knot's

There's no real trick to it, Steve. You need a good pair of tweezers, a small, SHARP pair of scissors, and a small bottle of white glue. (Some folks prefer cyano adhesive for this job, but I like white glue because it's easy to reverse in case you make a mistake.)

It also helps a great deal to work with good rigging line. Forget the stuff sold in sewing stores. Buy your line from a reputable ship model supplier, such as Calder/Jotika, Syren Ship Model Company, Bluejacket, or Model Expo. (I'm sure there are other good ones in Britain.)

And make sure the line is the right size. A good sailing ship model requires lots of different sizes of line. For most purposes, three or four probably will be enough.

About ninety percent of the time you can get along with one type of knot: the one Boy Scouts call the square knot and sailors call the reef knot. You probably already know how to tie it, but here's a tutorial: http://www.animatedknots.com/reef/ .

One other knot comes in handy for one purpose: tying ratlines to shrouds. That knot is the clove hitch - one of the simplest of knots to tie: http://www.animatedknots.com/cloveend/ .

Pull the knot as taut as you can, and apply a tiny bit of the glue (using the end of a toothpick or something similar). Let the glue dry, then snip off the end with the scissors.

It does take practice. Rigging a sailing ship model is not something that can be done really well the first time. But keep at it and your work will get better.

Hope that helps a little. Good luck.

I'm working my way through larger scaler sailboats modeling first to get better at knots.

thanks jtilley , I knew about the clove hitch , didn't know the reef knot was used do much on ships , I've been still scanning for more info . this bloke is doing an incredible job on the soleil royal , he showed some knot's  , on how he tied his deadeye's on , by using two bit's of wire I think it was on page 40 , einladung zum kaminbend an bord der soleil royal

Keep in mind that many lines, especially standing rigging, is not terminated with a knot, but is doubled back along itself to make an eye, then wrapped with a thinner line.  This is called serving.  I do this by looping a piece of very fine thread to form the eye.  From that point on, it depends on scale.  For smaller scales I just glue the remainder of the line next to the original line.  For larger scales I actually wrap one piece of the finer line around the joint like real serving.  In both cases I paint that area then with black paint.

Don's right, of course. In fact, it's rather unusual on board a real ship for a piece of rigging to end with a knot. Lines that are permanent are, for the most part, either seized or spliced.

When it comes to splicing thread (on scales smaller than about 1/48 - forget it. It is possible, if the the thread isn't too small, to fake a splice by unraveling the last fraction of an inch and gluing it (white glue again) to the standing part. But if you seize such lines rather than splice them, nobody's likely to notice.

The nature of rigging really changes a lot when the scale changes. On 1/48, or even 1/64, it's possible to reproduce almost all of the details pretty accurately. When the scale gets down to 1/96, or 1/100, you almost have to start making compromises. And on scales like 1/192 (1/16"=1') it really isn't practical to reproduce such things as splices at all. (That's why many good modelers in such tiny scales use wire for rigging.)

One tip. If you follow my suggestion and secure lines with white glue, and then follow Don's suggestion (a good one) and touch up the fastenings with paint, don't use acrylic paint. It will soften up the white glue, and you're likely to have a mess on your hands. Use enamel.

A useful knot for attaching a block to the end of a line is to tie what's called "two half hitches". Sort of a hangmans noose with two loops instead of thirteen. In this little diagram, it's shown attaching the line to an eye that's probably on a strop around a block. But it could also be the block itself if it has a groove around it.

Here's a sample.

thankyou gentlemen , that's given me something to go on

Sure any time.

Two half hitches are sort of a clove hitch around it's own tail. The beauty of it is that the line comes off the block as a true perpendicular to the axis of the sheave.

Likewise clove hitches work best for the ratlines as was mentioned. The ratline, the horizontal rope, comes off both sides of the vertical, the shroud, nicely level on both sides. Look at some hand tied ratlines on models where an overhand knot was used, and the ratline comes into the knot low on one side at an upward angle, and leaves the knot high at an angle too.

jtilley on your point of using the right thread , could you give some advice on thread sizes for the shroud's and ratlines , and would you use a clove hitch or overhand knot. on the 1/150 scale I see nothing wrong with an over hand knot , but I think a clove hitch would be better on the soleil royal ........steve.

Regarding line sizes - I'm afraid there's no simple answer. It really depends on the period of the ship and the scale of the model.

Such things as lower shrouds and stays on a big seventeenth-century ship like Le Soleil Royal, or an eighteenth-century one like the Victory, were quite large - 4" or more in diameter. Other lines generally were smaller. If I were you, I'd order an assortment of sizes from one of the aforementioned companies (my favorite is Syren), and see what looks right. 

