Few Tears Before the Mast….Part 1

A Confederate commerce raiding sloop. I have a pair of these but have on the modelling tray a further example to build which will be virtually the same as the above except having two funnels. This will be the C.S.S. Florida. The pictures show the completed masts and spars etc whilst part two of this post will show the actual construction.

A chance comment from the renowned gamer and all round gentleman, John Armatys, whilst I was busy liberating Arnhem at The Other Partizan has been directly responsible for this post! The subject is masts - or rather how I make them for my models. It is hugely relevant at present for me as I shall be undertaking the building of a veritable forest of the things for the ironclads required for the Anglo Turkish War of 1880. Whilst waiting for the industrial quantities of MDF to arrive from Warbases to build the new collection I realised that I still had another ACW sloop to build so I decided that sharing this element of the build would be useful for readers that may want to have a go themselves.

Building a Mast

Using this building technique is pretty straightforward but one does need to be both careful and methodical. The following are some further views of the above model showing the masts and spars to better effect.

The side profile. This shows the ‘stepping’ of the masts and their relative heights. For scale the hull is 5” long

The view looking head on. The spars are quite modest in terms of size but this gives you a good idea of how they should look when finished

The bowsprit.

The first thing I should point out is that during this period the subject of masts and spars could fill several books in their own right! The variety of sailing rigs and what was used and when is a hugely complex subject - certainly well beyond my powers of concentration! As my models are fairly loose in terms of scale and detail I have adopted the simple expedient of using what looks about right and leaving it there. The models are after all, purely representational or ‘Hollywood-esque’.

I am fairly comfortable with the overall look of the masts in my collection and to be honest, if it looks right then it generally is in my opinion - the purist would undoubtedly argue otherwise though!

The Build Itself

One of the most important things you can do when building the masts for a models ship is quite simply to make sure you have sufficient material to do so in the first place! In other words remember the seven ‘Ps’ - Proper Prior Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance! 

The tools and materials ready to use

Looking at the picture above you can see what tools I use and the building material itself. Starting from the left we have the old model making standby of super glue. I use this one because although it is not the cheapest it works really well and I have never had any problems with it when building masts. A surgical scalpel or modelling knife - ideally with a new blade - for cutting along with something to file the cut ends with. In this case I use a relatively fine grade Emery board. The pencil and ruler are of course for measuring the sections required.

The masts themselves are fashioned using bamboo barbecue skewers which are usually 3mm thick. Spars and flagstaffs are made from wooden cocktail sticks. In each case (particularly the latter for some reason) ensure that you are using the straightest lengths. It is worth pointing out that keeping any offcuts from the cocktail sticks is a good idea as these are useful for making cannon barrels - I use 10mm and 7mm lengths.

Everything thus far is probably within the modelling supplies of most gamers but there is one other essential ingredient - the fighting tops. The five that you see are of two sizes with the larger being used for the first step of the main and foremast whilst the smaller are for the second. These are 3mm thick MDF and were custom cut from Warbases to a design from me at the start of the ACW project. Again, the purist might take offence at the shape of these - rectangular versions would be easy enough to design and order if required - but it does not matter a jot. They look imposing and provide an extremely important part of the construction process - and this will feature in the second part of this post.