Foot Ropes

Brass chain I do know about from experience.  The "Brass Black" sold by Bluejacket works beautifully on it.  The instructions on the bottle recommend diluting the fluid with water, but I confess I've never bothered.  My normal procedure is to decant a little of the fluid into some small container, dunk the chain in it (ten seconds or so is enough), and lay it on a piece of Kleenex to dry for a few minutes.  Then I give it a shot of Testor's Clear Flat finish out of a spray can.  Easy.

Bluejacket also sells a fluid called "Pewter Black," which is great for blackening the deadeyes, blocks, etc. that the firm sells.  The only problem:  most of the blocks on board the Cutty Sark seem to be painted white.  If this is your first ship, though, that may be the sort of thing you don't want to lose sleep over.

Thanks for the suggestion on the blackener.  I was thinking more for, in this case at least, the chains on the Cutty Sark.  I'll take a look around though and see what I can find.

Sounds like all that ought to work fine.  Do remember a couple of points. 

One - for model building purposes, the footrope and jackstay materials have opposite requirements.  The jackstays need to be as rigid as possible.  The real ones were iron rods; you don't want them to bend when the footropes and other gear are fastened to them.  The real footropes (and stirrups) were flexible hemp rope.

Two - in reality, footropes and stirrups are generally made out of the same size rope.  Whatever works well for one ought to work fine for the other.

A well-stocked hobby shop may well carry one of the chemicals that blacken wire.  If not, you can get it via mail order from Bluejacket (www.bluejacketinc.com).  Some modelers have gotten good results with gun blueing, which is available from all sorts of places that cater to hunters - down to and including K-Mart. I'm not sure, though, whether any of those chemicals would work on the kinds of wire you've mentioned.  (I've only used it on brass and copper.)  And my experience has been that the black finish, on such small stuff, tends to rub off or flake off if it isn't protected with a coat of clear flat finish.  Jake may be able to suggest something that works better than the stuff I've used (mainly "Brass Black," from Bluejacket), but If I were you I'd do a little experimenting - especially on the wire that has nylon coating.  I have no idea how hobby paint will react to that - but I'm pretty sure chemical blackener wouldn't have any effect at all on it. 

Good luck.

Well, dusting off my "resource hunting" skills, I ventured off to my local Hobby lobby to see what I could find.  I found everything I needed in the necklace crafts and the fake flower area.  I'm using uncoated stemwire for the jackstays, and I'm using bead stringing wire for the footropes.  it is nylon coated stainless steel at .38mm.  It's as flexible as string but has weight, so it will hang properly.  for the stirrups a spool of very thin stringing wire. 

I'm busy cleaning up the masts as I write this.  I'll be starting on the yards this weekend.  I'm done with classes until June, so I have at least 6 hours a day to devote to the hobby right now.  I consider myself blessed.

Hey Jake, you mentioned in passing something about chemically turning wire black.  Could you fill me in on the process?  It sounds better than just painting the wires...

 

 Hi Grymm!  When I built my Revell Cutty Sark many years ago - I used wire salvaged from a relay and  it worked out very well. It held it's shape very well , and with a coat of paint looked fine. However , if you're a purist , disregard everything after "Hi Grymm" .

Wire for rigging. I just completed a DCC decoder installation, and had some of the wire pieces that I cut off the decoder harness. It is stranded wire, and the individual strands are 0.005". If you have any model railroad friends, who are installing DCC, have them save the wire bits, for things like footropes, ratlines, or any other "small stuff".

Pete

Mkeatingss - Thanks.  The rigging of footropes, of course, varied quite a bit over the centuries.  I don't think steel wire ones appeared before the twentieth century.

