usedtosail

Nice Ken. You are finally ahead of me on at least one part - the davits, so I can get some great tips from you when I add mine. Thanks.

Looking really good, Matt. For metal castings, I use Bin Primer after cleaning the parts in white vinegar. This has worked very well for me. I'll have to give gesso a try at some point though.

Very nice work Ken on the boomkins. Those rods look excellent, much better then my attempt at using wire. I thought the eye bolts at the ends were for the rods to hook onto the boomkins, though. Also, I thought there were two rods on each of the fore boomkins. At least that is how I interpreted the plans. I am hoping you will pass me soon so I can start getting ideas from you.

Nice job, Matt. Your attention to detail now will really pay off as you progress.

Nice job on the replacement. I could have sent you one of mine that I didn't use, too. That is still an option if you like.

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.

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.

Very good information Keith for future builders of this model. Isn't this what makes this sight really great?

Congratulations Sal. She is a beauty. I am sorry I wasn't there to see it in person.

Nice jib in those filler blocks. I wish I had your chiselling mojo.

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.

You are doing a great job so far Matt. I look forward to following along with your build log. One thing to look out for on the plans that I have been finding out the hard way is that a lot of the drawings are not symmetrical. My advice is to trace out half the piece and flip that side over over to get a symmetrical part. The wheel supports are one example of this.

Sal, those anchor buoys are tough to rig. You did a fine job. I will also have to remember how you did the puddin. I find that hard to do too.

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.

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.

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.

Happy belated birthday, Bob.

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.

I have also been discovering the plans leave a lot to be desired.

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.

Nice!!!!!

Michael, that is a really cool modification you made to your old saw. I have the Proxxon saw that was in the link and I use it a lot. It is a bit noisy and I still have trouble getting the tension on the blade correct when changing blades, but other than that I like it. I do have an old treadle sawing machine in the basement however, so now you have me thinking on how I could repurpose it.

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.

Sal, your rigging looks great. What are the odds that those two blocks would line up perfectly. If you had to rig them like that it would probably have been nearly impossible, ha ha.

David, your deck and deck furniture look great. Nice job.