Sails for 1/350 Constitution

Aroguy wrote:

My reson for using actual cloth is that it would be more realistic, as this ship is the largest in my naval colection and is ment to be the centerpeice.

Having built that kit, and cobbled up cloth sails for it, I'd still be inclined to a high rag-content, cold-rolled paper (one of the fine grain watercolor papers might also suffice).

Why?  Well, even starting from 1000 thread count cotton fabric, the thickness was just too great.  This was compounded by adding doubling and edging (the "body" seams were just a machine lock stitch, which worked nicely).  The cloth did make it easy to "clew & bunt" the sails to show her in "fighting" trim--but the results were still frustrating.

Especially after using the computer to print out the jolly boat's lug sails accidentally on "resume" paper.  Few annoyances like having the ship's boat "upstage" the ship . . .  <sigh>

Now, if I ever get my "Anchor Hoy" to building, which will either be to 1/48 or 1/32--there wil lbe a great canidate for cloth sails.

Oops sorry about the confusion, I gess I was a little tired when I wrote this post, my Constitution is in 1/96 scale from Revell, I really have no idea why I put down 1/350 though.   

My reson for using actual cloth is that it would be more realistic, as this ship is the largest in my naval colection and is ment to be the centerpeice.

We had a good, rather lengthy discussion of this topic here in the Forum a year and a half ago.  Here's the link:  http://www.finescale.com/FSM/CS/forums/350912/ShowPost.aspx

You'll find several ideas there.  Please take all of them in the context of the others.

Is your model scratchbuilt?  I can't recall a Constitution kit on 1/350 scale.  If that is indeed the scale, I'd strongly advise against trying to make sails for it out of cloth.  Consider how thin it would have to be.  Even if you accept a fabric that's five or ten times the scale thickness of a piece of canvas, such a material would be so thin that you'd probably be able to see through it.

As the above post will indicate, I'm not generally a fan of "set" sails on models.  But I have seen it done well on extremely small scales like that.  (For a look at how one of the real masters has done it, take a look at this site:  www.donaldmcnarryshipmodels.com .  But be prepared to be depressed.  Few if any of us can hope to achieve that standard.)  CapnMac82's suggestion, I think, is on target.  If I were doing such a model the first material I'd try would be lightweight drafting vellum, tinted with watercolor and with the "seams" draw in brown pencil.  (At least one of the drafting supply firms makes brown lead for its .5 mm mechanical pencils.)  That might not work, but it's the first thing I'd try.

I'd use fine 100% rag paper for sails at 1:350; but that's a preference of mine.  Paper allows for a lot of things that clothc cannot (like scribing seam lines), and it's going to be a lot closer to scale.  There's a not-too-old thread on it a couple of months ago that it probably worth searching for and reading through.

I happen to like doing a bit of "multi media" on paper sails.  Things like mixing using permanent ink, pencil (graphite & colored) and some watercolor pencil for fine shading.

But, that's me--others may differ.