It's finished and it's stringless
The spaghetti was too short, couldn't work out how to get something like fishing wire to be properly taut. It would have been a nightmare if I'd started to try it and then had to try and take it off again and spoil the whole thing.
I was determined from the beginning that, while I wanted it to be good, I wasn't going to get stressed and bothered about every tiny detail, and after all it's a cake, not a designer replica
It's been hard work but enjoyable; I even carved a liquorice offcut into the specially-shaped knob
Pictures have been taken, I might upload just one today, then do the rest another time.