I am at the point of adding the square sails and am wondering about the best sequence. The sails are numbered, but I don’t know if this implies the order or not. The instructions are pretty poor as you know. Should I start high and finish low on a mast or vice versa? Should I start with the foremast, finish that and work towards the stern or vice versa? Thanks in advance.
well alan I don’t know if this the right way , but it’s my way . I always start at the bottom main sail .
and work my way up , then the fore mast and the mizzen , a side note , make sure all your blocks are on the mast’s first , it’s a lot easier .
1 Like
I’m guessing you mean the 1/96 model, and the vacu-form plastic sails.
There’s not really an engineered attachment point on the model spars.
Cutty Sark used metal jackstays (a pair, in fact, on on top center, the other forward about 45 degrees).
Along the tops of the yards. These are metal rods run through iron eyebolts.
Revell modeled these as lumps and ribs, and not exactly crisply.
The vacuform would need a lot of roll on the edge to meet the moulded jackstays.
At scale, the jackstays would be abour 0.10 mm diameter, and stood up above the yard about the same amount. So, a person could be forgiven for simply using extra-fast, to glue the vacuform to the front of each yard at about the 3 o’clock position.
Now, this would have been easier before mounting the yards to the mast, then putting them on one at a time, with all the riggeing wanted per yard.
A person, to my thinking, could be forgiven for skipping the staysails entire. As the fussiness of needing tiny (0.1mm) holes in the vacuform at about 5-8mm spacing is not easy in the nearly 1mm thick vacuform.
Really fine motor winding wire can be of help at this scale, as you can twist it shut rather than needing to knot it.
The reason for starting at the bottom and working your way up is fairly straight-forward. Lower sails have a LOT more rigging then the upper sails. It generally decreases as you go higher up the mast, therefore fewer lines to run down to the pinrails or fiferails. Plus you have to try and make sure you aren’t crossing any of those lines over each other (a big no no on real sailing ships). Save the braces for last, as they will get in the way of your getting your fingers and tweezers in there for all the other sail lines.
Just my 2 cents.
Bob
1 Like