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Ark Royal circa 1587.


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Thank you everyone for your interest and comments.

 

Casting of parts....

 

Difficult to make this interesting, so a very boring read unless you actually want to do some casting!

Once again I'll skip mention of my first attempts and just cover what I am doing at the moment......

 

I use the following tools and materials:

Casting material.

Thin disposable gloves

Kitchen roll

A weigh scale with at least 0.1 gram resolution and 100 gram capacity.

Electric stirrer

Stirrers.

Pointy tool for bubble removal.

A handy tray for holding the moulds upright (mine is an empty tuna tin).

Mould release agent (optional, I use Johnsons baby oil applied with a microbrush)

 

And the following single use items for each batch:

Disposable gloves

Shot glass for mixing the casting material.

Syringe (5ml size was plenty large enough for my castings)

Blunt tipped long needles. 

 

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I purchased 21 gauge (black fitting) needles as those were the size I had to hand during my early trials. They are big enough for the resin to flow but not so as to block air from expelling from the mould cavity as it gets displaced by the resin. I noticed on ebay sets offering a range of syringe and needle sizes at very low prices and these would be a good option (although the set I ordered failed to be delivered, but since it is from a Chinese company is not surprising in current circumstances with the coronavirus).

 

The electric stirrer is a low cost modified Ikea coffee whisk.

 

For casting, I am using DWR Plastics grey "Miniatures and Figurines Casting Resin" slow version having a 15-minute pot life and is very fluid to pour. Mix is once again in equal parts by weight. A 500g pack cost me 10.45 GBP + p&p. The chemicals in the resin look a bit nasty, so I did my first mix under the airbrush fume extractor. Subsequent batches were done on the modelling bench without problem. Although I have a sensitivity to cyanoacrylate glue, I had no problems with the casting resin.

 

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Preparation.

I apply a very light coat of Johnsons Baby Oil into the mould cavities using a microbrush. The release agent is not really necessary, but I use it to reduce wear and tear on the cannon moulds as they get a fair amount of stretch when the castings are extracted. I have also had fewer surface air bubbles since since using the release agent, but that may be down to me improving on my technique rather than it affecting the wetting of the casting resin. 

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Shake the bottle of Part A of the casting resin to mix together the constituents.

Put the shot glass on the weigh scale and zero the display.

Pour Part A into the shot glass to half the required amount plus a margin. Note the weight.

Add the same amount of Part B.

Much as done for the moulding compound, I use a flat coffee stirrer with the end cut off square to work the Part A and B materials off the walls and base of the cup and into the bulk of the mix.

Immerse the tip of the electric stirrer into the resin, switch on and give it a good mix. Stop the stirrer and remove it from the mix. I had no problem with any resin spattering out of the cup, but take precautions to protect your eyes and elsewhere if you think it may happen.

I use a polished plastic rod to gently stir the mix to remove air bubbles. The resin is very fluid when compared to the moulding compound and large air bubbles were easy to remove.

If I had one, I would now pop the mix into an ultrasonic shaker as mentioned by @Black Knight

 

Load the syringe with resin.

Hold the syringe pointing upwards and give it a few taps to bring trapped air to the surface. Attach the blunt needle.

Give a light squeeze to expel air.

 

Casting.

I remove any resin from the tip of the needle before inserting it into the mould cavity. This may not be important, but I found it easier to view the mould filling with resin if the top is left clean.

Put the needle right into the cavity. Squeeze the syringe and gently work the needle around to let the resin push away the air. This was easy to do on the cannons, but took more time getting resin to fill the sides of the carriages. Continue filling the mould cavity and then begin withdrawing the needle. I worked the needle around at each reinforcing ring on the cannon as I was finding air pockets being trapped there.

Continue to fill the cavity to the very top of the mould.

Withdraw the needle and wipe away resin residues.

Repeat on the next cavity or until the syringe gets too stiff to force resin out.

Once you cannot get resin out of the needle, then remove the needle from the syringe body and inject resin directly from the syringe. It will not be possible to get resin into small cavities however, so best to leave your largest moulds until the end. I made a mould from a couple of figurine heads and this is where I put the resin once I have done the cannons.

 

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Leave it to set for a few hours (I left it overnight) before withdrawing the parts. The carriage, wheels and gun port covers could be teased out of the mould without problem. The cannons could be pushed out from the bottom until there was enough mould stub exposed to grab with some pliers. It could then be carefully pulled out. The full 18-pdr gun was easily withdrwn by opening the mould along the sliced cut that had been made.

