usedtosail

We had about the same Denis - 12 inches or so. I waited until 8 last night to tackle it.

You are going to love that mill Dave. I love mine.

Thanks Rich. I am enjoying following your Syren/Argus build too. Jay - I use them mostly for weights, but I do use the sides during glue up to get a true 90 degree angle. I have also used them to hold masts as I am working on them. I inherited them from my brother, so it keeps him part of the build, too. Rob, thank you. I try to keep things organized because I really hate clutter, but it slowly creeps back in until I have to stop and take care of it. if you look closely though you will see a lot of stuff on the work surfaces that just wants to accumulate.

The mast top factory is in full swing. I started with the trestle and cross trees for the three masts, and added the bolsters and sheaves for the jeers. I thought I would stop there but decided to make the upper parts of the tops too. I started with the laser cut sheets and cleaned them up, then added the timber along the aft edges for the rails to fit into. I traced the forward edges of these pieces onto some 1/16" sheet and drew out the shapes for the forward edge pieces. I cut these out roughly with an X-Acto knife and sanded them to almost final shape. I glued them to the sheets and will finish sanding the outside edges later. These are supposed to be only 1/32" high, but I am going to plank these tops on the top and bottom sides, because pictures of the tops in the instructions clearly show the planking. After planking with 1/32" strips, these edge pieces will be exactly the right height. I used straight 1/16" wood strips for the side pieces. Here are the trestle and cross trees resting on the masts. I can now start painting the masts, mast coats, and tops. I am going to make the holes for the fids in the topmasts larger so I can fit a 1/16" square fid into them. The way they are now the fid would look too small to me to hold up these topmasts. Another thing I did was to add small strips of wood inside the trestle trees at the foremasts, because the trestle trees had to be pretty far apart of fit over the bands at the tops of the masts. These strips give the topmasts some better support so they aren't so floppy.

Let me add my congratulations to this beautiful build. You are a craftsman with tools and the camera.

Rich, that's a good way to make a tenon. She is looking great.

Yeah - snow day. I got to work from home today. Haven't done that in a while. Those fishing rigs are just fascinating. I have no idea what the finished items will look like from the parts, but you do which is cool.

Hi Jay. I am glad I found your build log and now have a real name to call you. You are doing a great job, even with the redos. You should put a link to this log in your signature, so others can find it too. I love those riffler files you use. I have seen other builders use similar ones too, so they are on my list of tools to get.

Thanks so much Robert. OK vossiewulf, you saved me some work. When I got home tonight I thought I'd give your method a try. I had nothing to loose since I was going to remake the topmasts anyway. I cut off the round sections, drilled holes in a piece of square stock and the topmasts for a piece of dowel, filed in the tenons at the top of the new square section and glued them on. I made sure the square section at the top lined up to the square section at the bottom and the new part was lined up lengthwise with the rest of the mast. Overall, I think they came out pretty well. The joint is hard to see and will be covered by the topmast trestle and cross trees, and this part will be painted black to boot. I think they will be pretty strong with the size dowel I used, too. Thanks for the advice.

Thanks vossiewulf. I had thought of that but I was not sure I could get the new tops to line up nicely, especially centered on the old mast. Making new topmasts is not that hard - I remade the mizzen topmast last night. Now that I have the process it goes quickly. I have wood for the main and fore topmasts coming, which should be delivered today. If not, I will rip down a wider piece and make them from that. I did use your suggested technique on the mizzen topG/royal mast. The sky sail portion was slightly bent to one side, but very noticeable, with no lines on it that I could use to pull it into straightness while rigging. So, I got brave and cut it off, bore out the octagon section just under it, and filed off some of the bottom of the sky pole so it fit in the hole, I glued it and lined it up before the glue set, and now it looks straight over the whole length.

Thanks Al. As you will see in this post, I have more lathe work to do. Vossiewulf - thanks for the tip on the float. I will have to look into getting one. I am such an idiot! I made the four topmast sheaves last night which attach to the sides of the top of the topmasts and as I held them up to one of the masts, I realized I had made the tops of all three topmasts round and they should be square! ARGH!!!! So, I get to remake all three of them. And here I thought I had made such good progress over the weekend. Oh well, at least I had a lot of practice.

