usedtosail

Congratulations Dan. This was a great build to follow along. You should be very proud and your client should be very happy. I am a bit curious about how you made the flags. Could you elaborate on how you skewed the flag image, please. Also, it sounds like you printed directly to the silkspan. Did you use an ink jet printer for that? Thanks.

Yes, those column really make a nice addition. Great job.

Ken, nice job with those deck beams. It makes all the difference having them match the grates.

Yes Tom, there is a curve to the deck. It is higher in the stern and bow than in the waist. You can see this on Plan Sheet 4. The top diagram is a side view of the deck and it shows the curve of the deck.

Greg, my first thought was to make a frame inside the rabbet, but the frame stuck out too much from the side with the cloth behind them. I would need a deeper rabbet around the gun ports. I didn't think about a frame inside the gun port, though. I may try that. Thanks.

I touched up the paint around the head rails and planks and here is how it came out. I am pretty happy with the look. What I was not happy about was the look of those canvas gun port covers, especially the way the edges showed. I tried a few things and came up with a solution that I like a lot. I pushed them into the gun ports, and they look as if they were fastened on the inside of the ports, which they may have been. Here is how they came out: One small issue is that they are not glued in, only pressed in. The sail cloth with glue is pretty stiff so they have a spring to them that is holding them in place. I would hate to pull them out and try to get them back in place with some glue on the edges, but I may do that in the future. For now I am going to leave them as is. As always, any suggestions are most welcome.

I am almost done with the head area. I glued the last plank in place just above the middle rail. I have a little clean up to do around the middle rails on both sides, then this area is done. Work on all the various gun port lid configurations continues. I glued in the full port lids on the first two gun ports on each side. I added half the line to open them by threading the line into two holes at the bottom of the lids and tying knots behind the holes. I will add the second line when I add the eye brows over these gun ports. The supplied eye brows have holes in them for the line into the hull, so I am going to thread the line through the hole, glue it to the back of the eye brow, glue the eye brow on, then tie the line to the line on the lids. Speaking of eye brows, I cleaned up four of them to go over these port, primed them and am painting them black. I am also painting the three starboard lids that will be closed around the dummy barrels white, after adding the hinges to the bottoms. I blackened the hinge/brackets I made for the open half lids and glued them on, then painted the lids white. I want to try these out on the hull before I make all of them. I have to really thank Ken for the suggestion to use 50/50 white glue on the sail cloth. I painted a swatch and let it dry overnight on some wax paper, then cut out the covers for the two starboard ports. I used a hole punch to cut the center hole, just applying pressure and rotating it by hand. It cut a nice clean hole. I then applied medium CA glue to the dummy cannon barrels where they fit into the holes in the back of the gun ports, and white glue around the lip of the gun ports, and glued the barrels and cloth in at the same time. I am enjoying making all these different port lids, especially doing a them in stages like this.

Ken, that is all looking great. At the rate you are going you will be passing me in no time. I can't take credit for that link. It came from another modeler on this site (Modeler12 (Jay) I think). I just passed it on.

Thanks Ken, I will give that a try.

For the open lower gun port lids, I decided to make some 90 degree brackets that look like the photoetched hinges. I used some 1/64" by 1/16" brass strip and filed the hinge shape in by hand, then thinned the width down to about 3/64" I have only made 8 of the 32 I will need, but it was a good start. I also experimented with some sail cloth I had left over from another build to try to simulate the canvas gun port covers at the stern ports. I used a hole punch to make the hole for the cannon barrel. I think with some fray check on the edges and maybe some paint they will do. What do you think?

OK, I found the file that shows the curved fife rail. It is file 49805001_1.pdf on the set of files that I have. If that is not on the CD, I can send you the pdf file in a PM.

Bill, you are correct as there seems to be different versions of the CD. I actually downloaded the files from the web site before they were taken down, so I don't really know what is on the CD or what versions are out there. I also renamed all the files to make them easier for me to find stuff. I will go back and find the file that shows the curved fife rail and you can see if you have it. From now on I will stop referring to the files I have as from the CD, because my assumption that the files I have were all on the CD looks to be incorrect.

You are a true Renaissance man, Michael. Those water colors are beautiful.

Sorry, JS, that pdf is on the Constitution CD. The files on the CD used to be available from the web site, but the Navy took them down. Send me a PM with your email and I'll send it to you. I could not find an image of the full picture, but that piece came from the pdf document.

