Ready to Rig
Posted By Russ Emerson on February 9, 2010 at 9:20 pm
I have been learning to tie knots. Teeny tiny knots. Lots of teeny tiny knots.
[Click for larger]
See those black dowel-like things? Those are the spars and gaffs. If I were going to put sails on this model, those are where they would be attached. Each has blocks (as in block-and-tackle) through which ropes will lead. The blocks are the small wood-colored, roughly cube-shaped bits tied on to the spars, the booms and the masts.
The large ones are 4 millimeters; the small ones are 3mm. Tiny, and teeny tiny, respectively. It’s taken a while — including a few false starts and do-overs — to get them all just so. There are 23 rigged blocks in the photo; I’ve tied maybe 150 knots, mostly half hitches, clove hitches and square knots. Perhaps not all historically or technically accurate, but at this scale, I figure no one will ever know.
Except me.
Given the scale, as well as the size of my hands and fingers, maybe you can understand why I chose to do as much rigging as I could before attaching things to the hull.
In the photo, you can see I’ve already fitted the bowsprit to the hull and tied on the gammoning. Next I’ll be rigging it, and following that with the masts, which are likely to get a chapter here all their own.
I’m most of the way done with this model, but the rigging could take a fair number of hours, despite the relative simplicity of this particular vessel — especially as this will be my first attempt to rig a ship. Fingers crossed.
Looking good!