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Posted

Right, cage Ariel’s, spent a few hours trying to work out how best to attack this problem, decided to use uschi line (fine) instead of @beefy66’s suggestion of wire, mainly because try as I might, I could not drill out the holes in the spreaders like he did 🤪🤬. The Uschi line threaded without any extra work on the holes.

Eight pieces of line in close proximity to each other was a mess (like herding cats!) so I rigged up a makeshift frame to keep them in some sort of order, I think the trick here (with the stretch line) is to get the tension to a minimum and as equally balanced as possible. The Ariel’s have 8 spreaders per length (according to AOTS) mine are getting a max of six to help me keep my sanity. If this works out I plan to make a more accurate jig and do all of the rest in one go. Watch this space - for thumbs up or expletives!

Oh, and then I have to figure how to draw eight lines into a single line to attach to the yardarms.
 

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Posted
7 minutes ago, Harrysgrandad said:

Right, cage Ariel’s,

I still undecided about doing these, so, I will watch this with GREAT interest.

Biggest problem I have, is lack of holes in the spreaders, like you, I cannot drill them out, they just bend.

 

Drawing them all together !
When I did them on my Rescue Launch, I tied them together at a suitable distance from the spreader, then spread them out and touched a spot of CA glue to where I’d tied them, then trimmed off half of them and CA’d these together. 
Jon

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Posted

Hi Jon

There was still a problem with the holes, what I didn’t mention in the earlier post was that I ‘poked’ each hole with an acupuncture needle. I have a stash following a tip from @robgizlu when he mentioned using them to apply CA to holes for Bob’s Buckles. I cut the bottom 15mm from one and mounted it in a pinvice and just teased the holes through. I placed the PE on a piece of. Bristol Board which gave an enough support to stop the PE bending but allowed the needle to pass right thru and widen the hole a tad.

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Posted
1 hour ago, Harrysgrandad said:

Oh, and then I have to figure how to draw eight lines into a single line to attach to the yardarms.

That sounds almost harder than the process of actually getting them on the spreaders. I was wondering whether threading all the lengths through a fine tube might help and them somehow sticking them together without of course sticking them to the tube itself! 

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Posted
4 hours ago, theskits62 said:

That sounds almost harder than the process of actually getting them on the spreaders. I was wondering whether threading all the lengths through a fine tube might help and them somehow sticking them together without of course sticking them to the tube itself! 

I’m thinking I might try tying them off at the appropriate point (like a tourniquet) then adding a spot of glue and cutting off the bulk of the strands after the joint and just using 1, maybe 2, strands to fix to the yardarms. 
if this works I will leave that strand extra long and tension the whole thing between two points, just to make sure it looks OK before I try fitting it. 

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Posted
9 hours ago, Ngantek said:

Looks mad fiddly but it's turning out great! How is the mass of those spreader? Do they add sag to the cage aerials?

Hi Andy

i think the PE spreaders are quite overscale actually. I couldn’t find any clear pictorial reference with the aerials on but have used the drawings from AOTS (which don’t show any sag) and the Kagaro drawings (which again don’t show sag but indicate that the spreaders were really quite fine (spiderlike!) and not much more bulky than the actual aerials themselves. Also referenced numerous build logs on t’internet, all with different construction methods/jigs and all fitted with no sag. I am pretty sure using my method it will have to be a ‘no sag’ option.

I will see how this first run ends up, might just be academic in the end🥴😝.

Cheers

Graham

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Posted (edited)

First aerial threaded, I have reduced the number of spreaders from 8 to 6, instantly cutting my stress levels by 25%🤪.

it looks OK to me and as @Faraway says, ‘if it looks right - it is’😁.

The first 4 lines threaded really easily, lines 5 to 8 got exponentially more difficult due the the unhelpfulnes of the twine and the number of parallel lines, making me go cross eyed😝.

This will live on this jig until fitting time, but next, I do aim to try and ‘tie off’ the 8 strands as mentioned earlier when I have ‘measured twice and cut once’.

I am thinking I might spray the whole thing to fix the spreaders in place (probably an acrylic grey/black). Got excess spreaders so I might just thread a couple quickly and test out this theory before going further.

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Edited by Harrysgrandad
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Posted (edited)

working on a test rig for the aerials, tied off the end and glued it, looks OK. Next step to see how many of the excess strands I need to (can get away with ) strip away 

for the extensions to the yard arms.
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Edited by Harrysgrandad
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Posted

Sprayed the L/hand spreader with a dust of the good ladies hair spray, it fixed their spreader in position.

Then lightly sprayed both spreaders with a thin mix of grey/black acrylic. The paint didn’t fix the R/hand spreader.

Looks a bit thick under the macro lens bu OK to the naked eye.

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Posted

4 strands left on L/hand side, 2 on R/hand side, Think I will stick with 4, 2 is sailing too close to the wind.

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Posted

Thank you.

Sometimes think I prefer the problem solving to the actual modelling 🤔.

Leaving that for a bit a taking some ‘light relief’ by adding some of the railings!

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Posted
2 hours ago, robgizlu said:

I'm in the presence of Gods.......................

 

:mike:

Amen Brother @robgizlu!

 

We're in the presence of a master toolmaker. Seriously

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Posted

And now I KNOW why I didn’t try this.

Very well done, I’ll being forwarding my order soon 😉

Jon

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Posted
39 minutes ago, Faraway said:

And now I KNOW why I didn’t try this.

Very well done, I’ll being forwarding my order soon 😉

Jon

Sorry Jon

Thank you, but no thanks!

Not taking orders!! Too much potential damage to my eyesight and ongoing mental health!!!

cheers

Graham

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Posted

Just finished the railings on the forward upper deck. Took longer than I planned due to repair works on the upper forward mast when my b****y angle poise dive bombed it🤬. The tension on the rigging pulled the whole thing down onto the boom rigging and disintegrated into white and black spaghetti😝.

Had  to re-fix this while holding the tension on the 80% of the rigging that survived the onslaught, then refit the bits of rigging that went AWOL, this was compromised by all the threading through the existing rigging. Made the work on the spreaders seem like a walk in the park!😝. Don’t get these problems with ‘small ships’.

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Still a bit of repair work here!

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Posted

G'day Graham, sorry to hear of the damage but well done on the repairs. That rigging looks superb, as does the overall model.

Regards, Jeff.

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Posted

I'm so sad that happened! The rigging was glorious.

 

I'm truly impressed you are able to repair the damage.:worthy:

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Posted

Great recovery. This is looking really good and i'm very impressed with those line spreaders.

Posted

Some touching up needed to the railings. How does everyone treat PE so that it retains the paint!!!!

Posted
2 hours ago, Harrysgrandad said:

Some touching up needed to the railings. How does everyone treat PE so that it retains the paint!!!!

Very gently................

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Posted
11 minutes ago, robgizlu said:

Very gently................

That’s me out then🤪

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