knot too savvy with knots

There's no need for this subject to be either complicated or intimidating.  You can complete the rigging of virtually any ship model with two knots:  the reef knot (otherwise known as the square knot) and the clove hitch.  Both of them are extremely simple - just about the simplest knots there are.  Describing knots in words is notoriously difficult, but any book or website (I'm sure there are some that cover knots) should make both of them clear in a matter of seconds. 

The clove hitch is used to secure a piece of rope to some object in such a way that both ends of the rope remain free.  It relies on tension on both ends of the rope to keep it tight.  Its principal use in a ship model is in tying ratlines to shrouds.  If you're using the pre-formed "shrouds and ratlines" that came with the kit, you can forget about it.

The reef knot is used for tying two pieces of rope together, tying both ends of a single line together, or tying the end of a line to an eye, spar, block, or other fitting.  In modeling terms, the reef knot is for everything for which the clove hitch isn't appropriate.  If you aren't rigging your own ratlines, the reef knot probably is the only one you'll need.

In a real ship, of course, dozens of different knots were used for different purposes.  But in a model those two probably will do everything you want.  Oh - occasionally you may need to tie a knot in the end of a line to keep the line from passing through a hole.  (E.g. - when rigging a lanyard for a pair of deadeyes.)  Knots like the stopper knot or the Matthew Walker knot are used for that purpose in real life, but in a model you can get by perfectly well by simply tying a reef knot with a couple of extra turns in it.

I've seen quite a few gadgets designed for rigging ship models, but I've never found anything to take the place of a good, fine-pointed pair of tweezers.  Until you get some practice, two pairs of tweezers - one bigger than the other, perhaps - will come in handy. 

Seizing lines isn't really difficult once you get the hang of it - and, especially in the standing rigging, it makes quite a difference in the finished model's appearance.  The trick is to work out some means of hanging on to the line (or lines) being seized, so you can use both hands for the seizing itself.  Modelers use alligator clips, hand vises, and even clothespins for that purpose.  The other trick in doing a seizing (be warned:  this is ten times as easy to do as it is to describe in words) is to make the first full turn lock the end of the seizing line in place.  Pass the fine seizing line between the two parts of the heavy line that's being seized.  Hold the bitter end of the fine line alongside one part of the heavy line.  Take the fine line all the way around both parts of the heavy line, and around itself.  That should hold one end of the seizing line tight.  When the seizing is done, tuck the end of the seizing line through the loop made by its last pass around the heavy line and pull taut.  Now both ends are stuck.  But just to be safe, I recommend putting a tiny bit of Elmer's glue on each end and letting it dry before cutting off the excess thread.

Another adhesive that comes in handy is superglue (CA).  I recommend using it sparingly for actually securing lines, but it's extremely useful in getting lines ready to rig.  If a line has to go through one or more blocks, deadeyes, eyebolts, etc., put a drop of superglue on the end of it and wipe most of the glue off quickly.  The superglue eliminates any fraying, and makes the last half inch or so of the line stiff.  That's like having a built-in needle.

Consider replacing some of the rigging fittings that come with the model.  Lots of experienced modelers get rid of the molded deadeyes and lanyards, along with the plastic-coated-thread "shrouds and ratlines."  If this is your first sailing ship, you may not want to do that.  But your life will be easier if you replace the plastic belaying pins with brass ones.  The plastic ones - even if half of them weren't busted before you opened the box - are likely to snap when you try to tighten the lines that are secured to them.  Various companies offer aftermarket belaying pins; my favorite is Bluejacket ( www.bluejacketinc.com ).  Unfortunately brass belaying pins aren't cheap, but they vastly improve the quality of the modeler's life.  Plastic eyebolts also tend to snap.  It's easy to make replacements from brass wire.  Hold a piece of wire over a candle flame for a minute, to soften it.  Then bend it around some sort of mandrel (a set of drill bits, #60 through #80, works well for the purpose) and twist the ends into a short "pigtail."  Superglue the eyebolt into the deck (or hull, or whatever), and it will resist any yank you give it.

Ship model rigging is full of steep but short learning curves.  If you give them a chance, you'll find that your eyes, brain, and fingers actually learn pretty quickly.  It may take your fifteen minutes to seize a big eye in a piece of heavy thread the first time you try it, but I'll bet the second one takes no more than ten minutes - and shortly you'll be doing the trick in less than a minute.

