JSGerson

Here is the US Navy1931 Spar Deck Arrangement Drawing (in two parts) for your reference. Jon

When I responded to you, I checked Cookster's site and saw that there were a lot of images missing and those were the images I was referring to. You want the images for anything subsequent to his last relevant posting which was post #261 (Sep 8, 2014). I checked today to see what pictures were missing that you needed and to my surprise, the only images now missing, were on the first page of his log. If you want those, I can still send them to you. I don't have any more relevant images after his post #261 (Sep 8, 2014) which you stated you downloaded. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Jon

Read your post about following Cookster, and his comment about is log being broken, I just want to let you know that I have all of his images that he posted. When I follow a build log dealing with the Constitution, I don't just read it, I copy the log and store it on my computer. BTW, I did the same thing when I was building my Rattlesnake. I don't trust the internet to keep websites forever or maintain original addresses. I've seen websites crash and lose everything (e.g., ModelShipWorld and ModelShipBuilder). So even though Cookster himself seems to have vanished in a puff of smoke and his log is starting to slowly disintegrate (images have disappeared), I have a copy of his log and all of the associated images. Should you need images from his log, just let me know. Jon

The stanchions were stung together with 0.12” (.30mm) black rope prior to installation so that I wouldn’t have to thread them on the model. Mustafa used tan rope which I must admit looks great, but the real ship uses black rope; but it doesn’t have the visual impact like the tan. So be it. It was slow, tedious, tricky, and time consuming That one stairwell down, six to go. Hopefully these will get installed quicker.

If you look closely at Mustafa’s model. His stanchions fit into holes drilled into the top of the hatchway walls. For what ever reason, the walls on my hatchways ended up being too narrow to drill holes for the stanchion poles. To support the stanchions, I decided to use brass brackets on the inside corners of the hatchway. Hopefully these would provide sufficient physical support and glueing surface to hold the stanchions in place. Making the brackets was simple but installing them was a little tricky. Due to the installed beams, the most forward hatchway was the most difficult to access. My fingers were too fat to fit between the beams, so I had to do everything with tweezers. I couldn’t use CA glue because I couldn’t get the bracket into position, hold it there, at the same time applying minute drops of CA glue. PVA glue allowed me to stick the bracket in close vicinity of where it needed to be and maneuver it into the proper position (still not easy). Once it dried, then I could add more glue for proper strength. Once the brackets were in place, then the stanchion could be set into them. This was a time-consuming process because I had to wait for the glue to dry solid before I moved on to the next step. I also made a stairway plug to prevent anything from falling to the hatchway, like a loose bracket. Once anything fell in, there was no way I could get it out. It was a black hole.

What to do? So, for my second attempt, I messaged Mustafa (mtbediz), the man who inspired me to do this over again. He very graciously gave all the details which I followed with some minor modifications. First, He used exclusively 0.8 mm brass wire, but I stuck with the 0.81mm music wire for the stanchion for reasons mentioned above. He used a short piece of 0.81mm brass wire to create the rope tab. I used a short piece of 0.64mm brass wire which was cut and formed into a U-shape like he did. It was trimmed so the ends were even and placed near the top of the music wire piece like a flag with the open ends of the brass wire touching the music wire. Mustafa used lead solder paste (I believe) to fill the interior of the “flag” and secured the two pieces of wire in place with metal weights. I had silver solder paste but found mine wasn’t sticky enough to stay in place when I tried to fill the “flag” void (paste too old?). As a result, I used soldering flux and silver solder wire. The surface tension of the flux held everything in position. It was backed up with a bolt so it wouldn’t move during the heating process. To heat the assembly so the solder would melt, Mustafa used a heat gun which I don’t have. I used a mini-butane torch which worked quite nicely. The excess solder was filed off and a hole was drilled through the solder without any problems. The stanchion were painted black, threaded with miniature rope.

So, I chose 0.032” (0.81mm) music wire for the stanchion because it won’t bend with normal handling. For the rope tab, the idea was to wrap a 0.005” thick brass strip around the wire and then glue the ends together to form the tab. Lastly, drill a hole in the tab with a #78 drill bit to create a rope hole. Everything went according to plan…until it didn’t. For the life of me, I could not create the rope hole. My drill bit bent if I applied any pressure. (Cheap bits, I don’t know?) I tried creating a dimple into the brass with a needle for the bit to bite into, but all that did was deform the thin strip. I even tried using a very fine cone shape grinding bit but couldn’t keep it perfectly centered on the brass strip. It would drift and eat away one side or the other of the strip making the strip useless.

Waaaaayyyyy back in July 2018 when I was first installing ladders from the gun deck down to the pseudo berth deck level, I made and installed the associated ladder stanchions and hand ropes. They didn’t last long due to my inadequate fabrication and installation skills; and they were being battered about by handling the model installing other stuff. Well, due to my admiration and inspiration of Mustafa’s (mtbediz) fine workmanship of his model, I’m giving it another go. If I’m going to do it, it must be now before the gun deck becomes too inaccessible for this detail. My first attempt, I tried to maintain the scale based on the US Navy’s plans and I wanted my stanchions to be robust enough to handle any jarring due to my manipulation of the model.

After I finished my Rattlesnake (Hunt practicum), I wanted a change of pace before I started with the Constitution. I decided to work on the Conny's boats first. They were a lot of fun and you can load them up with as much or little (especially if you're going to cover them when they are finally installed on the ship) detail as you want. I relied a lot on the US Navy plans for the details. Surprisingly, the MS plan details were very close to the US Navy's. They were like eating potato chips - "you can't just eat one." Jon

It's beautiful. You should be proud of yourself. Well done! Jon

Need I repeat myself, beautiful workmanship!! I'm curious, do you plan on covering the complete hatch coaming area with the hatch work, or are you going to leave one half uncovered so the observer can look down to gun deck like I've seen others do? Jon

I saw your comment to mtbediz today and thought I would give a welcome aboard from a bunch of us USS Constitution active builders. We've been sharing our knowledge and comments with each other and we range from beginner to the more experienced. Although, as near as I can determine, there aren't many Mamoli builders for the Conny at present. There is one active (last post in January) builder, Oscardeuce and an excellent builder, Bill Edgin (Robnbill) who completed his Mamoli kit in 2021 that you might want to check out as you work on yours. Good luck and have fun Jon

Continuing to respond to your query on Mustafa's (mtbediz) blog, here are the seven additional images I have of the 1797 version model by Mark Antczak.

Peter, I found the images of this model by Mark Antczak on Shipmodel.com, a company that sells boat models. Unfortunately, this model is not displayed any more at this site. However here is a limited blurb about this model from this Shipmodel.com at the time I down loaded the images: I will post the seven addition photos of this model that I have on your blog so as not to intrude too much on Mustafa's beautiful instructive blog.

Rant on. 😫!!!