Revell Black Diamond - 1:350 snap tite kit {part 3}

My first attempt at my idea was a bust.   The idea to make dead eye assemblies from thread seemed like such a good one.   I clamped a metal pole {yea......that's my x-actor} in the vise and wrapped thread around it,  dabbing some white glue on them when they were set up.   What I got was these flattish looking coils that were hard to conform to the oval appearance they needed to have.

     Setting one up on the model,  after drilling two pairs of holes down on the wales near the bow spirit,  they looked terrible.   I had taken a couple pictures.........they didn't come out too clear,  so I tossed them out.   Just as well I did.    Thinking about this a bit further......I amended the original idea by cutting a slot across the end of a small diameter plastic dowel.  I fitted a piece of wood dowel inside the plastic tube and clamped it in the vise.   These will be more to scale....not exact,  but small than the first attempt was.  A piece of thread was set in the slot in the end and pulled past the vise so it wouldn't have any slack.

More thread was wound around the pole,  trapping the thread that was strung onto it.   Once it was set up,  the trapped thread was cut and tied around opposite ends of the thread coil.

This tied the bundle of thread together and could now be set up in my helping hands.   It was pulled to create the oval appearance,  and the knots were cemented {just the knots}.   I had done some of the bow spirit rigging while this was going on.  It's hard to show how these dead eye assemblies look,  as I'm dealing with black,  but I hope you can see.   There will be two sets of these assemblies at the bow.

I also added in a pair of bob stays.......these originate from the bow stem, terminating at two points on the bow spirit.   I failed to get pictures of  the progress till now.....as you can see,  they are hard to see.   I will try and get better pictures of this.

This is what the dead eye assembly looks like in the helping hands.   Future ones has any tell tale knotting left off on either end {not that it will matter}.

These are a couple good pictures of the Bob stays and how the dead eye assemblies look.   An over head view really shows how they look and the job that they do.   So far,  I think the rigging is working out quite well.

AHOY!!!