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BonHomme Richardas a Ship-in-Light-Bulb Model

. . . . .by John Fox III

I am on a mission to prove that ship-in-bottle (or light bulb) models can be everybit as historically accurate, and to scale, asany other genre of ship modeling, to thepoint of being museum-quality in everyrespect. I have spent over thirty years on thismission, with varying results, building modelsof a variety of ships and boats, both histori-cal and of modern design. The following arti-

cle will explain the basics of the general cat-egory of ships-in-bottles, or light bulbs, andmy efforts to “raise the bar” on this genre.

Almost everyone has seen a ship-in-bottle model at one time or another, proba-bly in a nautical gift shop or local craft sale.The majority of these models are considereda craft, rather than an art, and usually cate-gorized under the “folk” term in either case.

Figure 1.

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ond with models that have masts and sails.Some builders choose to use a hybrid ofboth methods, the percentages of eithermethod used varies as much as the numberof builders.

My particular techniques and meth-ods use a minimal number of separatepieces; I attempt to design or engineer mymodels so that as little as possible has to bedone from outside the bottle except for thevital tightening of the rigging lines. I haveseen fine work by others who use methodswith much more “piece work,” but I havefound it much more difficult to get a goodmodel finished using such methods.Personally, I find there are just too manythings that can go wrong when a model hasto be pieced together inside a bottle. I havehad to do this on occasion, due to con-straints caused by the neck of the bottle,but prefer to avoid many separate piecesneeding to be put together after insertion ifpossible.

I will be using the BonHommeRichard model in a light bulb that I builtover a two-year period to illustrate mymethods and techniques. The idea here isto show how they apply to a single instanceof a ship-in-bottle model, but the methodscan be used for just about any sailing ves-sel. (Figure 1)

My BonHomme Richard model wasbuilt from information in the A.N.C.R.E.publication, John Paul Jones and theBonHomme Richard, by Jean Boudriot. Ipurchased the book along with an entireset of large-scale drawings for the vessel,also by Boudriot.

At the time I was starting my workthis information was considered the bestavailable about that ship. I have sincelearned that Boudriot basically just shrankdown his well-researched plans for the larg-er French East Indiaman Berlin, and thatthis could be an instance of not enoughresearch being done to provide an accurateset of plans for my intended model.

The basic ship-in-bottle model is, or wasbuilt, for the most part, for the mystiquevalue of just how did someone actually getthat model into the bottle. The modelsthemselves are often quite crude, and oftendepict just a ship type, rather than a partic-ular vessel. Whether built locally by a craftperson, or by some business shop overseasspecifically for foreign sales, it is rare tofind a model in this genre worthy of theterm “museum-quality.”

Over the years working at buildingship-in-bottle models I have seen somewonderful examples of just what a such amodel could be, and met some truly giftedmodel builders in the process. It started methinking that there simply is no reasonthat anyone should have to stop at buildingsuch models for the mystique value alone,when so much more can be done to makethem objects of respect and admiration byany ship modeler. To that end I startedworking on techniques and methods thatcan be applied universally to any ship orboat model, including those aspects specif-ic to ships in bottles. My goal was to makethe methods easy to use and apply, in orderto encourage others to think more of theirmodels as ship models first, and let themystique thing take care of itself.

There are a number of methods ofbuilding and finishing ship-in-bottle mod-els, as one might guess. Note that I men-tion building and finishing separately,finishing in this case refers to the workinvolved in getting the model, or all itsassociated parts, through the narrow neckof the bottle, or bulb, and then rebuildingor erecting the model inside.

The two most basic methods usedare to build the model so that it comesapart into pieces small enough to fitthrough the opening, or building the modelin such a way that it can fold down, or beknocked down to accomplish the samegoal. The first method is most often usedwith non-sailing boats and ships, the sec-

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My first task was to use a computeraided design (CAD) program to redraft theplans, which allows me total scale controlof the model. What I found during thisprocess reinforced the idea that it was sim-ply a rehash of previously published plansfor another vessel. I only mention this hereso that anyone considering building amodel of BonHomme Richard might do alittle extra research to find newer material.

