That should be a dead giveaway. How many of you have shelved a sailing ship model because of one BIG but little problem.There are for instance in the latest LINDBERG sailing ship kit,which is a close match to any HELLER kit (Ex HELLER MOLDS?) Who knows? Anyway, the thing that snows a lot of folks are TWO BLOCKS,TRE-BLOCKS and single BLOCKS.By the tens,twenties etc.
For those of you who don,t know what I am talking about,it,s a little parton these modelsthat you run rigging through,around and support things with.The holes are molded so small along with the strop(used to hang them.) that they are next to impossible to use them or clean them up.I was in the shop and doing the radar antenna frames and then cleaning up the tubing that I use on the bottom and it went,"BLAM!!!" there,s a way to solve this problem.
Take a trip to HOBBY LOBBY and go to the BEAD section.There you will find a very handy tool.It,s called a BEAD REAMER ! This tool is used to clean up the center-holes in tiny beads.Hey,it works on reaming very small tubing and gun barrels too! The thing is it works on these blocks.I know ,I have a drawer full and I tried it.It worked great! So there you have it.I do hope this helps you sailing ship builders out there AND those who must have correct blocks on support and antenna systems for older steel ships. TANKERbuilder