Cutty Sark 1/96 Revell

Ok, fickle memory is being fickle.  But, I have ths memory that Cutty Sark had steel course yards, which were not fitted with diagonal lifts, but had vertical lifts passing through the ends of the fxed lower topsail yard, and was served by chain falls.

But, that could be faulty memory.  Mauch as I cannot remember if the topsail yards were metal or not.

Course and topsail yards ought have double jackstays on them, if memory serves, too.

Burma,

I would love to know how you painted your deck and masts the wood color.  I have stripped all my previous paint from my Cutty's decks and masts and would like to copy your style and repaint them.

Thank you both for join the conversation.

@ CapnMac82

Yes, they are the jackstay.
I did my home work and after I build them I finally discovered what they are supposed to to and why they are there.
I'm learning alot on the way, whitc is fine, I just hope not to do too many mistakes meanwhile.
The debate around the lifts is still partially open, but I'm quite sure that the main yard are supported by the lifts, they are clearly visible here: 

https://live.staticflickr.com/7306/8732718837_4bf58c7458_b.jpg

 or here:

https://regenaxe.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/cutty-sark-main-mast-and-ensign.jpg

CapnMac82

Course and topsail yards ought have double jackstays on them, if memory serves, too.

I will check on longridge, thank you for the advices! 

Sigep Ziggy

I would love to know how you painted your deck and masts the wood color.  I have stripped all my previous paint from my Cutty's decks and masts and would like to copy your style and repaint them.

 

There was a brief explanation on te previous page, I copy and paste it here:

I paint the deck with a uniform clear brown acrylic color, and I shaded it with oil paint, applied as a filter. 

At this stage the color was too warm for my taste, so I applied a higly diluted layer of acrylic brown (deck tan if memory serves me well) to make it less saturated and uniform. 

Lastly, with a soft dark pencil, I brought back all the fine details. 

and I add some more details hoping to be helpfull:

the brown color is usually tamiya  xf52, xf59 or similar, depending on the needs. Note that they are matte colors. 

The oil wash is usually a burnt umber. Dilution is the key, make some test and you will be able to control the final result. 

Just be carefull: I thinned them with Humbrol thinner but it is still prety aggressive on the acrilics. It qold be better to coate them woth a matte varnish, but in the end I was able to avoid this steb just by beeng extra carefull when wiping out the oil excess.

I hope the process is understandable even with my bad english. 

If more explanation are needed, you will be welcome! 

Bruma,

Thank you so much! That is what I needed and I will practice as you suggested. I will post the results.

Shane

https://regenaxe.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/cutty-sark-main-mast-and-ensign.jpg

Bruma...you can easily see the contact of the lift and the fore shroud on the mizzen mast.

I wonder why they designed it so close...and this is when the yard is not in tack..which would be even more obvious of an occlusion.

Anyway...it's nice to see you fervently persuing the most accurate build possible.  I appreciate your efforts and study.

Rob

Hello everyone!
It's been a while since my last post but my Cutty Sark is still on my work bench.
I finally completed the upper ratlines on all the three masts.
After a lot of tests, I decided to use clove hitches. It was a long job, but in the end I'm quite satisfied. I tried to pay attention to keep an even spacing and to maintain the right scale.
This is the main mast:

IMG_7957 copy by Marco, su Flickr

Then I switched my attention to the martingale.
The one provided is bulky, out of scale and incorrect, so I decided to work on it. Copper wire bent and pressed and this is the comparison: original under and modified above:

2020-03-17_10-41-45 by Marco, su Flickr

The catheads suffer the same problems, so they received the same treatment. Again the new one is on top:

2020-03-17_10-43-11 by Marco, su Flickr

Now I'm working on the bowsprit.
The rigging plan provided by the kit is largely simplified, so I'm doing my best to fill the gap:

2020-03-17_11-14-09 by Marco, su Flickr

Lastly, after many close up, a global image to show the entire ship:

IMG_7958 copy by Marco, su Flickr

Please feel free to comment and to point out errors. This is my first ship model and I need all the possible help!

Thank you! 

Fantastic work, and great pictures. Thanks for sharing your build! 

Wonderful job on rigging the new shrouds/lanyards and the small detail corrections.....I love super detailing.

Beautiful work that are doing with this kit!

Looking great!

thank you all for the kind words, it is nice to know that someone is following my efforts! 

rwiederrich

Wonderful job on rigging the new shrouds/lanyards and the small detail corrections.....I love super detailing.

I love it too, but it takes a huge amount of time... I hope they will give an extra touch to the model. 

And even if they don't, I like to work on them! :)

Superb!

Hello everyone.

Time for updates on my old Cutty Sark! Both anchors are now secured in their places. I have also tried to reproduce the release mechanism on the cathead as shown by Longridge.

Here you have a detail of the scratch build hearts and rollers.

The fore mast is now in place, glued and secured by the shrouds. All shrouds are tightened but not glued yet, in order to be able to adjust the tension if needed.

Note that the royal backstay are still not in place.

After securing the mast, it was the yards time.

The ones provided by the kit are flexible and full of fanatasy details, while some other important feature are completely missing.

So I have decideded to try to build them from scratch.

Here you heve the fore lower yard:

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jmvubk]YardDetails by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/152147651@N05/]Marco[/url], su Flickr

The stunsail booms are just dry fitted. I will remove them in order to pain the yard.

