I'm now at a stage where each line is such a PITA to rig that I can't work on her more than an hour or two or I feel I'll explode! I've rigged every line in the instructions (I thought I might leave some out but I changed my mind) except the braces on the mizzen mast. After I've done those (probably in the next couple of weeks) I'll work on the remaining jolly boats and think about painting some of the figures. I'm not so sure I'll include the figures though. Then there's some touch-up painting, etc. and I'll call it finished.
Any close inspection of this build will reveal many glaring errors, sloppy tie-offs to the pins and cleats, a knot or two where I broke a line and simply added more line by tying more line to it, lines straining against others where I should have been more thoughtful while threading rigging through and around others lines, bunches of BIG knots where I've CA'd lines together where they've broken, etc., etc. Nonetheless, it's been an interesting and fun journey so far. My main - and uncorrectable - error is that I never seated the mizzen mast properly so it is about 5/8" too high. That presented me with a problem when attaching the trysail mast which was too short. I added a couple parts to make it work (a studding sail yard I hadn't used and a bit of a sprue) by lashing them on to the mast - never would have worked in reality but, for my model, it was all I could do.
I wish I'd used a darker background for my stacked exposure photograph. It's too difficult to see all the work I've done on the running rigging in this image but I KNOW what went into it.
I'll post a shot in a month or so when she's finished.
Here she is as of today:
Mike S.
