J.Tilley on furled sails

We talked this out pretty thoroughly in a Forum thread headed "Real Cloth Sails?"  I moved it to p. 1 this morning; it should appear just a few down from this one.

Give some thought to whether you really want to put sails on this model - which, as I understand it, is your first sailing ship.  The scale is mighty small; I've never used the technique I described in that thread on a scale smaller than 1/128.  (I think it would work, but I suspect some variations would be necessary.) 

The other problem is the big enemy of anybody attempting a model of a vessel like the Pamir:  repetition.  My model of the frigate Hancock (photos:  http://gallery.drydockmodels.com/hancock ) has 18 sails (plus two royals furled to their yards and lashed inside the topmast shrouds, plus four sails in the small boats).  It kept me busy for six years, the last two and a half on the rigging.  (Admittedly I worked on it intermittently - I changed residences and jobs twice during that period - and it's a scratchbuilt model.)  The Pamir would have (depending on how many of the staysails were depicted) somewhere in the neighborhood of 33 sails - many of them virtually identical to each other.  Furthermore, the Hancock's top hamper is in many ways relatively simple; it's made almost entirely of wood, rope, and canvas.  A latter-day sailing ship like the Pamir incorporated all sorts of mechanical gadgets (e.g., Jarvis brace winches and gin blocks) that hadn't been invented in the Hancock's day.  Much of the Pamir's rigging was made of iron chain (almost impossible to represent convincingly on 1/200 scale), and ran through specialized blocks that would have to be made from scratch.  I'm not sure I'd want to tackle that job.

My suggestion to newcomers is to start by setting up the standing rigging (shrouds, stays, backstays, martingale stays, and a few others) and the basic running rigging that supports and moves the yards:  the halyards, lifts, and braces.  Throw in the basic gear for the double spanker on the jigger mast:  throat halyards, peak halyards, vangs, and boom sheets.  At that point in the proceedings you'll have rigged a couple of hundred individual lines, and the model will represent, with reasonable accuracy, a vessel that's been sitting in harbor for some time, with her sails and their associated gear stowed below.  Take a deep breath, imbibe some liquid refreshment, and contemplate at some length just how you want to spend your leisure time for the next several months to a year - and whether you really want to spend the money on the several hundred additional aftermarket blocks and other fittings it will take to represent the rest of the gear necessary to sail the ship.  Most people find that - especially in the case of a huge, 4-masted barque on such a small scale - the lines I've just mentioned are plenty.

I hope this doesn't come across as snobbery or anything of that sort.  But I've only seen half a dozen  latter-day sailing ship models on small scales with reasonably complete running rigging including sail gear.  Those models were built from scratch by people who are far better and more experienced than I am.  One of Donald McNarry's books, for instance, includes photos of his model of the Herzogin Cecilie on, if I remember correctly, 1/32" = 1' scale.  It has furled sails and remarkably complete running rigging (all made from wire).  McNarry is a wizard; if I had to give anybody the title "world's best ship modeler" it would be him.  But he acknowledges in the book that rigging those three nearly-identical masts, each with six square sails on it, came close to driving him up the wall. 

Prof. Tilley,

 

Thank you again for your advise. ( I really appreciate the part about abiding in some beverage). But seriously, Your sobbering account gets me back on to the ground.

To clarify a bit: I will not be buying any after market fittings for this model. I will make due with what is provided. I ahve already made up my mind to build this ship so the time it takes is not a concern. I wish I could say that I was progressing along nicely but I keep making mistakes and having to redo things. I couldn't continue knowing that some small aspect has been done poorly.

Your advice is not in any way taken as snobbery. On the contrary, your advice is taken with awe.

The reason I brought this topic up was to find out more information about techniques available for creating furled sails. I will reread the other post "Real Sails" to see if this is covered there. I saw the post you made concerning techniques for furled sails and posted as you suggested. I am nowhere near this point in my model, but the more I learn now, the better prepared I can be.

PS I am practicing rigging. Or more accurately, threading and knotting. How the heck do you keep a thread consistently taut before, while and after tying the knot? (hehehehe) more fun things to learn. related: How do you get that thread into that tiny hole. I thought threading a needle was bad.

respectfully, Robert 

Try this.  Put a drop of CA adhesive (superglue) on a piece of thread - and wipe it off quick.  The half-inch or so where the glue landed will immdiately become stiff.  Using a sharp Xacto knife or razor blade, slice the stiff part of the thread through at an angle.  You now have a piece of thread with a built-in needle on the end.  (Be sure that end gets snipped off when you're finished.)

