The yards are the cross beams that are mounted against the masts to hold the sails. They also represent the beginning of the running rigging – the lines that control and adjust the sails of the ship. But before you can get to any of that, you have to build, paint, and fit the yards with irons and a variety of blocks and eyes. Since the yards are all created similarly, I’ll cover the construction of the main yard but probably not likely illustrate much with the others unless there are some specific differences worth noting.
Main Yard Construction
First, I laid out my Swan yard illustration from The Fully Framed Model. Those who are familiar know that TFFM is scaled to 1:48, so i took the layout to my local print shop and had it scaled down to 1:64 so I could directly correlate the yards to the layout. Then, I went through and adjusted all the numbers from their real-time inch measurements to the scaled millimeters at 1:64.
Ideally, the yards are much easier (and better) to make from square stock – but I’ll be using the dowels I have on hand because most of my extra square stock is of much softer wood (I don’t have a supply of boxwood). To accomplish this, I start with a dowel at least 2mm larger in diameter than what I need for the yard, measure out the necessary diameters at the different lengths of the yard, then start by filing off the yard to get close. Then I’ll follow up with a couple varying degrees of sandpaper to get it smooth and down to the proper exact diameter. To get the octagonal section correct, I started by marking out lines in fourths, then eighths in equal measure. The yard is locked into the vice, then the first pass is made with my snazzy veritas miniature chisel. I then lightly cover them with my miniature plane to try and get them as even as possible at this scale.
Each yard has a set of cleats that ultimately hold the rigging in place. Two cleats are at the center, and a pair of smaller cleats are on each end. The center and end cleats are all shaped from scrap boxwood. Here are the main and fore yards, but I’ll wait until all of them are made before I paint them all black.
The rest of the yards are painstakingly built and laid out on my sheet of instructions. The larger yards are constructed in the same manner as the main yard with an octagonal center. The smaller yards and stunsails (extensions off of the larger yards) are just dowels tapered on each end. There are also a couple of specialty yards such as the gaff and booms which are adorned with hooks.
Irons and Fittings
Each of the yards includes small pieces of hardware to either rig, or hold the stunsails. The larger yards all have stunsail irons affixed to each end of the yard. The stunsail irons support the stunsail booms on the yards and sit at a 45 degree angle forward. There is an iron on the end of the yard then another support a few feet inboard on the yard. I started by squaring off a brass piece. The circular part of the support comes from small relatively thick brass washers that I filed down. To change the diameter of the circle, I snip the washer, tighten the diameter, then silver solder it to the square support. The pieces are trimmed after soldering, but left a bit long until I get the necessary specs.
The straps are made from extra flat strips of brass lengthened and shaped. I filed the ends of the support squares to round them slightly so they’d fit flush against the straps. It was actually quite difficult to line them up properly to solder.
Similar process for the other braces along the yard. Flat brass pieces are shaped and soldered to the circles. Everything is sanded and smoothed then all the pieces are blackened.
Finally, the stunsail irons are mounted on the yards with PVA glue. Each is held in place with a metal strap/ring around the end of the yard. After trying a few different things, I finally settled on a unique solution. I pulled out some of my electrician stuff, and found shrink wrap. I picked out a size that was a slightly larger diameter than my stunsail, then sliced off thing pieces.
The cool thing about shrink wrap of course, is that it shrinks. So after fitting it loosely over the irons, you just run a lighter across it lightly a few times and it shrinks tightly to size. And with that, yards are constructed. Next up, adding the blocks and starting the running rigging in earnest.
The Lehman Shipyard 