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

[usedtosail]

Thanks George, and for the likes too.

 

No progress to report because work has been crazy, and we were away over the weekend. I am embarrassed to point out that I completely screwed up the bow pin rail, as it is supposed to be a single piece that goes over the bowsprit. I made it in two pieces that don't connect at the bow. So off it will come and a new one will be made. I am also attempting to add the baffle plate to the galley stack, using some thin copper sheet material. I'll let you know how it turns out.

[Burroak]

Tom your ship is really looking great. Got a question for you. On post 261 you lowered the air port holes and I was just wondering if that was because they were close to the top of the Wales? I'm getting ready to drill the holes for my Connie and was just checking. Thanks a lot.

 

Greg H.

[usedtosail]

Thanks Greg. I was trying to visualize where they are in the real ship in relation to the gun deck, and thought they looked a little too high on the plans.

[Burroak]

Thank you Tom. The Conny is really looking fantastic!

 

Greg H.

[usedtosail]

I got in a little time today on the ship after working most of the rest of the weekend.

 

I remade the bow pin rail and gave it a couple of coats of oak stain. It is still drying but here it is ready to be installed:

 

 

I enlarged all of the holes in the pin rails to fit the belaying pins. I think they closed up a little during the staining process. I then put belaying pins in all the rails.

 

 

 

 

I am working on making the baffle plate for the galley stack. I punched a round piece of copper from some sheet and blackened it today. I'll have pictures of it next time.

[usedtosail]

Thanks for the likes all. With all the crazy time at work this week, I did manage to get some therapeutic time in the shop. I glued the new bow pin rail in place and added the belaying pins.

 

 

I also glued the baffle plate that I punched from copper sheet to the galley stack. I glued two pieces of wire to the sides of the stack, touched up the paint, and glued the stack into the hole in the deck. It is hard to see in the pictures but if you look really closely to the third picture you can just see the wire.

 

 

 

 

I then made three ladders. One will go in the open hatch I left aft of the open waist, and the other two will go in the open waist openings at the bow. I first made a jig for the table saw from some scrap plywood and basswood strips. There is a thin strip of wood on its side in a slot that sticks out a bit from the plywood base, and a slot for the saw blade that is the distance between steps from it.

 

 

 

I used it to cut a slot, then place that slot over the raised piece to cut the next slot, until I had seven slots in each side. I have two boards as guides for the ladder sides, at the same angle but in opposite directions for the two different sides. Here are the results:

 

 

I then glued strips into the slots for the steps, sanded the ladders and gave them one coat of oak stain.

 

 

I will give them another coat of oak stain and add hand rails and ropes before gluing them into the openings. Next up are the binnacles.

[foxy]

Greta work on the belaying pin rack.

Plus the ladders.

Great stuff.

Following with great Interest.

 

Frank 

[popeye the sailor]

looking very nice Tom  

[usedtosail]

Thanks Frank and popeye, and for all the likes. I am a bit hesitant to keep showing my pedestrian work after seeing the other Constitution build logs in progress now, especially Ken and David's, but they are all looking really good. I wish I had started this one after them, but over 2 years into this I am not stopping now.

 

I finished up the ladders by adding some rope hand rails, using some large eye bolts I had for the stanchions.

 

 

 

 

I also made the binnacles which house the compasses. I made the bases from some mahogany strips that I had left over from a previous build. These were not thick enough to make a square base big enough for the binnacles so I made them in four pieces, using my new tool/toy that I bought for myself as kind of a birthday present.

 

 

This is the Proxxon hobby mill, and this seemed the perfect little mini project to try it out on. I first milled the recesses for each of the eight faces of the two binnacles, using an end mill bit that was just wide enough. After the faces were milled I attempted to square off the corners of the recesses with limited success.

 

 

 

The bases were made with four pieces that each had a 45 degree angle milled into the back of them. To mill that angle, I used the dividing head I also bought with the mill, squaring up the strip then tilting the strip 45 degrees in each direction and milling off the material in the back, again with the end mill bit, but using the side of the bit.