I always encourage ship modelers touse CAD to redraw plans for a proposedmodel. Not only does it expand the knowl-edge base of what one is planning to build,but it also allows one to draft each pieceseparately and then literally construct themodel virtually by copying and pasting theparts together. I can easily say that, fornearly every model I have ever built, Ilearned things from this method that madethings easier down the road.

The plans were drafted and doublechecked, each view against the others, foraccuracy. The next step was to measure theinside diameter of the opening I had cut inthe light bulb end, and to measure theexact dimensions of the inside of the entirebulb. The latter measurements determinethe scale of the model I will build, which iswhy the scales of my models are widelyoutside what is considered “normal.” MyBonHomme Richard model, for instance,was built to a scale of 1:459. In all cases, Iwish to build the model to the largest scalepossible in order to fill as much of the bot-tle, or bulb. Unless the width of the hull atthe largest possible scale will not fitthrough the neck opening, the largest scaleis what I use to build my model. If the hullwidth is too large, which happens onlyrarely, then I have to decide if I will shrinkthe overall scale so it will fit, or engineerthe hull to split along the fore and aft cen-terline. The latter is an absolute last resortfor me; as mentioned previously, there aretoo many things that can go wrong insidethe bulb using that sort of piece work.

When I print my plans to scale, Iprint out the half-hull outlines from thebody plan, one for each station. I includeonly the outline of the hull, the waterlineextending beyond the outline and the cen-terline for each paper template. I also printout scale plans of the maximum hull widthat any given point, and another for each ofthe decks. With all this material in hand, Ihead out to the workshop and begin actualconstruction.

The first of my particular methodscomes into play when making up what Icall a “hull block sandwich,” carved tomake the model’s hull. I use the samebasic principle for every hull I make, evensome much larger scale models, simplybecause it makes it easy for me to carvevery accurate hulls. The basic hull blocksandwich comprises a solid piece of bass-wood for an upper hull, a thin sheet ofstyrene plastic to represent the waterline,and a lower hull made up of three pieces ofbasswood glued together. The lower hullhas two outer pieces that are glued to avery thin center piece; together their widthmatches that of the upper hull piece. Allpieces are as long as the longest portion ofthe hull, with the upper hull piece made asthick as the maximum height of the hullabove the waterline, and the lower hullpieces as thick as the maximum depthbelow the waterline.

BonHomme Richard had manydecks, so instead of simply carving themfrom a solid upper piece, I shaped a thinpiece, from the waterline to the gundeck,to the proper sheer on its upper surface andthen added several more thin pieces foreach of the vessel’s other decks. If themodel had been to a much smaller scale, Iwould have retained the simple hull blocksandwich and carved in all the decks.

The key feature of my hull blocksandwich technique is that only the lowerhull pieces are glued together, all the otherparts are pegged together tightly. The pegs

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have to be tight enough to allow carvingthe hull without the pieces shifting. Theprinciple is that, no matter where or how Icarve into this block, I have a readymadewaterline—the styrene sheet—and a deadstraight keel line—the center of the thin

piece glued between the two outer pieces ofthe lower hull. One does not have to usemuch imagination to see how much easierthis makes the carving process comparedto having to re-locate and re-draw in thekeel or waterline while shaping the hull.Figure 2 illustrates how a typical hull blocksandwich is made. Figure 3 shows the lay-ered upper hull parts as well as the entirehull carved to the profile shape.

The printed half-hull templates wereused to check the shape of the entire hullas I worked, placing them against it whilealigning them with the waterline and cen-terline of the block. The station locationswere marked along the center of the keel ofthe lower hull, which, once shaped to pro-file, would not change during the rest ofthe carving process.

One of the really nice things aboutmaking up hulls in this manner is that,after they are carved, one can fairly easilytake them apart again into separate upperand lower hulls. Nearly all of the hulls Imake are separated in this manner only; itallows me to air brush the finished hullsmore easily since most are differently col-ored above and below the waterline. It alsoallows me to build a slightly larger scalemodel, as the two hull pieces can passthrough the bottle neck separately. Thoughthis may seem to go against my ideas aboutpiece work inside the bottle, it is a simplematter to marry to the two hull partstogether inside the bulb, using the pegs forperfect alignment.