 

The results were fairly successful and I'm happy enough. 

 

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For those of you who read through this, well done and my apologies again for it being so boring. 

 

Once again, your suggestions for improvements would be much appreciated.

 

Cheers,

Pat

Edited by patmaquette
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Very nice work Pat, :like:

Regarding your mould and casting how much are you going to do, regarding bubbles in your rubber you could use a vacuum to pull the bubbles out before pouring over your masters and when casting once you pour resin into mould you could install into a pressure pot and that will remove any bubbles in your casting 

 

Here is a picture of mould pulled with a vacuum, you will see no bubbles but I also put it in the pressure pot for 2 mins

 

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Vacuum pot

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Pressure pot I used was a pressure paint pot not an expensive one, with a couple of changes.

 

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This is how the resin cast came out 

 

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Hope it helps

 

Regards

Richard

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1 hour ago, patmaquette said:

 

 

For those of you who read through this, well done and my apologies again for it being so boring. 

 

Once again, your suggestions for improvements would be much appreciated.

 

Cheers,

Pat

 

Not boring in the slightest, thank you for taking the time to photo it and post it!   :thumbsup:        :worthy:

 

I tried doing this a few years back and found it terribly addictive. I would make parts just for the fun of it.  :frantic:

 

Might start doing it again...    :mental:

 

 

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3 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

Oi! that's my old Customs "inspection" kit. Hand it back you fiend!

 

Indignant of Mars 👽

If that’s your “inspection kit”, I feel sorry for your clients - we had some lubrication handy!

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20 hours ago, Ripaman said:

Regarding your mould and casting how much are you going to do, ......

Thanks for posting, Richard.

That's an impressive set up you have there and good to know what sort of kit to look out for to get much improved results.

However, having now cast the parts I need for the galleon, I shall only occasionally cast items in the future.

 

Pat

 

 

 

 

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10 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

Oi! that's my old Customs "inspection" kit. Hand it back you fiend!

 

Indignant of Mars 👽

I don't dare to think of what you used the electric stirrer for.....

Edited by patmaquette
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Time for a little departure from casting things. I have been slapping some paint onto the sails.....

 

Many of you are aware that the sails come as a vacuum formed sheet of polystyrene....

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I separated the sails from the sheet using a Olfa-P cutter. The plastic was then trimmed back to the curved sail edges using a small pair of nail scissors. It may be important to avoid any nicks or sharp corners in case it leads to a crack forming, so I did not fully close the scissors during cutting (the tips of the blades would put a lot of strain on the plastic) and then used abrasive to smooth all of the edges. I left material on the sides where the sails attach to the yards and attached coffee stirrers so the sails could be handled without putting my fingers on them.

 

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I sketched out areas of light and shade by holding the sail beneath a desk light. By changing the angle that the sail was held I could then view and sketch out how the shadows fell. Here is how the light fell on the lateen sail....

 

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This was done for each face of each sail. Here are some of my sketches.....

 

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I selected four off-whites from my paint stocks. They all happened to be Vallejo. Areas in full light were 72.101 Off White, 70.837 Pale Sand was the first shade, 72.034 Bone White was second shade and deepest shade was 70.884.Stone Grey. These colours were airbrushed onto the sails using the sketches as a guide. The colours were also brush painted onto folds of the furled Main Sail and here and there on the other sails where beneficial.

Shading along seams and folds was done using oil paints. Raw sienna and raw umber were mixed together first of all, Ultramarine violet was then added little by little until a brown-grey deep shade was obtained. Lighter tones were made by adding Naples yellow and titanium white. Odourless white spirit was used as a medium.

 

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The sails were then given a coat of enamel matt varnish followed by a mix of War Painter Soft Tone Ink, Vallejo Thinner Medium and Vallejo Airbrush Thinner to harmonise the colours.

Here are some examples of the results after having reduced natural light and shadow as much as I can for the photos.....

 

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The effects are somewhat lost in the photos, but hopefully I'll get some better shots in the future.

 

Many thanks for reading and your interest, everyone,

Cheers,

Pat

Edited by patmaquette
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On 12/02/2020 at 22:28, patmaquette said:

For those of you who read through this, well done and my apologies again for it being so boring. 

 

 

That was not boring! I think many of us aspire to doing casting so thank you for sharing what you have!

