Macedonian will be rigged, in RC terms, just like my
Constellation. Both are three masted, square rigged ships, with a driver and a number of heads'ls. How they are controlled therefore, is essentially the same.
The braces of a square rigger normally attach to the yards near their ends, but this is problematic on an RC model. The yard is normally wider than the hull's interior where the controls are housed. This means the arms on a servo can't be as wide as the yard, even when turned fore-n-aft, as the required travel isn't available. Modelers typically fudge this issue buy attaching the braces at a point out on the yard equal to the width of the arm on the controlling servo.
As the braces turn the yards the tips of the yard describe a circle, but the brace does not, it is a line from the block it makes it's last turn from to the attachment point on the yard and that line changes in angle and length - a cord. In the above situation, the braces, when seen in plan form a parallelogram and everything moves equally.
If you wish to attach the braces in a prototypical manner, you would probably resort to a winch instead of a servo arm, and because of the geometry of the brace relative to the movement of the yard end - everything is not equal. Basically, as one brace hauls the yard on one side, the brace the winch is paying out is slack. On a model, this can cause problems, not the least of which is the line falling off the winch drum and tangling.
The normal way to deal with this is a set-up to absorb the slack and maintain some tension in the braces. This is typically done with weights in various ways, and I myself planned to route the braces to a block on a spring and then through the deck.
Always looking for simple, efficient ways that are inexpensive and don't require machining I can't get or do, a discussion some years back suggested the winch servo be made to slide for-n-aft as it hauled the braces, maintaining the tension. Dan put together a test rig and found it to be feasible, and went on to install it in his brig
Syren.
Dan's videos of testing the winch arrangementhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN5TjNoWJ9ghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MymnstZpz_ISo, this is the system for bracing the yards that will go into
Constellation and
Macedonian, and any other square-rigger I may build.
Both sliding winches are mounted on 5mm brass rod held by end brackets made from aluminum angle. Each bracket measure about 5cm wide, 38mm tall, has at least a 12mm foot. The rods are just slight further apart than the wide of the servo body. They are about 35mm up from the bottom. When the servo is mounted on it's blocks that slide on the rods, it's bottom will be about 4mm up from the mounting surface.
As before, one winch will handle the braces of the main and mizzen masts. Only the cross jack, main, and main tops'l yard will be directly controlled. The other winch will handle the braces of the foremast; namely the fore yard and foretops'l yard. Both winches are mounted on a new servo tray that will include the servo for the head'sl semaphore arm sheeting system. I decided to arrange the winches side-by-side, instead of in tandem, as I had them before. This makes the new tray wider, but shorter than
Constellation's original set up which will make accessing the system through the main hatch much easier.
The two trays have been assembled, mostly. I'm still waiting for the Delrin plastic to make the sliding blocks from; I still need to make the fairleads that will ensure the braces stay on track as they pay onto and off the winch drum; and I have to seal and paint the wooden tray everything is mounted on.