According to Mr. Campbell's plans, the Cutty Sark's footropes and stirrups were made of hemp rope.  (That surprised me a little; iron wire was coming into use at that time.)  The upper end of each stirrup was eyespliced to the jackstay.  The jackstay, at that time, consisted of an iron rod running through a series of iron eyebolts that were driven into the yards.  (Her yards were wood; the lower masts were iron.  [Correction:  I checked the plans; the lower yards - foreyard, mainyard, and crojack yard - are steel.  The lower masts and bowsprit are iron.  The topmasts, topgallant masts, topsail yards, and jibboom are Vancouver pine.  All other spars are pitch pine.  That's the sort of detail that appears on those drawings.])  An iron thimble (far too smal to worry the modeler on 1/96 scale) was spliced into the lower end of the stirrup, and the footrope ran through the thimble.  The inner end of the footrope itself was eyespliced to an eyebolt mounted in a band on the yard, on the other side of the mast.  (The port and starboard footropes crossed in front of the mast.)  The outer end of the footrope was eyespliced into an eye on the tip of the yard - except in the cases of the lower yards and upper topsail yards, which, as we discussed earlier, had flemish horses.  In those cases the outer ends of the footropes were eyespliced to eyes in bands, a few feet inboard from the ends of the yards.

The arrangement you've described sounds like a later development of the jackstay, with the parts welded together.  I don't know when the modern process of welding was perfected, but it certainly wasn't common in 1869.  The Cutty Sark's ironwork, so far as I know, was held together with bolts and rivets.

I can't resist emphasizing again:  anybody wanting to build a model of the Cutty Sark really ought to get a copy of those George Campbell plans. They contain just about any tidbit of information about the ship a modeler could want.  And - though this may seem like a strange thing to say about a set of plans - reading and studying them is fun. 

A few more examples of the information that's on those plans:

- The caulking in the seams of the roof of the deckhouse on the poop deck is white.  (The caulking all the other planked areas is black.)

- The deckhouse aft of the mainmast isn't shown on the builder's original drawings, but was present by 1871 if not sooner.  At some undetermined later date it was lengthened by four feet.  It's divided internally by a thwartships bulkhead about a third of the way from its forward end.  The forward part contains quarters for the bosun, carpenter, cook, and sailmaker; the after part housed the eight apprentices.

- The small smokestack in the poop deckhouse roof leads to a miniature fireplace in the saloon.

- The big forward deckhouse is divided by thwartship bulkheads into three parts.  The forward compartment contains bunks for twelve seamen, along with a dining table and two benches.  Aft of that compartment is the carpenter's shop, with his bench on the after bulkhead.  The aftermost compartment in the deckhouse is the galley.  The deck in the galley is covered with linoleum, in a black and white checkerboard pattern.

- The figurehead is painted white, with a thin gold line along the bottom edge of the witch's short chemise ("cutty sark").

- The head of the spanker slides in a track fastened to the bottom of the gaff.

- The little boxes that Revell calls "sail lockers" are in fact toilets for the crew.  On the after side of the port one (I think Revell actually got this point) is a small pump, which is connected to a pipe leading down inside the ship's stem timber.  It was used to pump up salt water for washing the decks.

- The centerpiece of the stern ornamentation is a pair of carved wood emblems.  The upper one is the Star of India, in gold on a red background, surrounded by a blue ribbon with gold letters reading "Heaven's Light Our Guide."  The lower one is the family arms of the ship's original owner, John Willis:  a blue W with gold rays emanating from it, surrounded by a red ribbon bearing, in gold letters, the family motto:  "WHERE THERES A WILLIS AWAY."  Aaarrrggghhh.

All three sheets are covered with stuff like that.  How much of this trivia is directly relevant to ship modelers?  Probably not much.  But it sure is fascinating stuff.  Sailing ship modeling is connected inextricably with the literature on the subject.  Any modeler who passes up the chance to use good plans and books is missing at least half the pleasure that the hobby can provide.

Since the Campbell plans only show the ship herself, they don't show the inscription carved in the stone of the drydock under her stern.  It's a quotation from Masefield, and I think it makes a better motto for her than either of those on the stern:  "They mark our passage as a race of men / Earth will not see such ships as these again."

 

The bottom line in all this is:  get hold of some good references, and check them frequently.  The variations in rigging practices over time and space are quite dramatic - and not without interest.