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  • 3 weeks later...

After having spent what seems an age poring over books and diagrams of ship rigging, I have decided to get cracking with the model, starting with the bowsprit.

 

The sprit yard in the Airfix kit was somewhat distorted and so a replacement was made by sanding down a cocktail stick......

 

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This was then glued to the bowsprit......

 

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It seems most likely that Ark Royal's sprit yard was hauled to the beak for furling, having first pulled the sail to the yard by means of ropes connected to the bottom corner of the sail (clewlines) and bottom edge (buntlines). Eyes for the buntlines were made into the top of the yards using fine wire, having proved a way of doing this on a scrap of wood. Overlength lengths or wire were cut and one end superglued into a hole drilled into the wood. These were then trimmed to length before bending the wire around a drill shank to create the eye.

 

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Ropes for the sail were made from 0.2mm lead wire, again using a drill to bend the wire to shape before completing the job in place. A dot of Micro Industries Liquitape held the wires in place until the time came to fix them permanently with superglue......

 

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These were then trimmed back so the sprit sail could be glued (later) directly to the yard.....

 

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The photo above also shows some detail added to form the sling holding the yard to the bowsprit. The arrangement for hauling out the yard along the bowsprit on Ark Royal is said to be a single tie to halyards via a block. Having eventually deciphered what this means, my interpretation was to add lead wire between the slings for the tie attachment. A block made from a disc of punched plastic was glued to the underside of the bowsprit a short distance forward of the yard. A loop of 0.5mm lead wire made the strop for holding the block. The tie from the yard to the block was from brass wire.

The sail head was cut and then sanded to fit along the yard underside without gaps.....

 

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There is a lot more work on this assembly to follow before it is painted and attached to the ship.

 

Thank you for reading,

Cheers for now,

Pat

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2 hours ago, Courageous said:

Mind boggling work Pat, great stuff.

 

Stuart

 

20 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

I’m with Stuart!  I’ve also never heard of Liquitape, but am now looking for a UK supplier...

 

Like the two gentlemen above, I'm extremely impressed. I know, calling ex-submariners and and ex-aircrew "gentlemen" might be considered a bit of a stretch by some, but having met them both now, they do pass muster I can assure you.

 

Your amazing thread continues Pat, thanks for sharing.

 

Terry

 

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12 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

I’m with Stuart!  I’ve also never heard of Liquitape, but am now looking for a UK supplier...

Hi Crisp. I find Micro Liquitape very useful when doing detail work. It works as a low-tack contact adhesive. You apply a dot of it to the part you are adding detail to and leave it for a minute to dry and go tacky. You can then pop on the detail bit and you can normally push and prod it until it is exactly where you want it. Then add superglue to fix it in place.

Glue residues can be removed with water, although the only time I do this is when something goes awry and you decide to clean up and try afresh. Anyway, I hope you are successful in getting some and find it as useful as I do.

 

My enormous thanks to you all for your likes and comments. I don't know whether rigging this model is going to be fun or a nightmare. No point in keeping my fingers crossed, I'm going to need them all for this job!

It has been an interesting exercise going through the various texts to figure out how Ark Royal was laid out. It has been like a jigsaw puzzle, taking bits of information from here and there and trying to assemble them together in a way that makes sense to me. I have tried to think things through, but I am no expert as you know. I am sure errors will be made, but hopefully nothing silly. Please don't hesitate to mention anything questionable that you think I am doing! I'll try and make frequent updates just to minimise the amount of re-work should I need to correct an error.

 

Today I made a block arrangement for where the fore-stay attaches to the bowsprit and a pair of dead-eye assemblies for the sprit-yard lifts.

 

The fore-stay will be a 0.5mm line running from the fore-mast top to the bowsprit. I have placed the connection point forward of the sprit-yard slings, which is not the way shown in any of the illustrations, but logic says has to be this way to enable the sprit yard to be hauled back to the beak for furling, etc.. At a later date (from 1640 or so) the sails were furled by the crew standing in foot ropes (horses) and the yard was fixed in position forward of the fore-stay connection.

The fore-stay diameter should be 0.9 times that of the main stay. The circumference of the main stay should be half the diameter of the main mast, which is 3.2mm in the kit. Line sizes are typically calculated from mast sizes just as in the previous example or made a fraction of shroud diameter. So my notes have a number of sums jotted down to help me select appropriate sized thread as I go along.

