Model Build - Bluenose II: 09

Have managed to get the sails pretty well sorted out in the last few days. Portions of this work have taken place at various times almost from the beginning, so this will be a summary of what has transpired to get to this point, which included removal of the original hardware, re-sewing the sails and the installation of more appropriate hardware, etc.

First of all, here is a shot of the original sails that came with the model. I've already removed the brass rings that had served to secure the sails to the masts.

The first order of business was to remove the brass eyelets. Here's a shot of the fore sail, showing how the eyelets detract from any scale appearance.

Once the eyelets were removed, the edge treatment of the sails left quite a bit to be desired, including the black thread edging (not on the full scale sail) and the non-scale appearance of the sewn edge.

Without going into detail, I fashioned metal rings for all corners of each sail, leaving enough length in each "arm" to allow it to be glued to the sail. A boltrope was also sewn into each edge that would be fastened to a spar (booms or gaffs), or to which metal rings would be secured, either for attaching mast hoops to the sail or for securing the sail directly to standing rigging, eg, the jib to the jib stay.

I also removed the original reef lines from the main and fore sails - again, these were vastly out of scale and too few in number.

As a bit of an aside, there is a need for quite a few metal rings on this model, in various sizes. After making a few individually, I devised a way of essentially mass-producing them. Start with a metal rod of the appropriate size to produce the desired ring diameter - a drill bit serves nicely. Then wrap metal wire around this rod.

Once wrapped, use a cut-off disk on a Dremel tool to slice off the rings.

Repeat several times and you will have enough rings to meet your needs.

Here is a shot of a ring applied to a jib.

The following shots show the results of my efforts to date. Note the changes that I made to the top sails to correctly match the configuration of the full size sails. This is needed in order for the sails to clear the junction of the bottom and top masts. Mast hoops have now been installed on all sails as needed.