In the case of the Cutty Sark, we're lucky in that we have the excellent Campbell plans.  They show footropes on all the yards, with the following number of stirrups: 

Fore and main lower and crojack yards - 6

Fore and main upper and lower topsail yards - 6

Mizzen lower topsail yard - 6

Mizzen upper topsail yard - 4

All topgallant and royal yards - 4

Main skysail yard - 2.

Six of her yards have flemish horses:  fore lower, main lower, crojack, fore upper topsail, main upper topsail, and mizzen upper topsail.  Those are also the only yards whose sails have reef points.  In that period (though I don't think this was universally true throughout the sailing ship era) it seems to have been assumed that the only reason a man would need to get out to the extreme end of the yard was to tie a reef point.  So, no reef points - no flemish horses.   

In the Cutty Sark, the inner and outer ends of the footropes themselves are seized to metal eyes in bands on the yards.  (The outer ends of the flemish horses are spliced into eyebolts in the ends of the yards; the inner ends are spliced to the jackstays.)  The upper ends of the stirrups are eye-spliced around the jackstays, and the bottoms of the stirrups are eyespliced around the footropes.  So the stirrups hang behind the yards.

The Soleil Royal may well not have had footropes at all - but there's room for interpretation.  Dr. Anderson's The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast suggests that they were introduced in France in about 1670 - initially only on the main and fore lower yards.  In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (according to Anderson, and to James Lees's The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War, 1625-1860) the outer end of the footrope was eyespliced around the end of the yard and the inner ends were set up, either to each other or to the parrel, with a pair of small deadeyes and a lanyard.  The stirrup, according to Mr. Lees, was introduced in large ships in about 1719, and was in common use in the British navy by 1740.  Initially, the stirrups went around the yard itself; the end of the stirrup had an eye spliced in it, and the other end of the stirrup went through the eye.  In that configuration the stirrup hung straight down from the yard.  The jackstay was introduced in the early nineteenth century (Lees gives the date as 1811; other sources, if I remember right, suggest that it was a little later).  Apparently it wasn't long after the introduction of the jackstay (whose primary function was to serve as a convenient place to secure the head of the sail) that somebody figured out how to eyesplice the footrope stirrups to it.  From that point onward, the stirrups hung down behind the yard.

All those dates need to be taken with a grain of salt.  Changes in rigging practice didn't happen over night.  There was always room for opinion as to whether the old reliable or new-fangled way was best.

It's fairly widely accepted among ship modelers that, except on very large scales (1/4" = 1' or thereabouts), splicing rope just isn't practical.  Neatly-tied knots are a good solution.  My preferences lean toward smaller scales; there I find that making footropes, stirrups, and flemish horses out of wire is a good solution.

A single loop was also used at the ends of the yards.  It was called a "Flemish Horse" and was installed to address the problem of being out on the end of the footrope. 

Best,

Ron

I have completed several models including the Heller Victory and Soleil Royale, and somewhat larger plank on frame models.

My method of rigging the footropes also known as horses is as follows:

I always rig the footropes along with all the other necessary yard tackle before attaching to the masts.

I use rigging cord of the appropriate size to form the footrope and of a lesser size for the stirrups.

Depending on the scale and ship type I usually clove hitch the stirrup to the yard, and use a thimble or simple knot to the footrope.

A smear of super glue is used to impart the necessary sag to the footrope and to stiffen the stirrup.

The footrope should hang about three scale  feet below the yard.

Hope this helps.

Maybe even more remarkable is that it took so long for the footrope to be invented.  Different sources give different dates, but it's pretty clear that it happened fairly late in the seventeenth century.  The sailors on board Elizabethan and Spanish galleons, and many of the huge, magnificent warships of the early 1600s, apparently were crawling along the tops of the yards.  (They did have a system of furling topsails that minimized the need for such acrobatics; most of the work could be done from the relative safety of the top.  But the typical able seaman must have spent a fair amount of time literally hanging onto a yard with his arms and legs - with no pension plan and no insurance.)

