Uploaded by Dave

07 How to use cloth sails

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Instruction how to use cloth
sails
Introduction
Sails are indispensable for sailing ship. I accept plastic sails
only as a pattern for real cloth ones. I offer great quality cloth
sails made on CNC sewing machine, because it’s problem for lot
of people to make cloth sails by themselves. Historical technical
details are considered during production to be the most similar
to their original template as possible. It is possible to order
patinated sails and/or with printings. It is also possible to buy
canvas itself.
Canvas, cloth, stitching – batiste – 100% cotton, grammage –
88 gms. Stitching is also by thread from 100% cotton or colored
synthetic threads.
Before you buy sails
Scale - Before you buy a sails, you must take ito consideration
what the model, in which the scale will sails. Large scales from
1: xx up to 1: 150 you can buy sails sewn with all the details
such as curved edges, reef band, side and corner, or additional
reinforcement lining sails. In scales 1: 160 and more are
recommending only sails sewed on the canvas, which further
adjust.
Set up sails on ship – It’s good to think first about if you want
to have all sails on your ship or just some of them. You can for
example leave studding and stay sails. And then if some of them
will be furled, or partly furled sails. Here I recommend to buy
standard sails or shortened and oppositely skewed sails for
imitation of convoluted sails while they don’t too much big
bundle on yard.
picture no. 1 – execution of sails
edges
picture no. 2
Patination and printing – Sails was colored to dirty beige
mainly because of impregnation and by using. Some of sails was
made by colored clothes especially on galleys and xebecs. There
were blazons, crosses etc. on some sail. It’s good to take in
consider also these things before order. (picture no. 2 and no. 3)
If you buy sails with printing, do not use any acetone-base
impregnations. The printing would be damaged.
Preparation of sails
There is some following steps need to be done before we place
the sails directly on our model:
Painting of sails
Some ships had sails from cutton cloth, which whiten out by
using in salted wind and by sun, especially American’s ships,
picture no. 3
like USS Constitution, their schooners and brigs. So for these
cases I recommend leave this sails white. Most of other sails had
beige or glaucous color. We can reach these colors by patination
in strong leachate of black tea, coffee, alcohol stain or paint for
fabrics. The longer cloth is in solution the darker cloth is. For
these cases I provide a piece of cloth with sails, so you can make
a test.
Painting in onion peelings didn’t provide good results in my
hands. Color was “old-yellow” after treatment and then even
more yellow after stiffen sails by Sidolux (acrylic varnish) for
shape stability. It is possible that my peelings wasn’t dry out
enough or too young onion.
Iron out your sails after dry out and cut off rest of redundant
threads.
Finishing sails – Bolt rope, Reef rope, Bowlines:
Accessories of sails: Circuit of Sails is toughened by bolt rope.
It is sewed from the back edge of the sail. Earrings are made by
ropes in sail corners – see picture. Sail was attached to the yard
by upper earrings and tensioning and cassation ropes, hazels and
reins was attached by lower earrings. There was also other
earrings around the perimeter of the bolt rope for sail
manipulation. In Reef Band were attached ropes Reef points for
tucked, shortening the size of sail area. (picture no. 4)
picture no. 4
Described view of French sails from year around 1750:
http://hismodel.ai-shop.cz/articles-detail-142
In expert literature in book: The Seventy-Four Gun Ship vol.3
Described view of English sails from the same period:
http://hismodel.ai-shop.cz/articles-detail-186
or
http://www.hnsa.org/resources/manuals-documents/age-ofsail/the-elements-and-practice-of-rigging-and-seamanship/sailmaking-vol-i/
pictureno. 5 – English sail Fore Topsail
Bolt rope – Bolt rope diameter was the same as other ropes for
relevant shrouds. Bolt ropes of Course sails had diameter ¾ of
diameter lower shrouds, top and topgallant sails had the
samediameter as relevant shrouds. Other sails had proportionally
thinner ropes.
