Now comes the question....any advice regarding the ORDER in which I tension the lines? With no cemented locator pins to keep my yards in place, I must now rely thoroughly on the balance of tension between rigging lines. My initial guess is to start with the braces, since they seem to be the most downward-pulling of all the lines, and pretty much everything else will be trying to raise the yards to a degree. Without the added benefit of life-size weight, there's not much keeping the yards from rising higher than I want them, thus the idea of using the braces to help keep things down. On the other hand, braces are also among the most difficult lines to navigate around, being run so far to the perimeter of the model itself! It's a pickle.
I was thinking braces to help keep the yards down, then finish all the halyards, then lifts, and finally clews. Thoughts? Anyone?
Just for reference, I went through all the packages of line I purchased for this kit, totaling 25 packs in all, at 20 feet per package....that's 500 feet! I have approx. 40-50 feet left (didn't use much .045 brown, and I have about 20 feet of .008 tan left)....so still used about 450 feet! Of course, a certain amount is lost to the few odd inches here and there that get trimmed, so lets say conservatively 20% is wasted....360 feet used, approximately! And that doesn't count the ratlines, which I'm sure account for plenty more!
Anyway, I just thought it was a neat thing to consider....it doesn't seem like 300+ feet of line....maybe I miscalculated something.
In the coming weeks I'll work on getting all these lines tensioned, then once I'm happy with it, I'll finally tie and cut the sprit top stays, install anchors, and lanterns (the lanterns are going to be a pain, they have some weird contraption that is supposed to help shape the base as it is installed, but the whole thing fell apart when I tried before...so I'll have to make it up as I go)....then I guess I'll be done! Boom!
The model has accumulated a slight amount of dust during the nearly two years I've been working on it, so I may go over it and try to clean it somehow (?)...then finally I will try my hand at making a display case for it out of wood and glass. I bought an ebook online that should be able to help me figure it out...perhaps that will become a WIP on the forum, as well?
Anyway, thanks for stopping by! Any advice on the runnign rigging will be appreicated!
Dave