This is the first time I try to work with wood and metal to scratch build something so pleas be forgiving for the far from perfect quality.

The yard dry fitted on the fore mast:

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jmrjzA]CuttySarkForeLowerYardDryFit by Marco, su Flickr

Lastly, a quick test: since I would like to display the Cutty Sark under sail, I need to find a convincing way to reproduce the billowing sails.

After some failed test with paper (I was unable to get the typical double curved shape, both on horizontal and vertical axis), I made some attempt with fabric.

Here is a quick test on the fore royal sail:

SailTest by Marco, su Flickr

I’m quite happy with the shape but not with the thickness and the visible plot of the fabric, witch is out of scale.

But as it is now, this one is the least of the bad.

That’s all, comments and suggestions are very welcome and as usual sorry for my bad English!

Marco

Hello everyone. 

Small updates: the fore lower yard should be completed! (or at least I hope so…)

Tyre black with airbrush and dry brush in grey oil paint for details.

Blocks and foot ropes should be completed too. 

2020-08-12_09-16-00 by Marco, su Flickr

2020-08-12_09-16-20 by Marco, su Flickr

2020-08-12_09-14-44 by Marco, su Flickr

Now I need to know how to fix sails to the jackstay… 

Hunderhill shows some details but I can’t figure out how exactly they where fitted.

Another doubt is about the color of the thread to be used: shoul I consider it running rigging?

Any help is really appreciated.

The studding sail booms (often rendered as "stun'sail" from sailor use in English) are generally mounted above the top elevation of the yard, and forward of its leading edge.

This allows the studding sails to "fly" over the sail of the yard they are upon.

Back to topping lifts.  One of the important things to remember is that the lifts were meant to support the ends of the yards when the yards were lowered.  When a yard was raised up, the lifts went slack.

On the courses, they were fixted at the mast, in Cutty Sark's case in an iron band on the mast, rather than in jeer blocks.  If memory serves (it may not) the course yards have a chain from the top diagonally down to the yard crane.

With that support in place, and the sail creating lift, the yard lifts could be slacked off to prevent chafing to need.  Square sails on spars gnerate lift by resembling aircraft wings tipped up vertically, that lift is considerable.

Cutty Sark's lower yards used rather a lot of chain, which would be very fine stuff, the sort of thing found on 1/600 or 1/700 Photo Etch as anchor chain.

Now, if you want to tease folks, the actual figurehead carried a frayed bit of rope in the out-stretched hand. 

This goes back to the Rob Roy poem about how Rob Roy seduced a young witch clad in only a short chemise ("cutty sark" ins Scot's-English) out of her pony.  Rob Roy rides off with his prize and the witch is left with nothing but a handful of the pony's tail after cahsing him.

Well, my lad...

Nannie Dee really either seduced Tam o' Shanter, or at least bewitched him.

Her chemise was not only short, but "too short". That's up to your imagination.

He was riding his horse Meg, and barely made it to the river Doon, which witches could not cross.

But not before she grabbed a chunk of Meg's tail.

I have to plead malt deprivation is to blame.

(And to trying to use words which would easily translate into non-english languages)

And I know more Burns than Rob Roy, sadly.

Fantastic rope work and mods....I do have to wonder why you are choosing to use tan rope for the deadeye lanyards and bullseye lanyards. These members were weathered by coating them in a tar like substance to protect them from rot. Lanyards were NOT running rigging, but part of the standing rigging...and generally once set they stayed that way unless tragedy struck or serious adjustments were called for. Black lanyards would have been more atypical. Rob

There's scholarly debate on lanyards.  As speed became more of an issue, the need to sail on more points of the compass mean having to crank yards right around for various points of sail.  Which menat being able to slack off any number of standing rigging lines on an individual basis.  Which suggests that lanyards were kept as flexible as possible.  (Suggests, not proves.)

There are some papers out which suggest that our "historical knowledge" is colored (NPI) by preserved ships.  Whic hwould have been kept in much more static of conditions, and where decreasing maintenance was a goal.

No PhDs awarded on this, yet.  And, this is modeling, a given modeler may do as they wish.

Sails were stropped to the forward jackstay (when two are fitted), typically one eyelet per sail panel.  For larger sails on larger vessels the strop might be fine line with an eye in either end, and the eyes siezed in marline.  For lesser sails, the strop migh be of marline alone siezed in 7/5 fashion (7 turns through the eye and around the jackstay, then 5 turns to close it).  This will be tough sledding to replicate at this scale.

CapnMac82

 

There are some papers out which suggest that our "historical knowledge" is colored (NPI) by preserved ships.  Whic hwould have been kept in much more static of conditions, and where decreasing maintenance was a goal.

No PhDs awarded on this, yet.  And, this is modeling, a given modeler may do as they wish.

 

There was a discussion years ago on this group about the color of tarred standing rigging- some claimed tarred rope was dark brown rather than black.  I visited the Niagara replica in Duluth a few years ago, taking pics of rigging.  Talked to a crewperson who was involved in the build.  I noticed the tarred rigging was very black, and mentioned the debate.  She said it was dark brown after putting the tar on, but after a few days in the sunlight it turned black.

Got nice shots of lanyards too.

And, the vikings had a nice device on the stays like a quick release to swing the yard way around.