Nice work on the yards, Geoff. it looks like you have captured the present day color of those smaller yards very well.

Thanks for the update popeye2sea. I will have to make a point of getting down to see her this summer. And thanks for the encouragement popeye the sailor. Wow - 2 popeyes in one post. We stayed home this weekend so I had a bunch of time in the shop yesterday and this morning. I finished the topmasts and am in the process of making the topGallant/royal/skysail masts. I was going to do something different than the MS plans, and make separate topG and royal masts, like those shown in the AOS book. But then Tim I sent me the 1817 sail plan, which clearly shows a single mast for all three, just like the MS plans. I did use the dimensions from the 1817 sail plan which are slightly longer than the MS plans show. Nothing like having to make the case even taller. It is going to be a behemoth anyway so why not a bit taller? I made this jig to hold the square stock as I planed the octagon profile into the masts. It was fine for the shorter lower masts but these topG masts are pretty long. I did manage to work them with it, but I am going to make a longer version sometime for future builds. Here are some in progress shots of the main topG mast in the lathe. I worked in sections between the octagon sections, starting with the top first, since this area had to be reduced a lot. I wasn't sure if the basswood would hold up to being thinned so small, but I had no problem. I did support the top end of the mast in the tail stock, which turned out to be a bonus, since when I took the mast out of the lathe, I had a small block of wood on the very top to make a truck out of. I mostly used fines and sandpaper outside the lathe to make it. After doing the top section, I turned the mast around in the lathe and turned the lowest round section. When that was done. I turned the mast around again and did the middle section. I found that flat metal file worked great for removing large amounts of wood. I didn't dare use any cutting tools on these masts, just files and sandpaper. I have trouble with pieces this thin breaking when using cutting chisels. So here is what I have so far -the spanker mast with boom rest, the main and fore topG/royal masts, and all of the topmasts. I still have the mizzen topG mast to do, then the crosstrees and trestle trees.

Looking good Rich. Have fun with this one.

Hi Tim. Thanks for the 1817 rigging plan. I had that in my reference material but forgot I did. I am now using it for the topgallant/royal/skysail mast dimensions, which are a little different than the MS plans. I am having trouble deciphering the scale at the bottom of the plans though. At first I though it was in feet, but that would make the ship only about 40 feet long, so it must be something else. Do you happen to know what it might be? My other alternative is take a measurement of something known off this plan and the MS plans and scale them that way. Thanks.

Thanks Don. It is supposed to be finished sometime this year, but I don't know when exactly. It is in dry dock this time, I don't think it was in 1997. They are replacing a lot of planking.

I haven't had an update in a while, but I have been working on the masts. Here are the fore and main lower masts ready to paint. I am currently working on the mizzen mast and mizzen topmast. In this picture you can see the mizzen mast clamped to hold one cheek as it is drying. You can also see the mizzen topmast and the blanks marked for the fore and main topmasts. Also, the pin rail that goes on the mizzen mast is done. It only goes 3/4 of the way around the mast to leave room for the spanker mast behind it. I made the topmast by starting with a square piece of wood that was the correct size at the base. I then used Chuck's 7-10-7 fan to mark lines on all four faces for an octagon shape. I used a small plane with the wood in a holder that has a 45 degree groove in it, to cut the corners off, making an octagon shape all the way up the mast from the square section at the bottom. I then put the mast in the lathe and sanded the round section between the bottom and top octagon sections, tapering the mast as I rounded it. I turned the mast around in the lathe and cut the shoulder above the upper octagon section, and turned down the round section at the top to its diameter. I removed the mast from the lathe, then used a small file to taper the faces of the upper octagon into the lower round section. I also had to remove some wood from the faces so the mast would fit through the hole in mast cap. After that I filed the square tenon into the top for the topmast cap. With this method I didn't have to add any wood to build up the sections. I am still not sure about adding the cheeks to the topmasts, so I am leaving them off for now. I may add them when I install the upper crosstrees. Here are some more pictures from the real Constitution. Enjoy!

Yes, Happy Belated Birthday. Let me know when you will be in Boston and maybe we can get together for a beer.

