What's on my desk? Part 66.
Hello again. Tuesday, blogday!
Not much to report this week. As for the last couple of weeks, rigging on Fram has been steadily ongoing.
I've completed the shroud lines. It's now clear to me why you would do these first. As they go around the masts, you need clearance and room to manoeuvre. As I have rigged the standing rigging first, I had to loop/splice some ropes in situ, instead of doing this apart from the ship.
Anyway: here's the foremast shrouds complete:
And the mainmast:
The secondary shrouds on top are fixed on a deadeye, which is roped to a ring on the mast. These lines pass through the main shrouds, necessitating some tweezer work. Okay for the main, but I already rigged the square sail on the foremast. It was really difficult to pass the thread through the shroud lines, avoid the yardarm rigging, pass it through the ring, try and make a tight knot... So yes. Follow the instructions and rig the shrouds first!!
Then finally, I knotted spreader bars into all the shrouds. It's really important to have an even spacing for the ratlines.
These are the main mast deadeyes. You can see clearly that they are not spaced correctly and are getting in each others' way. Hence the bar to give them some distance. Also, the navigation light fittings were very much interfering. So I removed them, with the intention to cut off the supports a bit so they fit better in between the shrouds. I'll have to cut off about 5-7 mm off these supports:
I mentioned a couple of blogs back that I'd be working on something a little easier as a palate cleanser in between rigging sessions. I've now decided on the subject: Eduard's 1/48 scale Messerschmitt Bf 108. It's a tourist/sports plane extensively used during the war as a small transport/liaison aircraft.
I airbrushed the interior in RLM02 grey-green at home, then brought it in. I used oils on the seats (and now have to wait until that's dry to install the seart belts...). The fuselage has been closed and puttied, the wings have been glued. There's a (simple) engine in the nose, but that's not visible in the picture. I like Eduard kits, because they fit well, and usually come with pre-coloured PE and paint masks. The kit is originally from 2002 and it shows in places. This is a 2016 rebox with new decals and makes for a nice relaxing build.
Anyway, that's all for now.
See you next week!