Picking line for ratlines is easy: you want it as small as you can get it (or nearly so). Give some thought to that one, though. Rigging ratlines individually is one of the most tedious jobs in ship modeling. If you're a newcomer to the hobby, you'd be well advised to get a few simpler models under your belt before you tackle one of those big ships.

We've had some sort of lively discussions here about the knots to use for ratlines. Some people seem to be really happy with overhand knots. My view is that the clove hitch is just as easy to tie (if you give it ten minutes of practice you'll see why), and looks better - - for the reasons GM mentioned.

One major suggestion. Go to some maritime museums and look at some of the fine models made by experts. The best place in the world to study ship models is the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. Better yet, go see the Victory at Portsmouth. If that's not practical, go online and study pictures of them. (The Victory and Cutty Sark both have good websites.) If you want to get really serious about rigging, you need to develop an eye for what looks right.

You also need some books on the subject. For the Soleil Royal, a copy of R.C. Anderson's The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast is essential reading. It's available in cheap paperback editions for extremely low prices. Another fine one is James Lees's The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War, 1620-1865. That one's more expensive, but maybe you can check it out of a library or lay hands on a used copy. (I'm not sure whether it's in print at the moment.) Personally, I wouldn't dream of trying to rig a ship model without having either a good set of plans or a good book, or both, in front of me. And Heller rigging instructions are utterly useless.

The Heller Soleil Royal, whether one likes the kit or not (I'm among those who don't), is one of the most challenging projects in the plastic kit industry. Are you sure you really want to tackle it at this point? That deserves some thought. Few experienced modelers would recommend a ship-of-the-line as a newcomer's project.

Hello Steve5.  You are yet another Steve to be heard from on this ship forum.

Anyway...your question is a timely one, and I am glad that you asked it.  I am currently searching out resources on this as well. Not only the knots, but all the other rigging too. I have to say that I envy the guys that have a working knowledge on this stuff. It almost seems like it is tribal knowledge. I find bits and pieces here and there, but I have yet to find one really good resource. As awesome as you guys are with explaining what should be done, it does not show me how to do it. I did find some utube videos that were helpful, but they don't quite get me there either. As small as the rigging is, most of videos drift in and out of focus, or they lack detail because of poor lighting, and or, the shot is not tight enough.  I am sorry to say that I am a visual learner. I have to see it done to understand it best. So, it's a process. I think I will get there. It will just take time, perserverence, and a cargo hold of patience. 

Notwithstanding, the knowledge supplied from you guys is incredible.

There you have it. My long winded response that in short says, good question!

Steve

There are three types of ropes, generally. There's the sort of base building stuff, which are anchor cable, gun tackle if needed, and general deck related tackle.

Anchor cable is usually the thickest on a ship. On a big one, it might be more than 12 inches thick, often 20 inches or more, and you buy short pieces of heavily twisted thread,

Gun tackle and deck tackle is thick stuff too because it gets heavy shock loads. It might be 4-6 inches or so. It's also tan, because it needs to be flexible so it's not tarred or otherwise painted with anything.

Then there's the standing rigging, the permanent stuff that holds all the spars where they belong and takes the force of the wind down to the hull. I usually use two sizes, maybe 6 inches and 3 inches if I can be that accurate on a big ship, or 4 inches and 2 inches on a smaller ship. Here you go with what you got and what looks right. It's black.

Then there's running rigging, all the stuff used for sailing. Big spars have big sails, big sails have big forces, so the bigger sizes are on the mains and the top sails, or on the booms on a schooner. The medium above that, the lightest higher still. This stuff is tan, three sizes are plenty.

A LOT of generalizations here, but it's the contrasts in sizes and the general logic of where those sizes go that are as important, in a way, as being accurate to scale. You kind of feel your way along. On my 1/64 or so America, the fore stay is 6" in diameter and the sheets are about 2 inches, so there's a lot of variation.

One reason I'm interested in larger scale sailing ship models like schooners at 1/48, 1/64 and 1/96 scales are that there's yet another level of detail. Boats/ ships like that can include the most prosaic of ropes- marline. That's all the short lengths used to seize the ends of larger ropes, to serve them or just in general to tie stuff up so it doesn't move around. That, like ratlines, is the thinnest thread in the loft.

Speaking of ratlines, I made up another little demonstrator. Overhand knot and clove hitch. Not tightened or glued, so you can see how it goes together. You can't win, and are lucky to be able to even force a draw, with an overhand knot for this. I almost never use them.