Mkeatingss - your reference to "grab bars across the saddle bolts" went over my head.  I'm not familiar with either term.  Maybe I know the fittings in question by some other term.  Could you explain?

It may be a bit off topic, but Powder Monkey's right. And if that sounds like fun, think about reefing sails, 50, 60, 90 feet in the air because the weather has started to deteriorate. Or, better yet, furling sails with 60 or 70 kt winds kicking up.

And all of this was before OSHA and safety lines. Bungy jumping can't hold a candle to it.

Back to topic. Don't forget the grab bars across the saddle bolts. You started to see them with the advent of the clippers, like Cutty Sark.

Mike K.

If you are ever in San Diego, visit the Maritime Museum.

 http://www.sdmaritime.com/ContentPage.asp?ContentID=9

On the Star of India, below decks, is a yard set up with footropes that you can try. The rope is only a foot off the deck, and as you are swaying about, you gain a respect for those who do up on the masts! Sorry for the diversion from the topic.

Keep in mind, too that footropes are designed so that a man standing on them will have the yard across the middle of  his chest-- below the pocket line on a typcal man's shirt- not up by your armpits.

There is a lot of slack in the footropes-- they are designed so that when several men are on them at the same time, all are at about the right height so they can reach over the yard and grab the sail. 

When I sailed on the Eagle, I was surprised the first time I went out on a yard-- the footrope sagged so much under my weight that the yard was about even with my shoulders.  (How am I going to reach the sail?)
But it all became clear, when several shipmates joined me on the yard.  The weight of everyone else flattend out the sag in the footrope from my solitary presence, and now we were all at the right height to work the sail. 

I learned that it was actuaally easier to to be in teh iddle of the yard-- the guys at the each end had to deal with the footrope where it attached to the yard, so it did not hang all the way down.  Made for awkward footing out there!  (But the sail was generally lighter out there, as the bulk was drawn toward the center of the yard by the buntlines and clewlines, so it was easier to furl at theend of the yard.)

I'm surprised the Revell instructions don't mention the footropes.  There's no doubt whatever that every yard ought to have them.

In the mid-nineteenth century (and later) the footropes would normally be eyespliced to the jackstays.  (I mentioned the jackstays earlier.  Revell provides little studs representing the jackstay eyebolts, but - wisely - not the jackstays themselves.  I'd recommend adding them from piano wire - like the instructions in the original 1959 issue of the kit recommended.)

Real footropes are rigged deliberately so they sag quite a bit, to improve traction for the men standing on them.  The big problem with rigging footropes on a model is that gravity doesn't operate to scale.  Thread doesn't droop like rope does.  Lots of modeler (including me) get around that problem by making the footropes out of copper or brass wire.  A good way to do it is to bend the footrope to shape carefully and fasten the stirrups (the vertical lines that support it) to it by soldering them in place.  The wire can then be blackened with chemical blackener, sprayed with flat finish, and mounted on the yard.  (By the way - the more work you can do on each yard before you mount it on the model, the better.  It's far easier to fasten blocks, jackstays, footropes, and sails to a yard that's clamped in a vise than to wrestle with it after it's on the model.)

This, incidentally, is an instance in which the rigging of the Cutty Sark is more complicated than that of the Soleil Royal.  The jackstay was invented in the early nineteenth century, and the footrope appeared gradually during the course of the seventeenth.  The Soleil Royal most likely had footropes only on her lower and topsail yards - probably with one stirrup for each.  There probably was no footrope on the crojack yard (since it didn't carry a sail).  So five of the Soleil Royal's yards probably had footropes.  All sixteen of the Cutty Sark's do - and there are a lot more stirrups to worry about.  The footropes, with their associated stirrups and flemish horses, in themselves account for more than a hundred pieces of thread (or wire) that aren't applicable to the Soleil Royal.

The actual details of the footropes (the measurements, number and location of stirrups, etc.) are all explained in Mr. Campbell's drawings.  Footropes aren't really difficult to rig - but on a model like this there are a lot of them.

Hope that helps a little.  Good luck.