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Yard-to-Mast question...need some help with this

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  • Member since
    February 2006
Yard-to-Mast question...need some help with this
Posted by Grymm on Saturday, March 11, 2006 11:57 AM

I'm getting ready to start my Soleil Royal build.  I have a question that has been driving me nuts.  The kit has no way to mount the yards to the masts.  The rigging alone is all that holds them up.  I know there was some kind of apparatus/mount for the yard to keep it on the mast. 

Does anyone know what this is?  I cannot find a reference on the web anywhere.  If anyone has any models of 17th century ships, can you take a picture for me or link me to a diagram?  Heck, you could even just draw it and I'll fabricate it. 

Thanks

  • Member since
    August 2005
  • From: vernon hills illinois
Posted by sumpter250 on Saturday, March 11, 2006 5:15 PM

    Yards are generally held to the mast by saddles and parrels. The saddle is fixed to the spar, with a cutout that fits against the mast, Parrels are typically large wood "beads" strung on a line that attaches to the saddle. On more modern ships, like the later clippers. the lower yards ar attached to the mast with "yard cranes", which allow the yards to swing in the horizontal, and rotate in the vertical.

    Yards attached with saddles and parrels, can be raised and lowered, those attached with cranes, cannot.

Lead me not into temptation ..................I can find it myself

  • Member since
    June 2005
  • From: Walworth, NY
Posted by Powder Monkey on Saturday, March 11, 2006 6:11 PM
Take a look here:

http://www.all-model.com/wolfram/PAGE89.html

Also hit previous page at top to see more parrals  Smile [:)]


  • Member since
    December 2002
  • From: Greenville,Michigan
Posted by millard on Saturday, March 11, 2006 7:16 PM

Small suggestion.I drill a small hole in the back of the yard and in the front of the mast.I insert a small brass wire and superglue it in the yard.Than I superglue it in the mast,This helps hold it in place while your running the Parrals around the back.Its hidden so it will never be seen.

Rod

  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Saturday, March 11, 2006 9:52 PM

We took this up in some detail in Grymm's other thread - the one titled "Soleil Royal prep work."  It's now (evening of March 11) on p. 2 of the topic list.

Parrels on 1/100 scale aren't difficult to make.  Millard's suggestion is a good one.  The wire holding the mast to the yard will be invisible when the model's finished, and will add considerable strength to the assembly.  The rigging of a ship model doesn't behave exactly as the prototype does when the model gets a little age on it.  Lines tend to age inconsistently; a yard that was perfectly level when you built the model may acquire a slight but irritating tilt five years later.  That wire-and-superglue arrangement will resist that tendency.

I'll take the liberty of offering three small suggestions.  One - there's no need to worry about the details of such things as yard parrels now, when you're just starting the model.  You won't need parrels for several months. 

Two - don't try to rig the parrels or any other parts of the rigging till you've got at least one good book on the subject in front of you.  (In this case, Anderson's Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast is the one to get.)  That website, which reproduces parts of Mondfelt's Historical Ship Models, is excellent for what it is:  an introduction to the subject.  But the rigging of a seventeenth-century ship-of-the-line is a big project, and a good book makes it much, much easier.  The book will, for instance, discuss the sequence in which the various lines and other rigging components need to be set up.  (That may seem obvious, but it frequently isn't.) 

Three - as you study the books and websites, give some careful thought to just what you're trying to do with this particular model.  As we discussed a while back, the kit suffers from some serious errors in terms of accuracy.  To put every piece of rigging on it that's described in the Anderson book will take many, many months - and probably cost well over a hundred dollars in aftermarket parts.  Does it make sense to put that kind of effort, time, and money into a model with a distorted hull and no deck camber?  I don't pretend to have a "definitive" answer to that question - except to reiterate that, in my opinion, it depends on the individual modeler.  I put just about every piece of rigging I could justify on the Soleil Royal that I built back in the seventies.  If I'd had the sense to do a little preliminary reading, and found out how inaccurate the kit was, I don't think I would have done that.  (I certainly would have put parrels on the yards, though.)  The amount of effort a given project justifies should, in my opinion, be entirely up to the builder.  But I do think the builder has a right to go into the project with eyes wide open.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Sunday, March 12, 2006 7:47 PM

Here's a link to a web ad for the Anderson book:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&isbn=048627960X&itm=1

As you can see, the recent paperback edition is quite reasonably priced.  If you click on the note about the availability of used copies, you can find one for less than $7.00.

If you click on the image of the cover in the Barnes and Noble ad it will get enlarged so you can see the drawings on it.  The object in the lower right corner is a yard parrel.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    November 2005
  • From: Madison, Mississippi
Posted by Donnie on Sunday, March 12, 2006 8:35 PM
And again - try this:
http://www.all-model.com/wolfram/PAGE88.html
http://www.all-model.com/wolfram/PAGE90.html

Donnie

Using both of these schemes, you should be ok.

In Progress: OcCre's Santisima Trindad Finished Builds: Linbergs "Jolly Roger" aka La Flore Mantua's Cannone Da Costa Americano linberg's "Cptn Kidd" aka Wappen Von Hamburg Model Shipways 1767 Sultana Midwest Boothbay Lobsterboat (R/C)

  • Member since
    February 2006
Posted by Grymm on Friday, March 17, 2006 1:27 PM
Thanks everyone.  Just one more thing on the "how the heck?" list I can cross off.
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