This is the top of the mast after the rigging metalwork as been installed along with the block. Once the hoops were slid into place, I drilled holes into the metal and underlying wood at the appropriate locations and insert the shanks of the eyebolts. Finally, I linked the block eye to the top eye-bolt and crimped it shut.
Here you can see the mast bracket. I stepped the mast and then simply glued the bracket into position. Afterwards, I drilled through the drill holes in the bracket and into the wood and inserted the nails.
The final structural work before moving on to the rigging is the rudder assembly. First, this requires some assembly of the tiller. The main component of this is a laser cut part but I have added to it by gluing to pieces of dowel to the ‘handle’ end and then sanding them down to form grips.
It is a bit difficult to tell in the above photograph, but the tiller has not yet been attached to the rudder. In fact, the upper surface of the tiller in this image is actually the underside, and the ‘grips’ will be horizontal and not vertical in orientation as it appears here. I have only included the rudder itself in this picture to show the notch filed into the topmost portion. This was done to provide a firmer seating for the tiller when it is glued in place.
Here is the rudder with the tiller attached. The metal work has been completed and these include the tiller ‘cheeks’ above the tiller and, below it, the upper and lower pintle and gudgeon assemblies.
The pintle and gudgeon part were quite tricky to make for me as I am not very experienced with soldering and the parts you see are actually replacements for an earlier set which did not satisfy me.
As with the mast bracket, the brass will be painted black to simulate ironwork and model ship planking nails will be used for the ‘bolts’.
Here is the rudder assembly completed and installed on the boat. Placing the pintles and gudgeons was actually quite fiddly and annoying as I had to hold three parts at once and continually adjust the angles and positions to arrange for the pintles to easily slide into the gudgeons at the upper and lower level simultaneously. I could have simplified things by attaching the joined pintles and gudgeons to the rudder first and then glued everything on the boat before adding the ‘bolts, but I wanted the rudder to turn rather than be fixed in place and I managed to achieve that.
One set of items that needs to be completed is the Belaying pins, which are used for securing ropes.
I made a dozen for my boat (although not all will be holding lines). The unstained one to the left is actually my first attempt and it was a reject. I made this simply by filing dowelling by hand but I realized that this was going to be a long and tedious process, with non-uniform results, and so I adapted my Dremel tool to use it as mini wood-lathe. I am not very experienced in wood-turning, but was fairly pleased with the final products.
For the first rigging operation, I made the stay for the mast. In the above picture, you can see that I passed the upper end of each stay through metal jump rings, then formed a loop and ‘seized’ it using light colored thread. The jump rings were then attached to the rings at the top of the mast.
The lower ends of each stay were then belayed to pins in the stern sheets, with the excess simply being coiled on the deck.
Here, you can see both stays after installation, as well as the placement of all the belaying pins.
I knew from the outset that I would not be displaying my boat with sails. I have yet to see a ship or boat model where the sails looked realistic. They are almost always far too thick for the scale, and even when this isn’t the case, model boat sails just don’t ‘hang’ properly.
For this boat, I will have a sail, but it will be stowed. Above, you can see the sail along with the spar to which it would be attached. The spar has a bracket on the upper surface which will be connected to the halyard (the line which raises the sail). At either end are rings to which the uppermost corners will attach (the rest of the sail, in actual operation, would be secured with rope loops).
The sail is rolled and the edge that is visible is the ‘foot’, or lower edge. I have folded it over and glued it to make a reinforced ‘seam’ and used jump rings at each end as grommets. Before installation, I will reave lines through each of these to act as the ‘sheets’ that control the sails. It is only faintly apparent in the picture, but I gave the pristine white cloth a wash with yellow, brown, and black painted heavily diluted in water so as to give it an aged look.