Constitutional effort
Greetings Sea Lords and Ladies, I have been inspired by all your talents to delve into the sea of sails, fitting for action beyond the store bought ships. I have selected to go where (no Clipper has gone before?) I had vowed not to go, the land of rigging and ratlines! Behold the the reason:
Right out of the box she looks grand, but I long for more detail! I spent some time doing a repaint on her, that helped, but not enough. After scouring the site and getting over the intimidation of all the masters here and their work, I decided to dive in anyway . . . First the rat lines-I had the dream of making a winding jig as shown in another thread, but when I got the brass ratlines from the Anchorage Store, I realized I could never do that well, so they sat in the bin for a year. As of late I have been kept home for a week now working through some mind altering drugs to stop my cursed seizures, the time off had been grand, but the meds have fed the ADD side of my brain and with Mrs. Clipper up north tending to her father, I have been left with my elves and an endless supply of energy, what to do? Rats!
I pondered the threads on how to paint them and decided to simply mark them, so out came the permanent marker and instant black rats! Let the ink dry for a bit so it sticks well, then I proceeded to discover my tweezers are rubbish!
Knock that off! This blurred vision thing is a drag, gladly it passes quickly! After carefully planning which ones to use where, the rats are cut free, dropped to the floor-thankfully it is tile-and using a bit of masking tape it is lifted back to the workbench. A touch of thick CA on each place I want it stuck, a bit of fiddling with the tiny rats and clumsy hands, ta da!
More rats! More rats! Sounds like a Frank Zappa concert!
Once you get the first one in place the next one beckons and suddenly you are done! Yea! Now I may have glued the bottoms to the rails and not the proper rail, and I may have affixed the tops to the platforms instead of the masts, but hey, I am not schooled in rigging - yet! I feel a wonderful sense of accomplishment at this point so don't wreck it! So for my next act, I will endeavour to rigg the Constitution! (Sounds like our current national politics), but wait, I had a paint brush a year ago . . . . to be continued!
Reply With Quote
The idea for colouring in the ratlines is inspirational.
Bookmarks