USS Constitution by usedtosail - FINISHED - Model Shipways - scale 1/76

[Burroak]

On cleaning your deck you might try a thinned top coat. Your ship looks great by the way.

[usedtosail]

Al - I used some tack cloth on the deck and it got a lot of the dust off. I then used a Q-Tip with some paint thinner which got a little more.

 

Popeye - Furniture polish and a stiff brush sound like a good solution too. I don't think we have any in the house anymore but I will pick some up next time I am out. I have also placed an old T-shirt that I opened up over the model now to try to keep more dust out. Thanks for that suggestion.

 

Greg - I think another coat of Wipe On Poly would do the deck some good as it seems to be drying out a bit. Thanks for that suggestion.

 

Here are some final shots of the cannonades. All side tackles are installed and all of the rope coils on the port side. I have about 20 more to add to the starboard side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am going to attempt to make new wheels, but still reserve the option to fall back on using the supplied metal wheels. They are not too bad but I want to try making my own.

[xken]

Tom, looking great! I can sympathize about the wheels I just cleaned up 120 for the gundeck on my build. As I add them to the carriage I sort through the pile and try to match two of the large and two of the small and then rotate the oval ones to the best fit for level. 

[usedtosail]

Thanks Ken I had the same problem with the carriage wheels (trucks). I am going to try to build two new steering/ship wheels.

[alde]

Scratching a ships wheel sounds like a real challenge. I am looking forward to seeing how you approach it.

[NenadM]

Good luck with wheels, Tom.

 

Just passed this stage, and ... Uhhhhh....

Edited March 21, 2016 by Nenad

[usedtosail]

Thanks Al and Nenad. Nenad - you were the one that inspired me to try make new wheels. Yours came out great.

 

Well, here is my weekly update for the build log. I figure I should at least let you know where I am. I have been doing a lot of work but nothing real to show for it yet. First of all I have made all of the flat rope coils I need to finish the spar deck guns, but haven't installed them yet. I have the Conny set aside under an old T-Shirt to keep the dust from making the wheels out of it for now.

 

For the wheels, I read up on ways others have made these , including Nenad, EdT, David A., and others. I have come up with (I think) a process that works for me given my limited abilities and lack of precise machine tools.  I started out with some basswood sheet, mostly to practice on. As I expected, the basswood doesn't work real well for this application. I glued up some square pieces of 1/16" basswood to make a 1/4" thick piece, with each layer turned 90 degrees to alternate the grain. I then glued this stack to the end of a longer piece of basswood and put it in the 4 jaw chuck i have on the Proxxon lathe. I was able to turn a rim of sorts with this set up, but the 4 jaw chuck is not very good at holding this kind of item very securely, so I was getting some wobble in the turning. I also tried to turn the inner hub at the same time with bad results. For one, I tried to drill the center hole using the drill chuck in the tail stock, but this holds the drill near the end and it was sticking out very far, so I was getting deflection which caused the center hole to be off. That would have been bad except that while turning it I managed to break it off because the basswood is so soft and my skills with a chisel are pretty bad. No pictures of these failures but I will leave it up to your imagination.

 

I was tempted to give up at that point but I had to tell myself that was just practice. I had bought a piece of 1/4" boxwood a few years ago and I thought to give it a try. I was not going to use the 4 jaw chuck again so I had to come up with another way to hold the wood. In my box of lathe stuff I found a spindle with a small plate and some holes. I think it came with the lathe. I was able to hold the wood on this spindle with a couple of brass screws and it seemed very secure. I used brass screws because they were the only screws small enough that I had and I knew they would be very close to the tools so if I hit one it wouldn't do too much damage. So here is the set up in the lathe after I turned the two rims:

 

 

I again tried to use the drill chuck on the tailstock, but I still had the same result, as you can see. I also had to remove a lot of material around the outside of the outer rim so that I could drill the holes for the spokes before removing the rims from the rest of the board. I first marked the spoke locations as best I could by copying the plans and cutting out the outer rim with the locations of the spokes. I copied those locations to the area surrounding the outer rim. This was not as precise as I would like it to be. I then put the whole thing into the vise on the drill press and lined up the drill bit as best I could with the center of the hub and drilled the holes:

 

 

This also was not as precise as I wanted it to be as some of the holes were not centered on the rim and I was still having problems with drill bit deflection. But, I was able to cut the rim off the backing without any problems, so I was happy about that.