 

 

 

I then glued four pieces together for each base, and sanded them to final shape after the glue dried. They are no where near perfect but they do look so much better than my first attempt, which was to cut thin strips of mahogany and glue them to the sides of a square basswood plug.

 

 

For the tops I did use square basswood that fit the bases. I put some tape on the table of my disk sander at 75 degrees, and used it as a guide to sand in the four faces of the simulated brass top. I then sliced these off the strip and fit them to the bases. I glued in a piece of wire as a holder and painted three of the faces with copper metallic paint (I didn't have brass paint or I would have used it), and painted the window face black. I thought about putting plastic over this face but it didn't look good so I left it off. I had also tried wrapping the whole top in thin brass sheet, but the edges just made it look bad, so I went with paint. I made two vents by making thin slices of some brass tubing that I topped with some thin brass sheet. Pictures of the finished binnacles are in the next post.

 

 

[usedtosail]

And here are the finished binnacles placed in position but not glued down yet. I forgot to mention that for the base I glued a square piece of mahogany sheet to the bottom that I sanded at an angle. I also filed the underside to simulate the four feet at the corners.

 

 

 

 

Overall I was very happy with the mill and how these turned out. You can also see in those pictures that I have started adding all of the eyebolts to the deck that will be needed for the rigging.

[NenadM]

Nice, very nice

[popeye the sailor]

deck is getting more populated.........super job!  

[usedtosail]

Thank you Nenad, Popeye, and Geoff, and for the likes. Geoff, good luck with your new ladders. I am sure you will do a great job on them.

 

I have been working on more spar deck and inside bulwark details. I made steps for the transom and bow areas, and the few large cleats that are needed. I also made two horse blocks (those grating pieces) that were used as platforms to stand on.

 

 

I attempted to make the small wooden cleats, but I was not happy with them so I have an order into Syren for some cleats of the appropriate size. While I was on the web site I also ordered a serving machine to replace my homemade one, since I have a lot of serving coming up. It looks so much better and I know it will work better too.

 

Here are the pieces installed, except for the small cleats and the two iron cleats in the bow. I have metal cleats from a previous model I am using for them, but they are still being painted.

 

 

I installed the horse blocks in the folded down position, since without the higher bulwarks of the current ship configuration, I could not use the current mechanism of rope to hold them up. I am not sure how they were held up on the original ship.

 

 

And here is the bow details.

 

 

 

I am working on something that I may or may not include, depending on how it turns out. Then it is off to fabricate the capstan.

[Burroak]

Tom your ship is beautiful. I really like the color choices.

[mojofilter]

Tom -

 

I don't think you'll be disappointed with the Syren serving machine.  Easy to get the hang of using.  Maybe a little short for those 50cm shroud lines (America) but maybe the lines would become unmanageable it the working area were any longer.  My humble advice: while assembling the machine, make the moving parts slightly too loose, rather than slightly too tight.  You want it to spin easily with no work mounted on it.  I also used bee's wax on all the bearing surfaces (except those to be glued of course) and gear teeth.

Looking forward to watching your progress.

 

- Tim

[Starboard III]

Hi Tom, I have been following your lead for quite some time now and I am give or take about a month or so behind you with my build. I am finishing up the rigging the cannonades now. Tough to get through the tedium at times. Thanks for the inspiration. My build would have been in the trash heap without your steady hand and skill to follow. Thanks for being there, Warren

[usedtosail]

Wow, thanks so much guys.

 

Tim - thanks for the advise on assembling the serving machine. That was the problem with the one I made - everything was too tight. The wax in the bearing surfaces will help too.

 

Starboard - I am so glad I could help. I would love to see some pictures of your ship.