Figure 4 shows two fully carvedhulls for my BonHomme Richard model,plus another that has been separated intoits component parts. I actually made threemodels, only two of which I have fullycompleted as of this writing. From thispoint onwards, all the upper hull pieceswere glued together, making it a singlepiece for insertion.

One of the crucial benefits of havingthe hull split at the waterline has to do

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

Figure 4.

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with the differences between my ship-in-bottle models compared with those usuallyassociated with the genre. Most ship-in-bottle models have hulls that only go a lit-tle below the waterline and are set into aputty or clay medium shaped to form afake sea. This particular technique has sev-eral advantages for ease of finishing, as anylines that must be operated from outside ofthe bottle can be glued, cut off, and simplypushed down into the fake sea material tohide them.

My finished models are much sim-pler in one respect, I only put the modelitself and a stand to hold it in place intothe bottle or bulb. I tend to think of themas static display models that just happen tobe inside a container. Since nearly everysailing ship model will have some riggingthat must be operated from outside thebottle, mine being way beyond the excep-tion in this point, and since I have no fakesea to hide my rigging lines, I developed atechnique of carving a cavity in the under-side of the upper hull piece to run my linesthrough. I exit my “control” rigging linesthrough the hawse holes, for the most part,and then can cut them off and hide theexcess in the cavity after they have beenglued.

Perhaps it is time to talk a bit aboutrigging ship-in-bottle models. When work-ing on my type of model, it is necessary forthe masts to fold backwards; the top of themasts must move aft and downwards toallow the entire upper hull assembly to fitthrough the neck opening of the container.For this to work, all but the shrouds andbackstays of the rigging must be controllines that can be operated from outside thebottle (the shrouds and backstays simplyfold down and double over, so they do notneed to be workable lines). The stays ofeach mast must be control lines to allowproper movement, of course, but all of therunning rigging lines also must be controllines, since the yards and sails also fold

down with the masts. All of this is accom-plished by having the normal rigging endpoints allow passage of the thread used forthe rigging to run through either thebowsprit assembly or pin rails and thenthrough holes in the deck beneath theminto the cavity within the upper hull piece.These normal end points are where thelines are glued after erecting the model, inmost cases from above but occasionallyfrom below at the point the lines exit theholes through the upper hull into the cavity.

Getting back to work on the model’shull, once fully carved and sanded, the hullwas separated and upper and lower hullsealed with a thinned sanding sealer. Theywere then reassembled and sanded again;this process was repeated until the entireouter surface of the hull was well sealed.This hardened the soft basswood outer sur-face, and prepared the raw wood for attach-ment of detail and paint application.

Much of the detail work on myhulls, and spars is made from varyingthickness of sheet styrene. I use styrenebecause it retains a clean edge when cutinto thin strips and small pieces, paintseasily, and can be applied to the hull quick-ly and fairly easily using cyanoacrylateglue. This is one reason the hull must besealed well, it keeps the thin glue fromsimply soaking into the wood. Styrene isalso very flexible and, therefore, can beused where wood is quite difficult to bendwithout breaking. Where pieces are larger,or strength is needed, I use hardwoodinstead to make up small detail parts.

The lower gun ports on myBonhomme Richard model were simplyshallow cutouts of the proper dimensionsand locations. The closed gun ports wereengraved into the hardened surface of thebasswood. Painting the inside of the portdepressions with dark gray paint andadding pieces of black insect mountingpins to represent cannons made themabout as realistic as one could achieve at

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this scale. Figures 5 and 6 show the sternand bow detailing, mostly accomplishedwith styrene.

Once I had completed the majordetailing of the exterior of the hull, work

continued with drilling holes through thehull for rigging. The majority of the exteri-or hull holes allow the addition of thechains. At this scale, the chains are threadand are not attached in the usual manner;

Figure 5.

Figure 6.