 

So at this point I was confident I could do the cutting but needed a better method for drilling the holes for the spokes. I took one of the basswood rims I had made earlier and glued it to a piece of plywood. On the plywood I had glued the plans for the wheel, but only from the rim into the center, so the edges were loose. I took a piece of dowel for the center hub and carefully found the center and drilled the center hold by hand. I glued this piece to the plans too. The next day I used a pin vise and drilled the holes for the spokes by hand. I was able to line the drill bit up to the whole spoke image on the plans so I was able to drill these all nice and straight into the hub. As I drilled each hole I put a piece of wire in to substitute for a spoke:

 

 

When all the holes were drill, I gently pried the rim and hub away from the plywood using a flat X-Acto chisel under the paper. I couldn't soak it in alcohol first because the rim was a sandwich of thin layers and might have come apart. With the solid boxwood rims, I will be able to soak them first. In any case, the rim and hub came away clean, and I just had to sand the paper off the back:

 

 

So then the question was what to use for spokes. I didn't like the wire because I would have to make separate handles anyway and I want the wheels to be all wood, which I way I am not using the supplied metal wheels if I can help it. I tried something that I have seen on this site before for making treenails, which was to take a piece of 1/32" square stock and chuck it in a Dremel tool, then with the Dremel running, push the wood through smaller and smaller holes in a draw plate. This turned nice round tiny dowels and the ends that were in the Dremel chuck can be shaped into the spoke handles. At this point I have made exactly one of these, which you can see in a picture further down, but I am pretty confident this will work for the spokes. I will still use the wire as I drill the holes, but then I will replace each wire with a spoke one at a time after I spearate it from the backing so the whole thing will stay together.

 

OK, so now I have the process somewhat down, so it is time to execute it. I turned a new outer rim and this time I tried to go deep enough to get both rims off the same turning.

 

 

 

Let's just say that didn't work. I did get two rims but I by the time I sanded off the saw marks they were too thin in spots to drill the spoke holes. So, I turned two new rims, this time not bothering to make the center hub at the same time. Since I was going to be cutting these off the backing right away, using dowels for the center hub was a better option. I managed to get two nice rims, thinner than the basswood rims but not as thin as the last two, so I have enough meat left to clean these up before drilling the holes. I also cut these off using the lathe by just lightly holding a razor saw to the pieces as they turned until I cut through them. The widths are much more consistent this way and less sanding to remove saw marks was needed. In this picture you can see one of these still on the spindle and compare it to the basswood rims (with the spokes and directly to the left) and the too thin boxwood rim to the bottom left. You can also see the spoke prototype to the bottom right.

 

 

Here are the two set ups glued up ready for drilling the spoke holes.

 

 

Well if you have read all this expecting to see finished wheels, I apologize. I was pretty long winded. I am hoping to have finished wheels by the end of next week, probably without the stand yet. I may have another problem though in that the space for these to fit between the mizzen mast coat and the hatch coaming is pretty tight, so I can't let these wheels get too thick if I want room for the drum between them. If I end up getting nice wheel but they are too thick, I may end up using them as decorations on the ends of the cradle. At least I will know how to make these for future builds.

 

 

 

 

 

[alde]

You can see how much finer the dust is with the boxwood. I can't imagine it being easy to turn the basswood and get good results. Thanks for giving such detail.

 

Al

[JSGerson]

Have you looked at the Capnharv2's build log: Making a Ship's wheel for the USF Constitution?

[usedtosail]

Thanks Al and JS, I think I remember seeing that build log a while ago but I will go back and take a look.

[usedtosail]

JS - I can't access that web site - I get a Sucuri warning.

 

Pressing on, I drilled holes in one of the rims for the spokes, then placed wire into the holes like I did for the first attempt. Here you can see the first one on the left and the new one on the right.