[usedtosail]

I have been working with the wooden cleats from Syren to get them ready to install. I cleaned about 40 of them using a small file. This took a while but they look great to me. They are so small (I am using the 5mm versions) that the only way I can hold them while working on them is with a hemostat. Unfortunately, all of the hemostats i have have grooved jaws, so they left some slight indents on the sides of the cleats. I was afraid these would be really noticeable after staining, but they look OK. I have since ordered some hemostats that have smooth jaws for future work like this. After staining, I drilled a tiny hole into the base of each one and glued in a small piece of wire. Since most of these will have lines attached, I wanted a more secure connection than just gluing that bases to the bulwarks. Some of these will be used on other parts, like the spanker boom. I have started adding these to the bulwarks. The size is perfect and they fit in all the places they should. I was going to include my attempt at a cleat to compare, but it was too pathetic.

 

 

I have also been getting the pieces of the Syren serving machine ready for assembly. This involved removing the char from 1/4" pieces of cherry. I recently received a Dremel routing table attachment which I used with a sanding drum on these pieces. It worked great. I finished the clean up with sanding blocks. The wood is absolutely beautiful when sanded. I gave all the pieces a coat of Wipe on Poly last night and will start assembly soon.

[alde]

Tom,

 

I have really been enjoying your build and learning a lot. I am considering this kit once I finish my Glad Tidings. I am still pretty new to the hobby and not sure I can handle it and want to do the ship justice. How are the instructions? Would I be taking on too big a project for a beginner? I do see other people taking it on early in their building and see mixed results. Some look great and others just fall off the grid and probably never get finished.

 

Thanks, Al

[usedtosail]

Al - you are doing a great job on your Glad Tidings. The Constitution build is a lot of the same processes, just more and bigger. If you are comfortable planking, for instance, it is just more planks to do. The instructions are probably very familiar to you as Model Expo seems to reuse a lot of the same information. For this detailed a ship, however, I think they are minimal. Another option is to purchase the Launk Street shipyard tutorial for the Constitution, which uses this model. The first chapter is available for free, so you can take a look and see what you think. I used the first chapter but did not use the rest. I think you could do a decent model of this ship if you take your time. It all depends on what you want in the end. In my case, I know I will be pleased with the outcome even with the many flaws because 1. I am learning a lot and have attempted things I would never have tried before, and 2. It is taking me a long time, which to me is a good return on investment.   Oh, and it is a big sucker so think about where you will put it when finished.

 

Geoff - I was going to grind the grooves off one of the hemostats I have, but they seem really hard, so I went for the easier solution.

 

Here are some pictures of the small wooden cleats from Syren in place. I am very happy with the result.

 

 

 

And here is what I was referring to in an earlier post. While looking for information on the binnacles, I re-found Force9's build log (on another site) and there was this great looking belfry that he added to his Constitution. His research found that she may have had a belfry in the 1812 era, so he put one in. I liked it so much I had to try making one. The curved piece at the top was the challenge to me, so I first tried making a form from some plywood and bending a piece of basswood strip in it. This came out OK, but the strip thickness was not consistent across the whole curve. My second try used a piece of basswood sheet. I cut the upper profile in the scroll saw, then made a cut straight across at the thickness of the ends. It was then just a matter for filing out the underside of the curve until it was the same thickness all the way along its length. I was quite afraid that the piece would split somewhere near the end of that process, but luckily for me it did not. The brass bell I had left over from a previous build and I just added a large eyebolt that I opened up to hold the bell, then glued it to the underside of the cross piece.

 

 

I have been going through the two rigging plan sheets to start figuring out the sizes of line I need to make. In the process, I saw that the main stay and preventer stay connect to bullseyes that are attached to the bulwarks under the bow pin rail. I think it will be a good idea to add these bullseyes now while I still have good access to this area.

 

 

[alde]

Tom, 

 

Thanks for the inspiration. I really feel like my skills are improving and getting more confident. The Glad Tidings has taught me quite a bit so far but the most important thing is patience. It seems like it's taken so long to get to the point I'm at. In the past it would have bothered me but now I'm fine with it. It's become fun to solve problems and re-do things until they are right. I don't know if Constitution will be my next build but I will build her.

 

Al

[MEPering]

Tom, I think that is the solution for the cleats.  I would spend a day or two making all of those and I am sure they wouldn't look that good.  Yours look great, so I think I will go the same route when the time comes.