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instead the thread ends run through thehull into the interior carved hollow.Initially, this space was 1/16-inch deep,with a 1/16-inch perimeter. All of the chainholes are rather high up the hull, so theouter edge of the hollow needed to becarved much deeper so that the holes couldreach it. (Figure 7)

Holes then had to be drilled throughthe decks into the hollow for all the run-ning rigging. In order to locate most ofthese holes properly the fife and pin railswere added prior to drilling these holes.Quite a few running rigging lines weregoing to put considerable pressure on thesebelaying points, so all the fife rails weremade from thin brass, since styrene or thinwood would not have withstood the strain.The rail stanchions were made from piecesof insect mounting pins, glued to holes inthe deck and the rails with cyanoacrylateglue. The pin rails at the very bow weremade similarly; the styrene cap rail wasreplaced with a brass copy in order to giveit a solid foundation against the strain ofthe many lines that would pass through it.Figure 8 shows the fife rail for the foremast and the many closely spaced holesdrilled through the deck at the bow.

I should note here that each of themany hull holes for ship-in-bottle modelsmust be distinct and not “run” into, orthrough, any other hole. This is criticalwhen running the rigging lines throughthem later because all the lines are workinglines. They have to move freely in bothdirections, upwards during the knockdownprocess and back downwards again duringthe erection process. Should individualholes not be distinct, it almost always isthe case that one line will run throughanother previously installed line, whichwill limit both lines’ movements. For thisreason, all the holes at the very bow weremost difficult to drill.

For this model, limited space madeit necessary to limit the number of holes

for the lines, even in the fife and pin rails,since there simply was not enough room todrill an individual hole for each line. Manyof the holes had to be used to run two orthree working lines. This, of course, led toproblems with lines running through eachother as they were added. This complicat-ed the rigging process as, after each line

Figure 7.

Figure 8.

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was added, all the lines passing throughthat particular hole had to be tested formovement in both directions to correct anyproblems at that point. In some cases itrequired considerable repetition of thread-ing before all the lines would operate prop-erly.

The hulls of my BonHommeRichard models were then masked off andairbrushed. At this scale using an airbrushis necessary in order to apply as thin alayer of paint as possible. I always use flatpaints on my models; I find that they pro-

duce a thinner layer than gloss paints. Inanticipation of all their subsequent han-dling during construction, the hulls alsoreceived an airbrushed clear coat but, evenwith this protection, things like the chainplates and bowsprit ends eventually lostboth paint and protective coat and had tobe touched up at the end of the construc-tion work.

The final detailing work was arather interesting experience for me. Thefigurehead on most of my ship-in-bottlemodels is usually so small that a crude rep-

Figure 10.

Figure 9.

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resentation is all that is possible or neces-sary. My BonHomme Richard models werelarge enough that the lion rampant figure-head was going to have to be more detailed.I attempted carving lions from both woodand styrene, but had poor results. I thentried making up the figurehead from layersof styrene, each cut to the contour at agiven distance from the centerline. Usingmy CAD software made this fairly easy todraw up, print to scale, and glue to sheetstyrene. The individual parts were then cutout and glued together before attaching theassembly to the bow. A little carving andsanding rounded out the lion figurehead.Figure 9 shows the lion parts and Figure 10the finished figurehead on the model. Thelatter also shows the brass rail at the bowof the fore deck, along with the replace-ment brass cap rail to hold it in place.

While waiting for the paint to dry, Istarted working on the spars for my mod-

els. The masts had to be constructed toallow them to fold down for insertion intothe light bulb. There are two main methodsfor accomplishing this; the simplest andeasiest is simply to drill a hole through themast near its base from port to starboardand pivot it on an inverted “U”-shape wirewith the two ends glued into holes drilledin the model’s deck. This works quite well,but is unsuitable where there are decksabove and behind the mast, or when acabin or some other deck structure isimmediately abaft it, since the obstructionwill not allow the mast to be loweredenough for insertion. There is also theissue that it is nearly impossible to hide thewire.

I prefer to make my masts “break”for folding down some distance above thedeck in this situation. I use what is com-monly called a “Hinkley” hinge, namedafter a ship-in-bottle modeler who popular-

Figure 11.