Hope that helps a little.  Good luck.  It's a great hobby. 

Professor Tilley --

Can you suggest which sizes of Bluejacket deadeyes, blocks and belaying pins to order? I am looking at replacing the kit parts on several kits, including the Lindberg Jolly Roger (1/130 or so?), the 1/150 Imai USS Susquehanna, and the 1/96 Revell ships. These fittings come in several dimensions and I am uncertain which sizes are best since I don't imagine the kit blocks are necessarily molded in the proper sizes to begin with. I'm also seeking a source for photo-etched grating to detail the bottoms of my ships' boats and other places. And scale oars too.

Thanks for all your posts -- they are extremely informative and I have actually started cutting and pasting many of them into a "Tilley FAQ" document for future reference. Where do you find the time to teach and model when you're always writing such meticulous, detailed posts?

The smallest belaying pins Bluejacket sells are 1/4" long.  That's two feet on 1/96 scale - pretty big for a belaying pin, but believable.  They're probably too big for the smaller scales you mentioned, but you might get away with using them (especially if you were to snip off the ends). 

Recommending specific sizes of blocks and deadeyes for models on three different scales is more than I can handle, but I can offer some basic suggestions.  All those scales are on the small side.  A block or deadeye that's a foot long, or a foot in diameter, is a pretty big block or deadeye.  In a big ship, though, such things as the blocks for the jeers and the deadeyes for the lower shrouds might be bigger than that.  Anybody who really wants to get into sailing ship modeling really needs to build up a small library of books.  James Lees's The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War, 1620-1865, contains detailed tables of dimensions for spars, rigging lines, blocks, deadeyes, etc.  Another near-necessity for building a good model is a good set of plans, which will give at least some hints about the sizes of the rigging fittings.  A good course of action might be to order one package apiece of the three or four smallest sizes Bluejacket offers, and do a little experimentation to see how they look.  Compare them to all the photos (of the real ship, and of good models), plans, and contemporary paintings you can find.  Remember:  there's no need to order the whole outfit of gear for the model at once.  Bluejacket gives good service.  (I sent in an order last Thursday; it came on Tuesday.)  Waiting for fittings won't slow you down.  My custom is to order about as many as I think I'll use in a month, and send in another order when I get close to running out.

Two golden rules of ship model rigging:  1.  When in doubt as to size, err on the small side.  2.  When in doubt as to color, err on the dark side.

Bluejacket does sell photo-etched brass grating material; so does Model Expo.  I think some other companies sell it cheaper, and in larger pieces, though.  BJ and ME also carry oars in fairly large scales (maybe about right for 1/96 - but that Revell Constitution has oars - doesn't it?). 

For oars on smaller scales, try this.  Get a piece of brass wire that's the right diameter for the oar loom (handle).  Heat it over a candle for a minute or so, then mash the end of it in a vise.  (The flattened part is the oar blade.)  Trim both ends to the right length, paint the finished product appropriately, and you've got a pretty effective oar. You may have to crank the vise down really tight; I've been known to pound on the handle with a hammer.  But the result, carefully painted and lashed into a bundle of other oars, can be pretty convincing. 

I've got a relatively light teaching load this semester and, as is the case with most faculty at the place where I work, relatively few students come to see me during my office hours.  One thing I learned in grad school was how to write reasonably fast.  I frequently spend that time surfing the web and writing posts for this Forum.  I also sometimes (like now) take a look at it just before bedtime.  I'd probably be happier if I spent that time in the workshop; for one reason or another it seems like I just don't get around to going out there much these days.  But I do have a couple of projects under way, and I'm planning on getting to one of them this weekend.

 There is one tool, that I find very helpful for taking turns around a cleat, or belaying pin. This is a sewing needle, glued into the end of a small diameter dowel. The eye of the needle is ground down to a short fork, and is used to guide the lines behind the belaying pins, or under the horns of a cleat.

Pete

I'm on the same page as Prof Tilley for knots on models, clove hitch, and square cover most of the bases.  I've used a bowline once or twice where I needed a fixed-diameter loop in a teeny-tiny line (bit of cyano-acrylate glue) to hold it open). 