 

One thing I have done with hemostats in the past is wrap the jaws with a couple of layers of electrical tape.  This pads them enough that the jaws won't mar the wood.  Plus, it is temporary, and I can remove the tape when switching back to metal or other materials they won't mar.

 

Matt

[usedtosail]

Hi Matt. I tried putting tape on the hemostats but the cleats are so small they weren't gripping them well and they kept flying out. I received two smooth jaw hemostats that cost me a whopping $12 on Amazon and they work great. Thanks for the advice, though.

 

I have been building the capstan and after three attempts I finally have one I like. Here is the tale. I started by using the kit supplied laser cut pieces, particularly the thick round piece for the head. You are supposed to drill 8 holes around the edge then square them up with a file. Sounds easy, right? I do now have a mini mill with a dividing head, so that should make this a cake walk. I glued the top to a piece of dowel and put it in the dividing head so that I could drill each hole by rotating it 45 degrees. This part went OK, but the spacing between the holes was slightly off, as well as the horizontal spacing to the head, I think from deflection of the drill bit. And trying to square these off just made them look out of round. So I stopped there with this attempt.

 

For the second try, I turned a piece of thick sheet wood to make a new head, then put this in the mill horizontally and used an end bit to mill four slots through the head at 45 degree angles to each other. The depth of the slot was the size of the hole and the bit was the same size. For the center hole, I used the same mill bit while it was on the mill and routed progressively larger holes by moving the X axis of the XY table slightly and rotating the dividing head a full turn. The nice part was that this ensured a perfectly centered hole, which I have trouble with on the lathe.

 

 

 

After that I just glued a piece of sheet to the top to cover the holes. I used the thickness sander on both sides of the top to get it to the right thickness. I temporarily glued the part to a strip of wood to feed it into the sander, which worked great. I then used the rest of the supplied parts to complete the second capstan attempt. The head looked a little small when I was done, but I was going to live with it, but then I tried adding the little wedges between the whelps. It was really hard to get these to look right and in the end they never really did. It also showed me how much the spacing between the whelps was off, even though I marked the bottom part for where each one should go.

 

 

 

Now I could either live with this capstan or make one totally from scratch. I got to thinking that with the mill I should be able to mill in slots for the whelps to fit in on the bottom piece, which would look like wedges when the whole thing was assembled, and help space them more consistently. This got me pumped for another try.

 

So, I made the head the same way, but made sure I didn't turn it too small from the start. It looked much better than either of the first two attempts. I also turned the other pieces from sheet stock and used the thickness sander to get them to the right thickness and a consistent thickness. For the bottom piece, I was able to mill in the slots using the exact same process as the head but with a smaller depth of cut.

 

 

For the new whelps, I took a piece of strip wood that was roughly the size of the whelp in profile and used the Dremel with a sanding disk to get the shape of the whelp, then cut off slices in the table saw. I sanded these a bit thinner until they fit in the slots and glued two on opposite sides of the center dowel, fitting the bottom piece while the glue was still wet. I then fit in the other four whelps. These came out so much better than trying to fit individual pieces between the whelps. I added the final bottom piece and put the whole capstan back into the lathe for a final shaping and sanding.

 

Here are the three attempts. The good one is on the right (but that should be obvious). I will give this two coats of oak stain and add it to the platform between the hatches, after I drill a hole for it.

 

 

The best part of this project is that I got to use almost all of the power tools i have acquired over the last couple of years, which was a blast. I should have taken a pic of the workshop at one point. There were tools and stuff everywhere, although I did try to keep up with the sawdust as I went along. There was a lot of sawdust generated for such small parts.

 

We are having my son's graduation party this Sunday (he just received his masters degree in computer science), but Mrs. UsedTo broke two toes at work yesterday, being run over by a wheel chair with a large middle schooler in it. I think I am going to be very busy this weekend but not in the shop. More next week.

 

 

 

 

 

[MEPering]

Sorry the tape didn't work Tom.  I have used it with success before, but not on parts this tiny.  But I am glad you found a solution.