 

 

It is much thinner and looks much better to me, so I am happy so far. I then turned the spokes using the Dremel and a draw plate. I made the thinner part of the spokes first to fit in the holes in the rims. I then turned the part sticking out for the handle in the draw plate and cut them to length. Here is how it looked at that point.

 

 

The spokes were glued into the rim by sliding them out slightly then placing a tiny bit of glue on the end and just under the handle, then pushing them CAREFULLY back into the rims before the glue set, which happened pretty quickly. I broke a few in the process but they were easy to remake. The next day I used a small round file and a small flat file to shape the ends into the handles and here is how it came out.

 

 

A few of the spokes don't line up across the inner hub, but other than that I am pretty happy with the look, compared to the metal supplied wheels.

 

I then used the same process on the second wheel, but this time I was more careful drilling the holes at the inner hub. I started making the spokes last night and they are just set in place for now. Rounding and trimming the ends for the handles is next to do.

 

 

I may redo the inner hub on the first one and make new spokes or I may remake a whole new wheel, but first I will see how the second one turns out.

 

[JSGerson]

Yeah, I got that security warning too and informed Chuck about it. According to him it's all fixed. I found the build log on this site by searching the key words "ship's wheel" and "constitution". Near the bottom of the list of results on the first page was the build log.

[usedtosail]

OK. Thanks

[alde]

Your wheel is 500% better than the kit part. It's going to look great when it's all assembled and in place.

 

Is the basswood from the kit just not workable with machine tools? I was thinking of using my Sherline lathe to taper the masts on my current and future builds but may just get some boxwood to do that with and not even bother with the kit wood.

[usedtosail]

Thanks Al. I don't think the supplied dowels are basswood so you will probably be OK with them. They seem much harder, like birch. The other basswood is OK to turn for things like mast coats, but you have to be careful because they break along the grain easily. They also have some fuzziness to them when worked but that may be a function of the tools I use.

[usedtosail]

More work on the ships wheels. I finished the second wheel spokes using the same process as the first. Here are the two wheels side by side:

 

 

I then turned the drum that fits between them from a piece of dowel. I put axles on each end for the wheels, and I made these long enough to fit through the two supports that I am making now.

 

 

 

I am making the supports from some 1/16" mahogany that have. I did a test on the boxwood and basswood that I made the wheels from with some walnut stain, and I think they will look good with the mahogany supports. I traced a template from the plans, but it was quite clear that the drawing on the plans is not symmetrical at all. To overcome that, I used one side of the template only, traced that side onto the sheet wood, then flipped the template over and drew the other side. I put two pieces of the sheet wood together and cut out the outside shape on the scroll saw. I cleaned that up with some files and sandpaper, driled the holes for the drum axles, then used an X-Acto knife to cut out the center sections, again using some files to clean them up. I filed in the design on the center leg. I still need to make the outside shape a little smaller, which I will do this weekend.

 

 

I also experimented with cutting slots in a piece of strip mahogany to place the supports into. I used a 1/16" end mill bit in my drill press with the XY table, and cleaned up the slots with a small square file. You can see the result in the last picture, but I won't be using that one because I cut the legs of the supports down a little bit after making it and now the slots don't line up with the shorter legs.

 

I should have time this weekend to finish these up and stain them.

[GLakie]

Outstanding Tom! Definitely a vast improvement over the supplied, die-cast ones.

[alde]

Looks great Tom. Now you can throw that kit part in the scrap bin.

[David Lester]

Your wheels look amazing Tom,

David

[usedtosail]

Thanks all for the compliments. I really wasn't sure I was going to be able to pull this off.

 

Yesterday I started by thinning the sides of the wheel supports, using mostly a curved file. The thinned version is on the right and the original is on the left.

 

 

After I thinned the other support, I made the two feet to hold up the supports. I marked the location of the slots by tracing the ends of the supports on the wood, then milled them out using a 1/16" box end mill bit in the drill press. I cleaned up the slots with a very small square file. When the supports fit into the slots, I filed the bottom of the feet between the slots, and the tops along both sides of the center slot, to match the profile on the plans. I then cut the ends to a 45 degree angle and dry fit the wheels:

 

 

 

I then test fit the whole assembly on the ship. I had to file down the ends of the feet a little bit so they didn't extend beyond the end of the raised planking, but other than that the fit was pretty good.

