Well, after a decade break, I find myself back into sailing models. First up, the old standard Constitution, just to get me back in the game. This is a warmup for the Heller Soleil Royal, which arrives in the mail today (gotta love Ebay). It’s all coming back to me pretty easy, like riding a bike. My patience with it drives my wife crazy as a matter of fact. But, now I have the internet for referencing.
So, what are some good sites for tips on rigging? The Royal is going to be a very special build for me, so I’m literally going all out. I’m even going to try gold leaf on the stern Castle and hull decoration. So I want to get it right.
You could do worse than get hold of a copy of ‘The Rigging of Ships in the days of the Spritsail Topmast 1600 - 1720’ by R.C. Anderson. The book covers the period of the Soleil Royale, and importantly gives the differences between British, French and other nations practices.
I have built the Soleil Royale and the best advice I can give is forget the Heller Instructions and go with a book such as above. I used it exclusively to rig my model, and also used commercially available rigging cord in preference to the Heller supplied stuff.