Restoration of a Large Sailing Model, 5
THE SPARS
The majority of the time repairing this model was spent on the spars, sails and rigging. As I did earlier, I will outline the repairs from fore to aft and port to starboard. THE BOWSPRIT AND JIB BOOM were in good condition and needed no repairs. There was no obvious evidence of there having been a dolphin striker on the model, but it was usual for ships of this period equipped with a jib boom to have one to help carry the extra rigging normally associated with that spar. It was not a hard and fast rule, but it was a practice of the time. I made the piece and installed it under the bowsprit cap. It was painted to blend in with its surroundings.
Figure 16 New dolphin striker and some of the head rigging.
Next I removed of the two spars attached to the snotter on the jib boom. The snotter is the piece of wire highlighted by the arrow in the photo, above. I noticed that the two spars were not made by the same person. One was obviously original and had been altered, or perhaps it was broken a long time ago and a subsequent owner misinterpreted its function and cut it down to give it a new job. The other was a clear and erroneous addition in an attempt to give the model a style of head rigging that belonged on a much larger and older type of vessel. In the “before” photo in Part One, you will see the original spar is on the left. This spar started life as club boom, a much larger spar laced onto the foot of the forestay sail. One end of the boom would be attached to the snotter by means of a goose neck or ring and shackle arrangement and the other end would have a couple of sheave (pronounced shiv) blocks rigged to be a sheet for the sail/boom combination. I made and painted a new club boom and used the original “gooseneck” to attach it.
Figure 18 Here, the differences are clear, as is the alteration to the aft end of the original spar.
Figure 20 New Club boom and sail installed on the model.
To repair the FOREMAST, I had to create a scarf joint. I estimated how much new material I would have to add on to the foremast’s head to make it look proportional to the mainmast. I ripped a piece of pine stock, slightly over-sized and made matching diagonal cuts in the new stock and the foremast. When I achieved a good fit between the two parts, they were glued together and left overnight to cure. The next morning, I started shaping the new section of the mast. Next came painting and weathering to make it look as though it had been there a while. The photos below illustrated the repair.
Figures 21 and 22 are self explanatory
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