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invisible.The basic hinge is made by cutting a

mast blank at a 45-degree angle at thepoint above the deck that one wishes themast to break. The bottom end of theupper mast section then has the outerthird of its diameter carved away on eachside, leaving the center third as a sort oftine. The top of the lower section of themast has the middle third removed, leavingtwo outside portions, making it into a fork.The areas are removed at an angle oppositethat of the original cut dividing the mastparts. A bamboo peg is then inserted into ahole drilled through both mast pieces whileholding them their assembled straightposition. Figure 11 shows several exam-ples, one of them before assembly in orderto show the parts.

One important point when workingon models at the miniature scales I use isthat keeping in mind the qualities of vari-ous materials. This is very important whenmaking up spars. Solid wooden spars belowa certain size become too weak or brittle.In many cases, spars for ship-in-bottlemodels have to have holes drilled throughthem, which weakens them even more. Forthis reason I make all of my wooden sparsby laminating together thin sheets ofmaple veneer. The glued seams of a two-piece veneered spar make it much stronger,and holes drilled at 90 degrees to the run ofthe seam usually do not split the spar.

I use the same basic process to makeup all the wooden spars for my models,varying the number of layers of veneer tomatch the final diameter of the spars. I cutslices from the laminate and spin sandthem down to their maximum diameters,using a Dremel tool and various grades ofsandpaper pinched around the rotatingblank. I then hand sand any tapers, drillany necessary holes, and sand any requiredflat areas to get to the final shapes. Thislaminated spar method also really helpswhen making up “Hinkley” hinges. I use a

ized this technique. The advantage of thistype of hinge is that when the upper por-tions of the mast is raised to its uprightposition, the hinge itself is almost entirely

Figure 12.

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three-layer veneer, making it easy to deter-mine the one-third divisions for makingthe hinges.

All the wooden spars were sealedand sanded, for the same reasons as for thehull exterior. Almost all the spar detailingwas styrene, including the mast caps andtops. The mast banding, for instance, wasfrom 1/64-inch wide strips of .005-inchthick sheet styrene, wrapped around themast and glued with cyanoacrylate. Figure 12illustrates a complete mast assembly formy BonHomme Richard model and Figure 13shows all the smaller spars for one mast onall three models I constructed.

The smallest spars on myBonHomme Richard models were simplytoo thin to be made even from woodveneer, so I used insect mounting pins ofthe appropriate diameter instead. Often, itwas possible to cut sections from a pin sothat the natural taper of the pin formed the

taper for one end of the spar, but the otherend of the spar had to be tapered by hand.These pins come with a black enamel coat-ing, of course removed when tapering for aspar. I used black magic maker to blacken

Figure 13.

Figure 14.

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Another wrapping of threads then waswound on at 90 degrees to the originalthreads. Cyanoacrylate again was appliedto the top threads, and at the crossingpoints. It was painstaking work, but I wasable to make some very fine grating mate-rial with this method. I used the jig tomake all sorts of items for my models,including tiny railings, such as that aroundthe stern balcony, and to make up thedeadeye lanyard arrangements for theshrouds and backstays.

One of the really fun things to workon for miniature models are the ship’sboats. I am constantly attempting to findways to make the tiniest boats as realisticas possible, and to make it relatively easyto make many nearly identical examples. Ideveloped a system for making my boatsthat seems to work well, and have used itin a number of larger scale ship-in-light-bulb models.

I started out by carving a solid woodblank of the hull shape, sanded and sealedmultiple times. This sealing process is crit-ical for later work with the blank. Anextremely thin brass plate was epoxied ontop of the blank,, and cut down to the out-side edge of the top. A hole was then drilled

the spars throughout. All the wooden sparsand the appropriate sections of the mastswere airbrushed black and then clear coat-ed to protect them.

Most of the detail work on the deckswas added to the models next. Nearly allthese details were made from sheetstyrene, sometimes laminating it to getproper thicknesses. Very small diameterelectrical wire insulation was used for thebarrels of the guns on the upper decks,mounted on styrene carriages. I addedwooden side rails, using insect mountingpins for stanchions.

