Wow!…………………..Thanks for all the "Wow" guy's, very much appreciated, honest!
To continue with the tutorial you will have to forgive me for the quality of some of the photos, all were taken under an LED light which comes as part of magnifier lamp. No natural light as we have the curtains all shut up to help keep out the 42C heat simmering outside.
All of this work I carry out over a green card for two reasons: 1. You can find the tiny shims and buckles better. 2. On a cutting mat the shims collect static and when you go to pick them up with tweezers, the usually shoot away and go walkabout with the carpet gremlin. The card stops the static.
You also need a very steady hand. Old codgers like me quite often find we have this problem and no, it's not the result of last night's tipple or three.
So on with the demo.
Start by cutting your threads. To many can never be enough and I tend to cut lengths on the very generous side, the reasons for this will become apparent later.
Starting with a shim, a thread length and a buckle, pass the thread through the shim. Then feed on the buckle.
The next step is to feed the thread end back through the shim and gently pull the shim down the thread. Go carefully as the silver thread can sometimes catch on the buckle eye and pucker. If this happens, the best thing to do is start again with a new thread.
With the shim butted up against the buckle, crimp the shim in place and with a sharp knife, carefully trim of the surplus tread tail.
The next stage is to shim and buckle the other end. I found this was easier to do the threading at this stage rather than when one end is attached to the model. With this end we will just push the thread through the sim and buckle, and then back through the shim pulling the shim down the thread so that you just make a rough loose loop. This is also where the extra length of thread comes in to play. Plenty of spare will prevent the loop coming adrift when your fiddling with the rigging on the model and it also gives a good length to handle when tightening the rigging after attaching the second end.
This last pic is an example of the silver thread coming adrift after puckering. One other tip is also to make sure your thread end is cut cleanly with a sharp knife, it needs to be a clean cut for the return thread through the shim.
That will be it for the moment folks, I've lots of threading to do!!