sprit

Westmoreland model gets a muzzle

Dave and Tony Brooks are making some good progress on the major components of the Westmoreland model’s rigging. It seems they are raiding their ladies’ jewellery boxes for some realistically sized chain. Brave lads!

As Dave says, “We have now hung the sprit complete with muzzle and stanliff. It swings like the real thing. We have a temporary stayfall to ensure the mast stays upright. We also have a fid for the topmast so we can house that as well. Stayfall Tackle and shrouds are next. Got to come up with a way to make little dead eyes”.

Incidentally, I think I never posted an earlier update from Dave dated 13th Feb, as follows, “Even though it was extremely cold we managed to move the model forward tonight. We have now permanently fitted our home made anchor having raided Dad’s wife’s jewellery box for a better chain. We also have bow badges that are as yet not painted. We fitted a bracket to the stem post for the anchor to chain to pass through and have put three turns of chain around the windlass. All that remains is for a small anchor chain box to be made which is housed just in front of the forward hatch.

Time to go upwards. We have now fitted all our ironwork to the sprit in readiness for the muzzle to be made and the sprit to be hung. All spars are now painted brown and we will soon be ready to start the real painstakingly fiddly job of standing rigging”.

Nice job, Lads!

In the latest update from Dave Brooks on the Westmoreland model, Dave writes,

The Brooks’s model of Westmoreland gets its masts; photo by Dave Brooks.

“9^th November. No progress in the week due to work commitments so the winches have no further action for the time being. Today we turned our attention to cleaning up rails and final shaping and also to the windlass. We sought out our pre-selected watch cogs for our windlass and while Dad cleaned and shaped rails I carefully filed down some dowel to look like a windlass drum. Dad then cut the frame for the windlass and mounted the cogs to the drum and then the drum to the frame. We laid the windlass lying roughly in position though some alteration to the frame will need to be done. I then decided not to waste any time watching the master at work and set about sourcing some spars. Mainmast, topmast and sprit. I found some reasonable sized dowel and cut them to length. We finished the evening by varnishing the balsa rails to give them strength for final shaping, and sanding the mainmast to the right diameter on the plan. And just for fun we stood the mast up for the first time since the original model”.

Thanks for that, Dave. Good progress.

Tag: sprit

Model gets Muzzle

Model Update