Building a ship need help

[Seablue19]

So I am building my own MOC and seem to have run accross a problem that I was needing advice on. I am building it with the Caribbean Clipper color sails, but they are too thin and small for the size I have decided to undertake the ship. I was wondering what techniques and cloth I could use to get the same type of stripes (the thicker stripes not the thin ones on the Armada Pirate Sets) on the sails that would make it look similar but allow me to make it as wide as I need it and as many sails as I need for it.

469998_438234592858595_100000161740215_95138746_276268583_o by Seablue24, on Flickr

[SlyOwl]

There's two nice tutorials on making sails here - 1 ~ 2.

Simply, find some suitable material - I've used old tshirt stuff in the past, but anything that's tightly woven and the right thickness should work. Paint it with a mix of 5 parts water to 1 part PVA glue and let it dry (this stops it fraying, stiffens it, makes it easier to cut and draw on). I use a hole punch to punch out the holes to attach the sails to the masts - and trim the holes with nail scissors. Shoving a soldering iron through the cloth also works.

As for the printed stripes, I think the easiest way is to either find some appropriate cloth (which could be quite hard) - or paint/colour them on yourself. It'd be easier to do this before you cut the sails out.

It's possible to run pva-d cloth through a printer and get good results - though it does tend to clog everything up and go wrong an awful lot!

Hope this was helpful.