"Ratlines" Topic

I am after a source of some ratlines for some of my 1/600th ACW ships.

I have seen someone do this with some kind of net before on Napoleonic ships. Any ideas what these would have been and were to get them from?

Failing that, any suggestions for how to model ratlines?

Leigh

White Ensign carries photo-etched ratlines. There's no substitute for them.

They are actually made by Atlantic, and are buried on the White Ensign web site:

link

Use a Sharpie to color them – don't even try to paint them.

Here's a Thoroughbred Confederate gunboat with Atlantic ratlines (before I figured out that I shouldn't Dullcoat them either).

I used screen like what you use for a screen door or screens on window.
You can find it in most hardware sections of stores.

I take a large section of screen then spray paint it flat black.
When its dry I cut it out to the size needed then a small dab of glue and let set.

I tried spaying with brown but it did not look good so black gives it the contrast.
If you cut it to short you just cut out a new one.
With a few feet of screen you can make ratlines for ever.

I did this on all of my Pirateology Ships with the Airfix HMS Victory' conversions.

In the Photo and File sections.
link

Examples of 1/600 scale:

Langton has them for 1/1200, not sure how suitable for 1/600 Ironclads tho

link

Lucius,

How many ships can one do with a single sheet of ratlines from Atlantic? Ball park answer.

Thanks,

I'm going on memory here – I think that there are six left/right pairs per sheet.

The limiting factor is which ships need longer ratlines. IIRC, Hartford needed two sheets in order to get the tall masts taken care of. I am about to do Alabama and Kearsarge, and I think that the same thing will apply.

But that leaves lots of the smaller ratlines left over. You can always use the remaining for gunboats. I think that you could use at least four sets per sheet for things like Itasca, Kansas, etc.

Update –
There are 8 left/right pairs per sheet.

The two shortest pairs are probably too short to be used for anything other than upper ratlines.

Thanks, I've tried the screen bit, but haven't been happy. I recently bought some other material at a model shop, but am not really happy with it either.

Couldn't hurt to order a sheet or two to see how it works out.

Either that or simply stick with monitors. :)

I used net curtain for my 1/1200 Napoleonic ships and it looks just right. It would be too fine for my 1/600 ACW so, thanks to this thread, I've just sent for some Atlantic ratlines.