Finishing Touches

Seems like the closer to finishing a model I get, the more small details there are to wrap up. Touching up paint here and there where I missed a spot or scraped some paint off for gluing. One thing I always need to do is apply clear flat to all the shiny super glue spots. I use Testors Clear Flat acrylic and a small brush for this. For the glass in the windows and stern lanterns I use Testors Clear Gloss acrylic the same way.

I made coils of rope from thread wrapped around a brass tube and painted them with clear flat acrylic so they would hold their shape. After this dried I cut the connecting thread and slid each coil off the tube (not as easy as it sounds). A sharp pair of scissors was used to trim off the excess from each coil. There are no belaying pins in the pin rails to drape the coils over, so I just superglued them to the pin rails. I accomplished this by first brushing some accelerator (zip-kicker) onto the pin rail. Holding the coils with tweezers I dipped each one into a small puddle of thick super glue and just stuck it onto the pin rail. The accelerator makes the superglue set up at once.

Finally the name plate. I usually don't like to use gold or other metallic paints for this because it just doesn't look real enough. Testors Red-Brown acrylic with Tamya dark brown for the lettering worked fine. Good old super glue did the job of attaching it to the base.

Flags

This kit comes with 5 flags and some are really big ! After carefully cutting each one from the flag sheet, I folded each around a thin piece of spru and used my fingernail to put a small crease for the flagstaff. Elmers glue was applied to one half of each flag as it was installed. Carefully, I wrapped each flag around its flagstaff, working the glue toward the edges of the flag. When the glue was dry, I used paint to touch up the edges of each flag. Finally, when all was dry, I used a paintbrush handle to form each flag into a waving motion. A small drop of superglue keeps the flags from sliding down the staffs.

Anchors and Boats

I started by cementing the two long spars together with liquid cement. After drying, thread was wrapped around them to simulate lashing together. The assembled boats were superglued in place and tied to the spars. I did this on a holder since doing all this on the model would surely lead to breakage of something. When the assembly was completed the whole thing was carefully maneuvered into place and superglued. The assembled and painted anchors were superglued onto the channels before I started tying them. This makes it a lot easier to tie them since they are secure to the channels. Thick thread was used for the cables. After knotting onto the anchor, the free end was superglued into the hawshole.

Running Rigging

Like the standing rigging, the instruction sheet is quite vague about the running rigging. I consulted some of my reference material again to complete the running rigging. Because this model is relatively small scale and belaying points are few, I completed an abbreviated version of running rigging. I decided to concentrate on the lifts and braces and omit the sheets and halyards. I like to start from the inside since this is easiest to access at this time. The lateen spar is the first. I use a holder made from rod and alligator clips to hold the spars while the blocks for rigging are attached. tying them on with the spar installed almost always leads to some kind of breakage. Small beads were used as small blocks where only one thread will pass through them. Small blocks from my spare parts box were used when a larger block was needed. After the inside rigging is done I next install the topmost yard on the mizzen mast and rig it. with the lower yards out of the way, it's easier to access the belaying points. I installed the mizzen lower yard but only rigged the lifts to keep access open for the main mast rigging. Starting from the top I installed the main mast yards and rigged them in the same sequence I rigged the Mizzen mast. The foremast running rigging and yards was the same. There was no place to start the Main Yard brace so I drilled a hole in the mizzen channels and installed a ring bolt. The bowsprit and bowsprit mast was last to get rigged. All the rigging for this belayed at the rail on the bow. Light tan thread, pulled through a cake of bees wax was used for all the running rigging.

Ratlines 2

The conventional sequence for standing rigging is to first install the Shrouds (ratlines) then the Forestays and lastly the Backstays. This works very well on wooden ship models. On plastic ship models I have found that if I install the ratlines first they end up buckled and warped looking because the masts will move a little while rigging the stays. To prevent this I install the ratlines after the stays have been rigged and the masts are aligned correctly. That's what I did on the HMS Prince but it is still far from perfect. The instructions instruct the builder to pass the end of the ratlines through holes at the top of the deadeyes but this was a real pain and they would not pull tight enough. So I just superglued them.
The upper mast ratlines were a particular challenge since they attach to deadeyes that are in a circular mounting. Glad this part is finished!

Ratlines

This kit comes with a loom and instructions for making and attaching the shrouds or "Ratlines" as they are sometimes called. To illustrate how complex this is, the instruction sheets dedicates 3 1/2 pages to this process! I've done this a few times on other models but it's still a challenge to get good results. In fact this particular model tested all my patience over the course of several nights and I'm still not completely satisfied with the result. The first thing I do is glue 2 thick pieces of spru to the bottom of the loom. The reason for this is the foot ropes, which run horizontally will not touch the vertical shrouds because they are too high. The spru bolsters will raise the shrouds to touch most the footropes for gluing. It looks complicated but it's important to follow the numbering on the instruction sheet when wrapping the thread on the loom for them to fit on the model correctly. Normally I wax all thread used in rigging but in this case it's better to leave the wax off for the glue to stick to the thread. After all the thread was wrapped I applied a heavy coat of Testors Clear Acrylic to cement it all together. I used to use diluted white glue for this step but this time I went with the Airfix suggestion and it worked pretty good. Testors flat black was painted on when the clear dried. When removing the finished ratlines from the loom I found quite a few stuck to the loom and some footropes the missed the shrouds. Still it was mostly a success though I'll have to repair the missing footropes. While trimming off the excess thread I almost cut through the shrouds more than once due to trying to trim too close. So I left a little excess. A small price to pay to keep from ruining all that work.

Standing Rigging

The instruction sheet is pretty unclear on the rigging in general so I checked some of my reference material for a better result. There is a shortage of places to tie off the backstays on the channels so I drilled 2 holes in each foremast and mainmast channel and one hole in each mizzen channel. Eye bolts were made from thin wire and super glued into place. Black cotton thread was used for all the standing rigging with a heavier thread used on the lower stays. At this time I fabricated some pin rails for the running rigging to tie off to and glued them in place.