 

The capstan looks great.  My solution for drill wandering is to center punch where I want the drill to center.  It had to either be the wandering, or possibly lash in the dividing head.  Yours looks fairly new, so I wouldn't suspect this as much.

 

Matt

[HIPEXEC]

Looking good!

[David Lester]

Great work on the capstan, and have a great party on Sunday. Those family milestones are very important.

David

[usedtosail]

Thanks everyone.

 

Matt - that's OK because its suggestions like that that got me to try the tape in the first place. The drilling error was probably mostly me. I do have some center bits my brother gave me a few years ago but I forgot I had them. Next time I will use them for sure.

 

David - I know what you mean about these family events. We are have been having a great time all weekend.

 

Geoff - I saw that you recently received many of these same Proxxon tools and more. They are a blast to play with.

[popeye the sailor]

wonderful progress Tom...........I'm scrambling like crazy trying to get caught up!  small parts can be such a bugger........but they add so much to the build  

   nice job on the capstans.......the extra detail will stand out well!  

[usedtosail]

Thanks Popeye. I do like making those small parts and am finding that scratch building them can be very rewarding.

 

I have finished up the spar deck, except for the adding the ships wheels which I will wait a little longer to do. I added shot holders around some of the gratings and added shot, but for this deck I spaced them out more in the rack. I happen to be reading TFFM Vol2 and saw that the English Swan class had a fixed block on the planksheer in the open waist for the fore sheet. This got me thinking that the Constitution plans show a fixed block in the bulwarks for the fore sheet, but I don't have bulwarks there because of the open waist. So, I am going to add a fixed block on the planksheer so that the fore sheet will look right coming back to the large cleat I put on the planksheer for it. Now I just have to figure out what it should look like.

 

In the mean time I have started making the channels, now that I know their sizes. I started by cutting the rough rectangles out of 3/32" basswood sheet, leaving enough on them to cut in any curves needed to get them to fit to the hull. I then fit each one to the hull, using manila folder material as a template for the fore channels, since they curve more than the others. The main channels didn't need much curving and the mizzen channels I just sanded until they fit. I then cut each one to width duplicating the outside edge to the same curve as the inside curve.

 

I then had to taper the undersides so that they came to 1/16" at the outside edge. I could have done this by hand and it probably would have been OK, but I have this new thickness sander just waiting to be used. So, I first had to make a jig to hold the channels at an angle so I could run them through the sander. I came up with this simple arrangement, which is just a 1/32" strip along one edge and a higher fence on the other side. The channels ride against the fence and sit on top of the 1/32" strip.

 

 

I ran them through the sander using the jig after iterating on the first one until I had the 1/16" edge.

 

 

Here is a completed one in the jig

 

 

OK, now that they were tapered I needed to cut the notches into the outside edges for the deadeye strops. After some experimentation on how I was going to strop the deadeyes (more on that in a future post) I came up with the size of the slots. Now, how was I going to hold the channels while milling. I didn't want to lay them flat on the XY table because I didn't want the mill bit contacting the metal table. I thought to hold them upright in a vice and use the mill bit to cut the slot that way, but then I just happened to see this recent post from Frank.

 

http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/13125-dunbrody-irish-famine-ship-by-mahuna-148-sectional-model/page-13#entry418554

 

Now I knew how to do this right. I took a piece of plywood and bolted it to the XY table, then screwed a fence to the table that was parallel to the X axis. I held the channel against the fence and cut each slot with the bit down into the plywood slightly. I then cleaned up the slots with a small square file.

 

 

 

 

I have the fore and main channels milled and will do the mizzen channels tonight. Then I will use a smaller bit to mill the slots for the eyebolts on the channels that have chains attached to them. More on these later too.

 

[JSGerson]

I don't have a milling machine, but I do have an X-Y table which I attach with C-clamps to an old Dremel drill stand. Of course the problem with that is getting the X-Y axis lined up properly which is a real pain.

 

I was curious as what kind of milling bits the Proxxon machine uses. Would they fit a Dremel style rotary tool?

 

Jon