About the only time this is a problem is with some kinds of running rigging.  At 1/8" scale, you have to be tough to seize & splice the eye in the end of the topgallant bunt line, just so you can tie off the sheet with a sheet bend nobody without a loupe would be able to see in the first place.  (A figure-of-eight in one, and a half-hitch or square knot will often suffice, visually.)

Now, another thing you might try, is to rig running rigging in reverse.  That is, start at the belaying pin and work back to the running end.  It's no a perfect answer, but it can help simplify things at the pin rail, not having al lthe excess line in the way while also trying to keep tension "just" right and also making up a nice neat hitch about the pin.  (The issue about how much line, and how to depict it on the rail, or over the pin, is a whole 'nuther issue . . . <sigh>)

Oh, and I've found that for some of the smaller scales (or teenier blocks) you can "get away with" using metal bullseyes rather than "blocks" as the catalogs will generally offer b.e. down to about 1/16" diameter--6" in 1/96 scale.

Getting one or two more sizes of rigging line will help, too--you jsut have to be tough enough to mark up your rigging diagram(s) for the sizes you are going to use (back to needing those reference books <g>).  Going from Revell's two to four sizes really helps the "look" of the rigging.  I usually plan on no less than 5 sizes, nor more than 7, typically (hard to tell the sizes apart after a while, visually)--but, I also have a great pile of bits & pieces of cordage available from a great wide array of sources from over the years, too.

I've been reading some suggestions about belaying pins in this thread, and I must admit, I'm completely new to this. The Revell instructions don't say anything about how to tie rigging lines to the pins. I could sure use an illustration! I tried a Google search but came up short. I assume you run the end of the rigging line in a figure-eight pattern around the top and bottom parts of the pin, and secure it with a simple knot?

I would like to try the 1/4" brass pins instead of the kit's plastic pins. To install them, I assume you cut off the plastic pins, drill a new hole for the pins, and glue the brass ones in place?

Thanks for all the great advice, everyone, and for taking the time to respond to my post.

Essentially - you've got it right.

I strongly recommend replacing plastic belaying pins.  Styrene is wonderful stuff, but it does have its limitations.  The pins in the Revell Constitution kit are just about to scale, and that means they're too skinny and brittle to take the pull of the lines.  (As a matter of fact, in just about every Revell Constitution I've seen the majority of the pins were busted before the box got opened.)  Replacing them is just a matter of slicing them off neatly, drilling a row of holes where they were, and installing brass replacements - either turned or bought from someplace like Bluejacket.

It's absolutely vital that the pinrails be installed firmly to the insides of the bulwarks.  It's worth a little extra trouble to glue a piece of square or L-shaped styrene underneath the pinrail (where the addition won't show) as a reinforcement.  It's one of nature's laws that if ten lines need to be secured to a weakly-installed pinrail, line number 10 will be the one that, when you pull it taut, will make the pinrail come loose from the bulwark.

The prototype way to secure a line to a belaying pin works as follows (generally speaking; the technique varied slightly from time to time, country to country, and ship to ship).  Bear in mind that writing and talking about stuff like this is at least ten times as hard as actually doing it.  Loop the line around the lower end of the pin, under the rail.  Then bring it up above the rail in the start of a figure-8.  Form a small loop in the line, with the hauling part of the loop passing under the standing part.  Slip the loop over the top of the pin and pull the line as taut as you intend it to be.  If you made the loop right, the line will now, in effect, be tied around the belaying pin.  It will stay in position without any further effort on your part while you wrap it three or four times, in a figure-8, around the bottom and top of the pin.  Finally, make a neat coil out of the remaining line and hang it over the top part of the pin.

Modelers introduce small variations on this.  Many like to make the coils of rope over the pins separately, by looping them around some sort of jig, securing the shape of the coils with some sort of adhesive, and then mounting them on the model.  I personally find the most convenient approach is to put a drop of white glue on the rail where the pin passes through it and form the coil out of the end of the line, dragging it through the glue in the process.  Elmer's glue, if you use it sparingly, dries almost invisible; if it looks a little shiny when dry, that can be cured with a drop of clear flat finished.  If something goes wrong later (if a line breaks, or for some reason goes slack, for instance) it's a simple matter to cast it off from the pin.  Just put a drop of water on the glue blob to soften it.

Hope that helps.  Good luck.

Prof. Tilley,

Thanks for taking the time to respond with such great suggestions. This answers everything I wanted to know! I'll give this all a try when I'm ready to start rigging.