 

Ark Royal's fore-stay was thought to be tensioned using blocks rather than dead-eyes or "hearts". I sized the blocks as 4 x 2.5 mm from a sketch in a book. Front and rear faces were made from 0.3 mm plasticard and glued to rectangles of 0.5mm thick plasticard, leaving a space between them of 0.5 mm for the stay to go through. Once again, the photos are extremely magnified (I must say I am really impressed with my phone camera!)....

 

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Once the glue was set, the 0.5mm pieces were trimmed to size and given rounded edges to represent the strop/stay that runs around their periphery....

 

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The strop linking to the bowsprit was made from copper wire. A loop was formed around a drill shank of the same diameter as the bowsprit. One side of the loop was cut back and would abut the bottom block. The other side was pushed through the lower block and into the upper one, leaving a gap of 7mm between the two that was again scaled from the sketch. The copper was trimmed back so that it went only half way through the upper block so as to leave a hole for the forestay itself to be glued in later on. Everything was checked for alignment and then fixed in place with superglue.  The wire provides a strong connection between the blocks and, as it should not be there in reality, I hope will be hidden beneath the lanyards which were added next.

 

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The lanyards were half the diameter of the stays and made from 12mm long pieces of brass wire. A fine stripe of Micro Industries Liquitape adhesive was put across the blocks and left a minute to dry and become tacky. The wires were held in place by the adhesive and their position could be tweaked until they lined up neatly. Superglue then fixed them in place. I think the lanyards will disguise the copper wire running through the middle once everything is painted.

 

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The other things I made were a pair of lifts for the sprit yard. For vertical masts, the idea of the lifts is to keep the yards horizontal. The sprit-yard lifts connect from the bowsprit to each end of the yard and incorporate dead-eyes near the bowsprit that will, eventually, have the free end (fall) of the rope from the inner dead-eye running to the foredeck. I have been toying over ways of making the dead-eyes (I will need dozens eventually!) and this was my first trial. My plan is to glue dead-eye discs of plasticard to a strip of clear plastic polysytrene. This should make a firm, strong link between the dead eyes. The edges of the clear strip will be painted rope colour. As I would like to assemble as much as I can before painting so the glued joints can be as strong as possible, I'll use enamels for primer/undercoat and remove paint from the clear strips with thinners. I'll then paint the edges of the strip to represent the rope.

 

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The end of the outer dead-eyes were drilled out and some 0.2mm fishing line inserted for the lift. This looks really fine on the model, but the size (which is 1/2 the thickness of the fore-shrouds) is as calculated. Interestingly, the thickness of the Airfix foreshrouds is about to scale, measuring 0.3mm diameter compared to 0.27mm calculated. Well done once again Airfix - I remain very impressed with this old kit!

 

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My next steps are to complete work on the forward end of the bowsprit: fore top mast stay, fore top gallant mast stay and bowlines for the fore and main courses and then add some way of gathering all the various falls from the tackle at the aft end of the bowsprit. I'll then add some paint and complete the detailing.

 

I have added a 9-pdr cannon casting and cast gun port lid to the fo'c'sle forward bulkhead....

 

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(I'll post something about the guns later)

 

Here are also one or two photos of the ship as she looks at present.....

 

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Thank you for reading and your interest!

Cheers for now,

Pat

Edited by patmaquette
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22 hours ago, Black Knight said:

Looking very most excellent, even without any rigging.

Rigging on ships is a task I really, really do not like doing  :blink: 

Hi all. Thanks again for your interest, likes and comments. Black Knight, I suspect I will come to the same conclusion before much longer, but so far so good. It is more a headache than a practical problem at this stage. I spent a good amount of time today listing all the items of rigging that connect to the bowsprit and figuring out how to deal with them. I think I have it sorted now, but the whole exercise will be repeated again when I come to the next mast.

The complicated tensioning arrangement for the fore topmast stay shown on the Airfix box art seems to be correct for the period. I made it from bent wire rather than use thread. I drew out a template and bent the wire to shape and, unusually for me, the first attempt came out fine. Punched discs of 0.5mm plasticard were superglued to the wire frame for the blocks and dead-eyes - nothing too precise, more a case of making it look convincing. The photo below shows the discs being glued on. The parts are resting on backing paper from a sticky backed label, this allows the part to be lifted off even if some superglue finds its way there.

 

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A hole and a slot were made in the bowsprit and the wire frame glued into place.....

