Making convincing yards is challenging, but remarkably rewarding, and a lot of fun.
In my reworking of the Atlantis Black Falcon plastic model sailing ship kit, I opted to eject the strange, lumpy plastic yards.
The first question I encountered was a critical one: from what do you make the yards? That’s a big question.
The lower yards for the Black Falcon came from the smallest dowel I could find – perhaps 1/8th inch. Of course the dowel is straight cut with no taper, which won’t do for the elegantly shaped yards.
Try this: cut your dowel a little longer than you need. Chuck it into your power drill. That’s right, your power drill.
Fold a piece of sandpaper into a vee you can hold comfortably in your hand.
Hold the vee against the other end of the dowel, and turn the drill slowly. You can use your fingers to shape the taper.
Don’t be too agressive or you’ll break the dowel. I broke a lot of them.
This method relies on your eyeball to accomplish it, as only you will be able to see the right degree of taper, but you can do it.
In Frank Mastini’s excellent book Ship Modeling Simplified, he details a number of different yards. I highly recommend this book as both a great reference and a generally good read. If you’re into modeling. Ships.
This rough drawing is the plan for my yards. The woolding doesn’t do anything except look cool. The lift rings are eyebolts from the Soleil Royale kit.
My Jack stay hangs a little close to the yard.
So, let’s talk about that jackstay. It’s another piece of 28 gauge wire, straight, but with a 90 degree bend at each end. I attempted to drill a hole into the yard to accommodate the wire, but ended up drilling through the yard each time. As a consequence, the distance between the yard and the jackstay is, let us say, adjustable.
This Black Falcon features fancy quasi-furled paper sails. In her time, the sails were most usually tied directly to the yard. I made the sails with a nice thick top border, but there is no way to tie it to the yard in that tiny scale.
You’ve been to those nautical gift stores where they sell those wooden models of the Constitution that are made by people who’ve scarcely seen the sea, let alone a sailing ship? Big, garish chunks of wood slathered with paint and perky, preprinted sails tied on with tan thread the scale size of a sewer line. No, sir, not on my ship. No thank you.
I know what you’re thinking – the jackstays belong to a more modern ship than this little beast that doesn’t even sport topgallants. You are correct, my friend. I quite agree. But, there’s a reason…
A long time ago, on one of my earliest attempts at the then-Aurora Black Falcon, I glued simple typing-paper sails to the yards. Although I was in high school, the sails would have embarrassed a six year old. It happened that the very girl for whom I would have given my thumbs chanced to see the ship, and said “isn’t that kind of Mick…?” as in Mickey Mouse. Never again, I swore. Never will I glue a sail to a yard.
So, how about gluing them to these snappy jackstays! Now you’re cooking!
The footropes are tied at the ends of the yard, but the other support lines are only glued to the yard. As they’re not sails, I didn’t break my vow.
The yards are lifted into position by two sets of lifting lines. One set ties off at the lift rings, rises up through a single heavy block below the top, and drops down to a functional pinrail at the base of the mast.
The second set lifts the yards from the arms. These also rise to a single block, and drop down to the same pinrail, but, as the single block is above the top, and the lines come in from the yardarms, you get that distinctive triangular shape to the rigging.
Once I got the yards suspended – and they actually hang only on those four lines – I realized, uh oh, they actually hang on only those four lines! I forgot to add any kind of apparatus to tie them to the mast! More research needed on that one, I’m afraid.
With the yard suspended in place, and the standing rigging for the mast already in place, there is no way to convincingly insert a physical device onto the yard. Neither is there a way to tie the yard to the mast that doesn’t result in a big, ugly granny knot.
My yards hang free.
Mastini suggests rigging the yards before you attach them to the masts, and rigging the mast before you attach it to the ship. That is a fantastic idea, and one which I will certainly use in the future!
But the Black Falcon lies at anchor in the lagoon of a lovely tropical island somewhere. Her men lounge about the deck, resting and readying for their next voyage, while her boat returns with a cask of fresh water. The yards hang akimbo because there’s no need to expend the effort to set them straight.
That’s certainly how they hang in history.
by John D Reinhart 07/12/2020 BlackFalconProject/Wordpress.com
John D Reinhart 