The gratings used on the modelswere made using thread and a special jig Iconstructed for the purpose. It consists ofpieces of fine toothed razor saw blades,with their kerfs filed off, attached to allfour sides of a block of hardwood so thatthe teeth aligned evenly above the top sur-face of the block. (Figure 14) Threads ofvarious sizes were wrapped around theblock, and over the blades, on oppositesides of the block at any spacing desired.These threads then were saturated withcyanoacrylate, using a fine piece of wire toapply the glue along their lengths almost tothe point they passed over the saw blades.

Figure 15.

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through the brass and into the top of theblank, and the end of a toothpick gluedinto this hole.

The boat blank was then mountedin a spring clip clothes pin so that thetoothpick was holding the blank upsidedown. About one half of a cigarette paperwas soaked in a half-and-half mixture ofwater and wood glue, then draped over theinverted blank. A wetted toothpick end wasused to carefully flatten the paper onto theblank’s outer surface down to the brasstop. A rolling motion was used with thetoothpick tip, and very light pressure, con-tinually pressing the paper as tight to thesurface as possible. Near the ends thepaper was folded over to one side or theother and flattened. After leaving it to dryovernight, the hardened paper was cut offat the brass plate; the paper is fragile, sogreat care was taken during this process. Asecond piece of paper was then applied inthe same manner, with the folds at theends on the opposite sides from the firstlayer to minimize the additional thickness.For the BonHomme Richard boats, I usedfive layers of paper.

After the last layer of paper haddried, the ends of the hull were sanded very

lightly, to even out the overall thickness ofthe paper by removing the added thicknesswhere it was folded over. The entire out-side of the boat hull was then saturatedwith cyanoacrylate. This hardened the sur-face, stiffening and sealing the outside ofthe hull. I than very carefully pried the hullfrom the blank and saturated the interiorsurface with the same glue. The resultinghulls were very strong considering theirthickness. Figure 15 shows the finishedbasic hulls for one model, along with theblanks used to make them.

I added much detailing to the twoboats for each of the models. All of it wasmade from various thicknesses of styreneplastic. Ribs were added, keels and thwartsfor the upper boat, plus .005-inch thickstyrene cap rails. I have not mentioned thispreviously, but I always make extras foralmost everything when building myminiature models. The larger and morecomplex the parts, the fewer of them Imake as extras, but they allow me to pickand choose the best examples for the finalmodels. The ship’s boats were no excep-tion to this, though, due to their complexi-ty, only a single extra of each boat wasmade. Figure 16 shows all four of the fin-

Figure 16.

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ished smaller boats for my threeBonHomme Richard models. The boatswere hand painted before placing them onthe models.

The final bit of “ditsy” detail workwas now begun, making the deadeye andlanyard parts for the shrouds and back-stays. I wanted to include them in anattempt to make the models as realistic aspossible. At this scale, though, one cannotmake them as one might on a larger scalemodel, one has to fake them to someextent. I did this by using that grating jig Imentioned earlier.

I started out by drawing up a paperpattern giving me the spacing between thedeadeyes and placing it on top of the jig’sbed. I punched the deadeyes out of cyano-acrylate-soaked construction paper, usingthe sharpened barrel of a veterinary hypo-dermic needle of the proper diameter. Darkbrown thread was wrapped around the jig

in one direction, in closely spaced pairs,and saturated as noted previously. Then,drops of glue were applied to each deadeyelocation and, very carefully, deadeyes werepicked up, using the very tip of a Number11 blade, and set in position on the closelyspaced threads, repeating the process for allthe deadeyes. Then, a second layer ofthreads was wound on the jig over the topof the deadeyes. This last layer was satu-rated with glue, paying special attention tothe points it pressed down on each dead-eye. The threads were cut from the jig atthe edges, and each deadeye and lanyardunit was trimmed so that its threads endedat the outside edge of each deadeye. It wastedious work, but the process yielded manynearly identical items, nicely detailed fortheir size. Figure 17 shows a number of thedeadeye and lanyard pairs on the jig usedto make them.

To be continued.

Figure 17.