 

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Further punched discs were placed at the frame end nearest the sprit yard. They will be used for the rope from the fore topmast stay and will be sandwiched between those for the fore topsail bowlines. The bowlines connect to the sides (leeches) of the sails to keep them in the wind when close hauled (I think I know what that means!). I am sure they will be the most difficult items of rigging to add to the model as they branch into a number of lines (bridles) before attaching to the sides of the sails (they connect onto loops or projections, known as cringles, of the leech ropes that run down the side seams of the sail. All this nautical stuff has been like learning a foreign language!). The bowlines will also be one of the last items to be added to the model, so I have that grim prospect to look forward to later. A couple more blocks were added for the fore course bow lines just by the yard lifts I put on yesterday. Unfortunately, I have found the join of the transparent plastic strip to the bowsprit to be really weak and I need to think of a better way of doing them.

 

I selected those items from my list of rigging that terminate at the root of the bowsprit. There were five: four of which can be cleats and the remaining one comprising a pair of dead eyes. Three large cleats moulded onto the bowsprit were sanded off. These look to be for stopping the rope support (gammon) to the stem from sliding down the bowsprit. However, after much thought I have concluded this ship had no gammoning and so the cleats should be removed. The rigging runs will need to avoid the main mast stay collar that passes to one side of the bowsprit.. I marked out its position with masking tape. The cleats were made from a base piece and topped with a longer piece, all from Evergreen strip. The dead-eyes were once again punched discs, halyards were fine brass wire and strop was 0.3mm diameter lead wire.

 

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Time now to lay some paint onto it all. I popped some anthracite grey onto the fore-stay blocks and then Humbrol pale grey 28 onto everything else to give a light base to work from. However, the dark brown kit plastic left it still to dark, so a layer of white was sprayed on top.

 

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The shaded undersurfaces were sprayed mid brown (Humbrol 93) and the job completed by spraying a light brown highlight colour (Humbrol 148) from above.

 

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Paint was removed from the transparent strips for the yard lift dead-eyes using a microbrush lightly dipped in white spirit. Despite doing this delicately, one of the transparent pieces detached itself from the bowsprit yet again.

Everything is now set to attack it all with a paint brush before gluing the sprit-sail in place and adding more rigging.

 

Thank you once again for reading and your interest,

Cheers for now,

Pat

Edited by patmaquette
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This continues to be astonishingly good.  The hull already looks amazing, and I’m confident that the rigging is going to be equally convincing.  Remarkable work; well done!

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On 12/03/2020 at 09:14, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

This continues to be astonishingly good.  The hull already looks amazing, and I’m confident that the rigging is going to be equally convincing.  Remarkable work; well done!

Thanks enormously, Crisp!

On 12/03/2020 at 11:55, Black Knight said:

Remember; running rigging ropes are brown, fixed rigging ropes are black

 

Thank you Black Knight - that's really helpful!

 

Only a little progress to show as I have had my head buried in books as I figure out what I need to do to the fore and main masts and also casting some parts for another project.

The bowsprit has had a little more detail added and then I applied some tonal variation to the wood by applying dots of oil paint......

 

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and then wiping them lengthwise using a dry microbrush. Colours ranged from Naples yellow through to burnt umber, plus I also used olive green. Darker tones were generally dotted in shaded areas. I'll use this as a pre-shade beneath a wash and then go on to picking out the details.

 

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The foremast and main mast had been cleaned up and assembled previously.....

 

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I did get time to make a small start to detailing them, and this was to add the "top ropes", these being a rope arrangement for raising and lowering (striking) the top and top gallant masts. The halyards for these will eventually be run down to deck level later in the build......

 

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That's it for now. I will give a huge sigh of relief if the painting of the bowsprit comes out okay. I can then follow the same approach for the other masts.

Thanks again for reading and your interest,

All the best,

Pat

Edited by patmaquette
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On 3/12/2020 at 5:55 AM, Black Knight said:

Remember; running rigging ropes are brown, fixed rigging ropes are black

 


This is a common misperception. Stockholm tar is not black but dark brown. Bitumen (tar) is indeed black but not very useful for treating rope (and not really available in the period). Standing rigging should be dark brown because it was treated with Stockholm tar. Running rigging usually was not treated with tar because this could cause it to bind in the sheaves of blocks, so it should be anything from grey to tan, depending on how weathered you want it to appear, as sunlight and salt water faded new rope quite quickly.

 

Maurice

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