Heller 1/50 Chebeck update #4 + Sail preview

Nice work!

I had one back in the early eighties and sold it, searched for one for a couple of years and gave up.............and lo and behold your build shows up.

If anyone has one or an extra in the stash that they might want to part with or knows of one sitting in a dusty corner of a hobby shop......please shoot me a PM

 

Thanks

Julian

Outstanding young man it looks goood!

Rod

What sort of material do you intend to use for the sails - the semi-legendary drafting linen?

That is amazing work, by the way!

At more than $100 USD for the 1/80 IMAI Chebec, and presumably much more for one of these Heller kits, I can only dream of building one ...

 

There's nothing boring about your build!  You are doing excellent work!  And, I just bought the Imai Chebec just over a month ago on ebay for $75.00.  It can be done.

Bill Morrison

Thanks for the kind remarks  

I nearly got arrested hanging round the ladies needlework store finding suitable material for the sails 

I have managed to get my hands on a creamy yellowish coloured cotton material that looks like sailcloth and is very, very thin. The edges (borders) I have hand sewn and I have used a brown pastel pencil to mark out the different pieces of sailcloth used to make the sail. Once I have it fitted to the yard I will use good old "Doc O'Briens weathering powders" to make the sail look used, at least that is the plan so far.

It should be more or less a downhill run from now on, I nearly went nuts rigging the cannon.

Cheers, Julian

Just a preview of the first sail. The angle isn't correct as I have only hung the yard in to get the height above deck right. No weathering yet and a lot of rigging still to be done. Judging from the size of this the mainsail must be really huge.

cheers,

Julian

It's looking good - what kind of fabric is that?

Also, seeing it trial-rigged suggests how complicated it might have been to tack with a lateen rig - how did they do it?

 

Thanks, it's cotton (see through blouse material? ). I read somewhere that the rig was easy to lower and stow, but considering the size of the sails (must have weighed plenty when wet) and the length of the yards it must have been an "all hands on deck"affair to do anything with the rig. Maybe John Tilley can shed some light on this one (resident sailing wikipedia).

cheers,

Julian

Excellent progress Julian, I like the red ochre tones, looks just about right to me, and a very nice job on the cannon, overall a fine build.

looking very good grem!

Good description of chebec (xebec) sail handling and other info at this website:

http://www.geocities.com/xebecinc/?200812

and thank you for sharing such a great model.

Jack

jrb53 wrote:

Good description of chebec (xebec) sail handling and other info at this website: http://www.geocities.com/xebecinc/?200812 and thank you for sharing such a great model. Jack

Thanks for the link. Some of the text about tacking seems rather speculative, though. For example, surely, they must have been able to move the spars to a different tack without going into port!

Why couldn't the crew furl the sail about the spar, tilt the spar parallel to the mast, swing the spar in front of (or behind) the mast, and rig the running rigging to suit the new tack?

Interesting link you provided jrb53, the Heller model would seem to be built according to the following passage:

With this description, the method of tacking a lateen sail can be derived. In some cases, when the ship was close-hauled or on a zig-zag course, the lateen sail would not be tacked but rather left for the wind to fill in either direction. In anticipation for this, some ships left two sails on one side of the mast and the remaining sail on the opposite side. The sail would be adjusted by the braces and tackles depending on point of sail and wind force.

The Heller model has the fore- and mizzen yards on the port side of the masts and the main yard on the starboard side. The yards themselves can swing over quite a large arc so maybe this was also used for tacking. Swinging the yard from one side of the mast to the other would seem to me to have been a major operation (especially at sea).

cheers, Julian

Grem

Damn that looks sharp.  I  have not been able to touch my model for over 6 months. :(  Yestersay (Sunday) I just finished up a restoratration on the 4 masted Barque (Check webshots) I'lll have the pictures posted today.  No wI have a clipper (no name) to restore  Shoud keep me busy for a 2-4 months.

Could you post what/where you got the cannon recoil check ropes from?  I need a source for mine and if possible could you send me a sample?

 

Thanks

Jake

 

Glad to see you back on the forum Jake, forget the clipper and get back on the Chebeck I keep looking at your site to see if you have added any new photo's.

The cannon recoil check ropes are made from Billing boats line, I'll see if I can get an order number next time I'm at the model shop (I threw the wrapper away ). The training tackles are made using line from Micro Mark (in the USA, love the stuff and can't get it here in Holland).

Cheers,

Julian

Grem56 wrote:

Thanks, it's cotton (see through blouse material? ). I read somewhere that the rig was easy to lower and stow, but considering the size of the sails (must have weighed plenty when wet) and the length of the yards it must have been an "all hands on deck"affair to do anything with the rig. Maybe John Tilley can shed some light on this one (resident sailing wikipedia). cheers, Julian

Have you had any problem with the sails stretching inappropriately?  I've been trying to make a suit of sails for a big 'America' model, but the blasted cotton weaving bias means they stretch somethin' awful no matter which direction I cut it!  I'm thinking of trying to get a hold of some ripstop nylon instead... As for chebek, you are doing a splendid job!!  Sail handling on these kinds of ships was in fact quite 'labor intensive,' ande is one of the reasons they sailed with such enormous crews (up to 150-200!!).  Of course, having the large crews for sail handling also meant they had large crews for handling guns and boarding victims, so it was all something of a 'virtuous circle,' really.............

Hi Searat12, yes, cutting the sail required a very steady hand to prevent getting a rather horrifying zig-zag effect due to it stretching. I shudder at the thought that I have two more sails to go (glad it's a Chebeck and not the Cutty Sark )