Captain Steve, I am now thinking that 5/16" for the main topmast may be too big, as the hole in the mast cap is not near that size. I may go with something between 1/4 and 5/16 for mine, or maybe 1/4 for both the main and the fore, as I have that size in stock and that is what the plan shows. BUT, to all, here is my other question. The plans show an octagonal section just below the upper crosstrees, which flares out from the mast to form a shoulder. The size on the plans makes this too big to pass through the lower mast cap hole, but that is OK as I can just sand this down until it fits. But, the plans also show cheeks added to this octagon section, which in no way would pass through the mast cap hole. So either the topmast can't be brought down through the lower mast cap like all other ships of this period do, or the cheeks are removable somehow? Could this be a modern addition when fastener technology got better? If so, I am going to leave the cheeks off since I am building an 1812-ish version. or add them after the lower and topmast masts are put together. Thoughts?

Really nice work on those masts, Geoff. I'll bet your rigging is going to look equally as good.

Thanks guys, but I think I have an answer to my own question. I realized that the topmast shown on the plans is the full size version of the main mast topmast, so I could measure the dimensions directly off the plan and ignore the dimensions written on the plan. Then I could use the written dimensions on the plan to figure out the corresponding scaled down dimensions of the mizzen and fore topmasts. Here is what I came up with: Square section at bottom: Fore 1/4" Main 5/16" Mizzen 3/16" Transition from octagon to round Fore 1/4" Main 5/16" Mizzen 3/16" Round section under cheeks Fore 7/32" Main 1/4" Mizzen 5/32" Round section above cheeks (here the plan shows this to be narrower than below the cheeks but the dimensions are the same on the plans) Fore 5/32" Main 3/16" Mizzen 1/8" Tenon at top (these correspond to the size of the holes in the caps) Fore 3/32" Main 1/8" Mizzen 1/16" Hopefully future builders will find this post when they get to this part of the build and scratch their heads trying to use the dimensions written on the plans.

I am about to build the topmasts for the Constitution but the dimensions on the plans are not right. I made some notes to that effect on the plans but even my notes don't seem right. I searched for where I had gotten the information but can't find that either. So, any of you previous Constitution builders know what the dimensions are supposed to be. I am most concerned with the diameters of the topmasts at the various points along the length. Thanks.

Here are some more pictures from the real Constitution: The base of the bowsprit inboard, covered with canvas: Close ups of some mouses (mice?) on served stays: Martingale (at the time I took this I had no idea what this was): Tressel trees (not sure what mast this came from): More to come later, but these may be the most interesting.

Steve - I think my notes would be too raw for most folks to have to wade through. Many entries are like - today i glued on the port main mast chafing fish piece, then made the starboard piece. Bla, bla, bla. I enjoy writing it down because it helps me remember what I did when I get around to that step on the next model. To me, it would be like having the raw notes an author takes to write a book. Not that I am going to be writing any books. On the other hand, the workplan probably would have value to other modelers. The problem with that is the parts I haven't gotten to yet are just an outline. I fill in details as I start planning those steps, so it won't be complete until the model is done. Rob - it is like having an extra hand, almost. Back in 2008, I visited the real Constitution one cloudy Saturday afternoon. Everyone else in the family was busy doing their own thing, so I had lots of time to myself to walk around and take pictures. It happened that they were in the process of taking down the top masts, which they do in the winter if I remember right, and the rigging and yards were laying on the wharf. I guess I wasn't supposed to be walking around them, but I had about 20 minutes before a guard kicked me out, and I took a lot of pictures. I just went through them again the other night, and I realized there are some good shots that will be useful to me and to others. I will include some in future posts as I get to those sections, but I will include some now so you can see what I mean. Here is one that jumped out to me as I was looking through them, because when I was rigging the third bob stay I wasn't sure how the collar went around the bees. When I rigged my collar, the eye loops were on the bees, not hanging below like shown above, so I removed the lashings and redid it. It now looks more like the above picture. I am much happier with the new rigging. I notice that the real ship used black line for lashings, but I have always used tan line for some reason. Should I be using black line for the lashings? More pictures in the next post.

You are welcome Dave. The plans leave much to be desired. For instance, some drawings on the plans are not symmetrical port to starboard when they are supposed to be, so keep an eye out for this.