass now. With re-drilling the holes I found if your drill has a low speed - my dremel has a 2 speed that does fine you can hold the blocks between your fingers and drill through them without risk.
I
was fortunate enough to have bought my next model (a Diana
also from Jotika) so robbed that heavily of blocks for this
model. I also robbed the next model for the rigging thread.
No doubt there is enough there but for a beginner where
extra tying thread is useful it is not enough. I ran out of
0.5 black (a lot of this), 0.25 natural, 0.50 natural and
0.75 natural where the 0.5 black and 0.25 natural where the
most heavily utilised. Again buy extra.
E - Reading the plans. Have a look at some of the rigging plans and see the sort of headache you could get into. These could have been split into 2 extra sheets which would have made things much easier. As it stands the kit maker needs to make a profit so we have to work with what we have got. I would recommend starting with 1 line and when done colouring it in on the plans so you firstly can see what needs doing but also stops your vision blurring and you sending it to the wrong pin rail or block. Also remember that if on port all your rigging lines should also go to the port side.
F - Knocking - When getting to more advanced stages of the rigging you will knock other sections of the rigging that you have done before. If you have the space try and get a turntable so you can swing the model around otherwise try and avoid it. The problem is a lot of the lines are so light they are not visible and if you move a rigging tool or your hand into it you can loosen the line resulting in a limp rope especially if you have been gluing the pin rails on completion.
G - Snipping. This will be alleviated somewhat if you have followed my advice and tied the relevant blocks on the masts before rigging but even so at some point you will be attempting to snip the ends of a tied knot to clear of the excess. Here I would recommend always to use tweezers to grasp the loose end and pull allowing you to see the correct section to snip. Several times I managed without using tweezers to think -there is a loose bit, snip, bugger that was part of the rigging.
H - Order. When I first started I decided to do on mast at a time, top to bottom on one side then switch and repeat on the other. When doing the working rigging this is not such a good idea and instead I would recommend doing one rope on one side then turn the model and do the other side. It is very easy to over tighten one rope on one side and then realising that it is to tight and the spar is out of alignment.
I - Line confusion. It can happen that you drop a line down from a mast, it all looks okay so you tighten and attach it to the pin rail. The tightening can cause problems when the rope is pulled back and starts interfering with other ropes which it perhaps should have gone behind. Just something to be aware of.
J - Blocks. A minor point but all blocks on spare should face the rear of the ship or straight down.