 

 

 

I glued the feet to the supports, then pre-stained and stained all the pieces with some Walnut stain and let them dry overnight. I'll show the results of that and the work I have been doing today in the next post.

[usedtosail]

And here is what I have been doing today. Actually, first thing I did was finally add all of the flat rope coils to the starboard side spar deck guns., so the gun rigging is all finished now.

 

I glued the supports to the wheels after first determining the best part of the wheels to have at the top. I test fit these to the deck while the glue was still wet to make sure the whole assembly sat flat on the deck. 

 

 

To cover the holes in the supports where the axles are, I made a handful of small disks from thin mahogany, using a hole punch. I temporarily glued these to a piece of plywood using a glue stick, then thinned them a little more. I then used a tiny brush and painted gold stars on each one.

 

 

 

When the paint dried, I picked the best two and glued them over the holes in the support. I also wrapped six turns of line around the drum and secured it with some white glue. Here is the completed wheel assembly on the deck. I am going to wait a while before gluing it in place because I am wherry of breaking off one (or more) of those spoke handles. I am suprised I havn't broken one yet, especially when I dropped the wheel while staining it.

 

 

 

 

Next it is on to the capstan.

[texxn5]

Looking very nice Tom, what a wheel...very tedious and sure looks nice on deck.

John

[GLakie]

Very nice!  Great job on the ship's wheels, and finishing with the rest of the rigging line for the spar-deck guns! 

[Altduck]

Very nice job on the wheels, and the stars on the axle covers are an excellent finishing detail.

 

Well done

 

Richard

[popeye the sailor]

awesome job on the ship's wheel {s}.  they look very nice on deck!  

[usedtosail]

Thanks John, George Richard and Popeye, and for others who hit the like button.

 

Before tackling the capstan I have a few other things I want to do, starting with the pin rails. The supplied belaying pins are OK but are a bit too long, so I will snip off about a mm or so from the bottoms. I made a simple jig out of a piece of wood with a hole to put the pin in and the right amount sticking out the other end to snip off. I am using the XY table on the drill press for the rails. I drill the holes for a few rails at a time using the whole span of the vise.

 

 

I am staining them with two coats of oak stain. Here are the rails that will go aft of the open waist.

 

 

I am going to put two pieces of thin wire into the back of each one to give them more support in the bulwarks.

[usedtosail]

To continue with the pin rails, I added wire pins to the back of the rails to provide a more secure attachment with the bulwarks. I sure don't want any of these pulling away during rigging. I used a pin vise and a very small drill bit for the holes, then CA glued a piece of wire into the holes. To attach these to the hull, I made a small jig for each one from some scrap wood. I used slight pressure to indent the scrap with the locations of the holes for the rail, then drilled holes for the wire.

 

 

I fit the rail to the scrap wood then centered the rail between the gun ports. The scrap wood provided a consistent distance for the pin rail from the underside of the cap rail. I then removed the pin rail from the scrap and drilled through the holes in the scrap into the bulwarks. Sorry I have no picture of that process, but I didn't have enough hands. Here are all the starboard aft pin rails dry fit.

 

 

I then removed them one at a time and used wood glue on the backs of the rails and CA on the pins and put them back into place, with a clothes pin to clamp them while they dried.

 

 

I think these will be pretty secure. I have to blacken the belaying pins for the rails and add them later. I am going to try some brass brown for the pins instead of brass black. I have tried it before and the brass still looked black, but I am going to try more dilution this time.

 

 

[Jimz66]

FANTASTIC WORK Tom.... I really like what you did with that ships wheel. NICELY Done... very nicely done...

[usedtosail]

Thanks so much Jim, and the rest of the likes.

 

I finished installed the belaying pin racks. They are all held to the bulwarks with wood glue and wire pins that are CA glued into the pin rails and bulwarks.

 

 

 

I used Blue Jackets Brass Brown on the brass belaying pins and they came out pretty nice. I used a 10:1 dilution with distilled water and let them sit in it for about 30 minutes, then rinsed them in water.

 

 

When they dry I will add them to the pin racks.

[GLakie]

Nice work with the rails and pins Tom!