knot's

A useful knot for attaching a block to the end of a line is to tie what's called "two half hitches". Sort of a hangmans noose with two loops instead of thirteen. In this little diagram, it's shown attaching the line to an eye that's probably on a strop around a block. But it could also be the block itself if it has a groove around it.

Here's a sample.

Don's right, of course. In fact, it's rather unusual on board a real ship for a piece of rigging to end with a knot. Lines that are permanent are, for the most part, either seized or spliced.

When it comes to splicing thread (on scales smaller than about 1/48 - forget it. It is possible, if the the thread isn't too small, to fake a splice by unraveling the last fraction of an inch and gluing it (white glue again) to the standing part. But if you seize such lines rather than splice them, nobody's likely to notice.

The nature of rigging really changes a lot when the scale changes. On 1/48, or even 1/64, it's possible to reproduce almost all of the details pretty accurately. When the scale gets down to 1/96, or 1/100, you almost have to start making compromises. And on scales like 1/192 (1/16"=1') it really isn't practical to reproduce such things as splices at all. (That's why many good modelers in such tiny scales use wire for rigging.)

One tip. If you follow my suggestion and secure lines with white glue, and then follow Don's suggestion (a good one) and touch up the fastenings with paint, don't use acrylic paint. It will soften up the white glue, and you're likely to have a mess on your hands. Use enamel.

Keep in mind that many lines, especially standing rigging, is not terminated with a knot, but is doubled back along itself to make an eye, then wrapped with a thinner line.  This is called serving.  I do this by looping a piece of very fine thread to form the eye.  From that point on, it depends on scale.  For smaller scales I just glue the remainder of the line next to the original line.  For larger scales I actually wrap one piece of the finer line around the joint like real serving.  In both cases I paint that area then with black paint.

thanks jtilley , I knew about the clove hitch , didn't know the reef knot was used do much on ships , I've been still scanning for more info . this bloke is doing an incredible job on the soleil royal , he showed some knot's  , on how he tied his deadeye's on , by using two bit's of wire I think it was on page 40 , einladung zum kaminbend an bord der soleil royal

I'm working my way through larger scaler sailboats modeling first to get better at knots.

There's no real trick to it, Steve. You need a good pair of tweezers, a small, SHARP pair of scissors, and a small bottle of white glue. (Some folks prefer cyano adhesive for this job, but I like white glue because it's easy to reverse in case you make a mistake.)

It also helps a great deal to work with good rigging line. Forget the stuff sold in sewing stores. Buy your line from a reputable ship model supplier, such as Calder/Jotika, Syren Ship Model Company, Bluejacket, or Model Expo. (I'm sure there are other good ones in Britain.)

And make sure the line is the right size. A good sailing ship model requires lots of different sizes of line. For most purposes, three or four probably will be enough.

About ninety percent of the time you can get along with one type of knot: the one Boy Scouts call the square knot and sailors call the reef knot. You probably already know how to tie it, but here's a tutorial: http://www.animatedknots.com/reef/ .

One other knot comes in handy for one purpose: tying ratlines to shrouds. That knot is the clove hitch - one of the simplest of knots to tie: http://www.animatedknots.com/cloveend/ .

Pull the knot as taut as you can, and apply a tiny bit of the glue (using the end of a toothpick or something similar). Let the glue dry, then snip off the end with the scissors.

It does take practice. Rigging a sailing ship model is not something that can be done really well the first time. But keep at it and your work will get better.

Hope that helps a little. Good luck.