One silly little exercise that I found useful when I was getting started was to learn how to thread a needle with one hand.  Hold your right hand (assuming you're right-handed) in front of you with the thumb pointing up.  Pick up the needle between the ring finger and pinky, so the eye of the needle is pointing up.  Grab the thread between the thumb and index finger.  By bending the knuckle of the thumb and index finger, shove the thread through the eye of the needle.  With a little practice you'll discover that it's actually easier to do that way than with two hands - because you don't have to coordinate the two hands with each other.  Learn to do it with either your right or left hand, and you probably have all the dexterity it takes to rig a ship model.  It also comes in handy as a parlor trick - and, on occasion, for winning bets.  Most people seem to think it's hard to thread a needle with one hand; it really isn't.

J.Tilley-

I've read your other post on your furled sail technique and my interest is piqued.  Do you have any pictures of the process?  I think I have it down, but there are a lot of words, and my minds eye is a little near sighted.

Or, do you have any suggestions of books on ship modeling I could get that could help me figure out modeling furled sails? 

Glamdring - many thanks for your interest.  Here are links to some photos of two of my models that have furled sails made with that technique:

http://gallery.drydockmodels.com/hancock

http://gallery.drydockmodels.com/phantom

The first is a scratchbuilt model of the American Continental Frigate Hancock, from the Revolutionary War.  The second is based on the Model Shipways New York pilot schooner Phantom.  (This one in particular has a resin hull; MS is selling the kit now with a traditional machine-carved wood hull.)

I've never taken pictures of sails under "construction."  I'm thinking about taking on another model with furled sails in the not-too-distant future; I'll try to take some "in-progress" snaps of it.

I don't know of a book specifically about ship modeling that goes into any real depth about making sails.  Donald McNarry's Ship Models In Miniature and Philip Reed's Modeling Sailing Men of War both feature models that have excellent furled sails, but don't really explain the process in any more detail than I did in that earlier thread on the Forum.

The first step in reproducing furled sails (or anything else) realistically is, of course, to understand the prototype.  To learn how it was really done I recommend one book above all others:  Seamanship In the Age of Sail, by John Harland.  It's a fascinating book that traces such practices throughout the sailing ship period.  (That's vital.  A furled topsail on board the Golden Hind would look entirely different from one on board H.M.S. Victory.)  The Harland book, unfortunately, isn't cheap, but its combination of well-written text, photos, and beautiful drawings (by Mark Myers) makes it a centerpiece of any nautical library. 

Hope this helps a little.  Good luck.

THanks much, I'll add those books to my Christmas list.   I would also appreciate if you would create some sort of tutorial on creating furled sails by your method.  I am positive many otherw would as well!  I look forward to it if you ever do decide to create it.

Glamdring - Your comments are deeply appreciated.  I'm not sure I really have much more to offer than what I put in that other thread - and in the photos.  The process really isn't difficult. 

The most essential thing to have when doing something like this is a clear, solid conception of what the result is supposed to look like - i.e., what a real furled sail, on board a ship of the period and nationality in question, looks like.  That means spending some time studying paintings, drawings, and, if any are available, photos of actual ships.  Replica vessels can also be of considerable value.  Last weekend my students and I took a field trip to Jamestown Settlement, where well-researched, full-size reconstructions of the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery are tied up.  I spent quite a bit of time with the interpreter in charge of the ships, discussing just how topsails were furled in the early seventeenth century.  It's an interesting subject.  The topsails of the Susan Constant have to be furled by men standing in the tops, because the yards are too small to take a sailor's weight.  The way the sail is smothered into a vertical bundle, with such lines as the sheets, clewlines, and bowlines emerging from it, is quite distinctive.  I took about a dozen pictures, which I'll use when (in the not-too-distant future, I hope) I'm working on the sails and rigging of the old Revell Golden Hind that I got from our good friend Jake Groby.

Give it a try.  The worst thing that can happen is that you'll have a mass of sopping wet tissue paper in your waste basket.  With a pair of fresh eyes you'll probably think of some better ways to do it than I did.