You can attach cringles to bolt rope before you attach the sail
itself to yard in big scale models (from 1:xx to 1:100). These
cringles were used for other control ropes. Stretch bolt rope
around sail and then mark spots for cringles; you need to leave
long overhanging ends of rope. You need to remember, that bolt
rope is from one piece around sides and lower part of the sail.
For this reason I recommend to glue cringles to the rope and
rope to the sail by each side. We make cringles from the same
picture no. 6
rope and glue it to the bolt rope by superglue or we can wrap it
around to the rope by thin thread as on the picture no. 6
Attach of the bolt rope – Find out what is the right position of
sail and how it is oriented, before you start to attach bolt rope.
Each sail has wider bends on the side of yard attachment, but be
careful it’s not thickening by another cloth. We can sew the bolt
rope to the sail or in the most cases glued by flexible gel super
glue. We can make work easier when we hold sail by selflocking tweezers, or between two girders, so rim of sail stand
out only partly above edges. For better and faster drying it’s
better to little bit moisten the bolt rope. Then we make cringles
on the lower corner of the sail (the best way is to wrap around
skewer), to have the same size on both sides. We wrap cringles
by thread in corners. Than we make the same in other sides of
the sail. (picture no. 7)
picture no. 7
Reef points – Reef points are ropes, by which sail was attached
to the yard, when they wanted to reduce sail area. They was
threaded through reef band, which thickened the sail. There was
a node by the sail to prevent the sail from side moves. We make
reef points from thinner rope. After threading through the sail
we trim them to the same length. (picture no. 8)
picture no. 8
picture no. 9
Bowlines – Bowlines served to shape the side hem of the sail to
prevent capturing wind from front side. Design differed
according to time and place of ship construction. It’s appropriate
to attach bowlines in this phase or when sail is on the yard. It’s
harder to make bowlines when the sail is already on the kit.
Different types of Bowline realizations on picture no. 10.
picture no. 10
Attach of the sails to the yard and stay
Yard sails - Fix the sail to the yard at the moment when other
equipment is attached to it - pulleys, or footrope. Again we take
care where it is top or bottom and front or back of the sail. The
way how to attach sail to the yard was changing during time and
its apply is illustrated on the picture no. 13 on the next page.
Stay and Jib sails - were hung on a stay using rope wrapped
around it. Stay sails were later attached to the stay using clips so
called “Hanks” which were sewn to the sail and threaded onto
the stay. (picture no. 11 and no. 12)
picture no. 11
picture no. 12
picture no. 13
Shaping of sials
Giving the shape to sail is the last step before attaching a yard
with the sail to the mast. Methods are different. Someone
shaping sail by plastic originals, somebody else according to
bottles with corresponding diameter. I'm using a procedure
where I stablish the finished sail into the frame. Corners of the
sail in such a way as if it were attached to the ship, see Fig.
(pictureno. 14)
I paint the sail with chosen stiffening varnish (Ideally matte
acrylate paint or strongly diluted dispersion adhesive) You can
also use another stiffening, depending on your own experience!
Dilution of the impregnating solution is chosen to be well
soaked into the sail, do not create a visible layer after drying it.
Solution have to be pretty soaked, the sail solid and hold the
shape well. I dry impregnation by hairdryer to get the optimal
shape. At the moment when sail drying I do different folds in the
corners, or folding if I want them to be on the sail. It is
particularly important to do so when making furled, or partly
furled sails. In the case of furled sail we furl it all and directly tie
to the yard.
picture no. 14
picture no. 15
Now the sail is ready to be attached to the boat (mast), where we
already have stretched rigging. I prefer when I have installed all
the rigging before assembly of yards. Running rigging is
attached to the tie place of the yard on the boat including
decorative scrolls ropes.
On picture no. 15 you can see right attached sails, ready to be
installed on model. On the other pictures (no. 16-18) you can see
examples of correctly attached sails.
picture no. 16
Source of pictures:
- book Historic Ship Models od Wolfram zu Mondfeld
- web http://www.hnsa.org/
I hope this manual will be useful during building the models.
Please contact me if you have any questions. I will help you if I
can.
picture no. 17
I wish you many beautiful models with great rigging!
picture no. 18
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