Steves, I can recommend "The Neophyte Ship Modellers Jackstay". It's sort of the boilerplate for Bluejacket or Model Shipways models. Yes it's dated, but it's the original "Idiots" guide, trust me because thats what I need, and has lots of nifty drawings and little thumbnail sketches, like the ones I posted above.

Also, thread and wood sticks are cheap, so just try tying knots. I also have to say, being a Boy Scout helped me.

thank's gmorrison , found a site with a pages shown of that book you mentioned , as you said bit dated , but look's like it has some really interesting info in it , have to save up for it though , with postage about $55 aust , might buy it for xmas for the wife. lol      to bakster your right mate it would be great to have the working knowledge of knot's and rigging, I do feel like I'm doing thing's through a veil.   

I bought a copy for $ 5 plus $ 4 shipping used on Amazon. It's not worth that higher amount. Keep looking.

GM, this is good stuff.  Thanks for the primer and book reference.

Steve

Steve5, that is a good way of saying it.  It is very much like looking through a veil.  I'll bet that down the road and once we get up to speed on this we will look back and think, "What was the problem?  It's not that hard!"  Until then, I have to strain my feeble brain. 

unfortunately g morrison , it's about $30 american postage ,to australia, that's the killer

Steve, I had no idea you lived in Australia. Somewhere I picked up the notion that you were in England. I apologize.

Campbell's Jackstay is a classic. Any newcomer to sailing ship modeling would be well advised to read it cover to cover. Learn everything in that book and you've got a good start on becoming a knowledgable modeler.

It needs to be acknowledged, though, that it's a slim paperback, with fewer than 100 pages. I can't blame anybody who balks at paying $30 or $40 for it.

Unfortunately, as I've noted before in this Forum, there's a real dearth of good books for beginners in sailing ship modeling - books that lay out the terminology, the evolution of rigging, the names of the lines, and so forth. Quite a few books purport to be for newcomers, but too many of them were written by people who never got much beyond beginner status themselves, and, to be blunt about it, simply didn't know what they were talking about. (The worst offender, to my knowledge, is Ship Modeling from Stem to Stern, by Milton Roth, a fine gentleman who didn't really know enough about ship models to be telling anybody else how to build them.) The really good sailing ship modelers (McNarry, Longridge, Reed, Hahn, etc.) tend to write books that show off their tremendous techniques, but aren't much good for the beginner.

One other book that lots of people like is Historic Ship Models, by Wolfram zu Mondfeld. I have a few reservations about that book, and I'm not sure it includes a real introduction to rigging, but it's a good overview of the subject. I suspect it's easier to find in Australia than the Campbell book is. And I don't imagine its very European focus would be as big a stumbling block for an Australian as it is for some American modelers.

thanks jtilley , from what I have seen of that book ,it's worth getting , I'll keep looking in ebay , steve

I've found some pretty good rigging references online. I had recently picked up a Viking longship kit.  Everything looked fine exept the rigging instructions were junk.  Found a couple of good sites on Viking ship rigging, and while searching found several others on just general sailing ship rigging.  Do a google search on sail ship rigging.

Another book that's certainly worth considering is Rigging Period Ship Models, by Lennarth Peterson. I confess I haven't read it, but it seems to have a fine reputation. I'm not sure whether it goes back to the real basics of rigging or not, though.

I think it's pretty widely available internationally, at not unreasonable prices.

Should I be learning something here for the "rigging" on U-Boats?

jtilley I was able to get a free download of that book thankyou . don mucking about where you said I was able to find some interesting stuff

thankyou too .

 has anyone heard of a book called the art of rigging by george biddlecombe

Yes, I have a copy. If you see one cheap, and they seem to be on Amazon, buy it.

It's a very extensive glossary, with illustrations, of the terminology used on a British ship in the mid 19th Century. In no way is it a how-to as far as rigging a model, even less so than something like Longridge, which at the end of the day is in fact about building a model ship.

But it's a great thing to look at, and if you want to know how to tie a boat down with gripes or unstep a mast with shears, it's pretty thorough, if brief.

In my own experience, the best way to learn about the rigging of a ship, if one is so inclined, is to start small and get big. Look at sailboats, schooners and anything less than ship rigged. Those things are a lot more comprehensible, at least to me.

steve5

I have been scanning a lot ot of site's , on different rigging techniques ,. and can't find a decent site on knot's for tying block's to yard's , mast's etc .they are just so neat . you can't see where they start or  finish., can someone steer me to a site , or give some insight on how to accomplish this finish please ,photo's would be really nice , as I am a visual bloke ,   steve

 

I like that one big jim

thank's gmorrison , will keep it in mind