As promised, here is the progress on the gun port lids. I started with the four full size lids for the front two ports on each side. I first had to thin down some sheet stock to the 3/64" width from 1/16". I used the Byrnes thickness sander for the first time and it worked great for this. I cut out pieces to fit snugly in each gun port, then used the back of an X-Acto blade to score plank lines into them to match the hull planking. I drilled holes in the bottom for the pull lines and glued etched hinges to the front. I am in the process of painting these white. For the half lids under the full cannon ports, I cut a strip of the thinned sheet that was the height of the half lid, then cut individual pieces from this for each gun port (starboard side only for now). I stacked these together and clamped them in my vise, then used a round file to make the round notches in them, all at the same time. I sanded these for the final fit. The only problem with this picture is that I have the lid inside the recess around the gun port. I think that these would really hinge so that they were below the recess when open, otherwise there would be nothing to stop them from opening all the way. This means I need to have some sort of physical support for these, like pins into the hull, but they are very thin so drilling holes for pins could be a problem. I think I might be able to make static hinges for these that will act like shelf supports and hold them in place, providing some support for them. I need to do some experimentation for these. For the closed half lids which will be around the dummy cannon barrels, I first thought I could use two half lids, but they did not meet up well in the center. So, I started with a single piece that fit into the gun port opening, like the full size lids. Once I had a good fit, I marked the center by connecting diagonal lines from the corners, then used the drill press to drill out a hole that the canon barrel will fit through. I then used the razor knife (with apparently a very rusty blade!) to split that piece in half, cutting with the grain of the wood to get a nice even line. I then fit both pieces in place, and they are ready for the hinges to be added. Lots of work left to do on these but a I am happy with the start I have made.

Thank you George. I hope this build will be as useful to future Conny builders as those logs that I have been using are to me. Thanks for the likes too. It is exactly 2 years since I started this log, and I probably have another year to go at least. With my current job situation I will either end up with a lot more time for modeling or I may be starting a new job right away, which will cut into the modeling time I have now. Financially I am hoping for the latter but deep inside I would rather spend more time modeling. I can't tell the Admiral that though. I am still working the planks along the head area. I was able to add a few to each side, but now I have to do each one separately since I have to have the previous one glued in to fit the next one. I started at the top rail and am working my way down to the middle rail. I did paint the rest of the plank supports inside the planks after I glued in the first batch, so now it is just getting those last planks cut, fit, painted and glued in. In between planks, I have started making the gun port lids for the gun deck guns. I am going with the latest developments from the Constitution research team on how they think the gun port lids looked in the past. Here is the conclusions I am building too (mostly). From Gun Port Lids/Half Ports, a pdf on the Constitution web site, Researched and written by M.M. Desy, Historian Naval History & Heritage Command Detachment Boston February, 2013: Here is the painting they used to justify the 90 degree lower lids: The first two gun ports have dummy cannon barrels in them on my model, so I am going to just make full size port lids and have them closed, with hinges on the top and lines to open them going into the hull above them. No dummy barrels will be needed in those ports. For the next gun ports that have full cannons in them, I am making half lids for the bottoms, which I will show open at 90 degrees from the hull. They will have hinges on the bottoms, but no lines to open them, as the crew could just reach out to open and close them. I will not show any of the upper lids, as these would be stowed inside with the guns run out. All the remaining gun ports, which are to the rear of the ones with full cannons, have dummy cannon barrels in them. I will make both upper and lower port lids for these and show them with the dummy barrels sticking out through the hole. I will show hinges on only the bottom half, as the top half would not have them. I am not going to try to make canvas looking fillers in the last two gun ports, though, although I may change my mind on that point. I am not sure how I could make them look realistic, so I am going to make closed ports for now but try my hand at making canvas covers before using them. More on how I am making these lids in the next post. Finally, I want to wish you all a belated Happy New Year. For me, this is going to be an interesting year.

Ken, try this site: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3724827,-71.0566781,3a,75y,318.43h,79.36t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sAsptIcubDkcAAAQZN_oM_Q!2e0!3e2!7i13312!8i6656 You can literally walk around inside the ship and get many different views of the recent interior.

Looks great Bob. All those lines at the bottom of the sail do look challenging!

Congratulations Tom on a beautiful model. The only cure is to fire up another one at this point.

Thanks Tim. Despite your current setback with the Essex I am really enjoying following your progress.

Both kids were home for the holidays but I did have a little time in the shop too. I cleaned up the head gratings and made the seats of ease. I finished these in oak stain and glued them in place, along with the solid pieces that flank the openings to the head. I made the two top rail pieces, painted them black and glued them to the openings left in the bow rail. While waiting for the paint to dry, I finally filled the holes in the sides of the hull. I drilled out the holes for the air ports and scuppers and glued them in place, then touched up the black paint on them. I made the supports for the planking between the top rail and the middle rail. I painted the bottom half of these black so I don't have to paint up to the white rail, and will paint the rest of them after I plank over them.

Just beautiful Nils. I love those sails and the figures.

There is still a lot of controversy on whether the Conny had 5 or 6 windows in 1812, which is the year I am building towards. I did exactly what George said to add 5 windows - moved the four transom pieces to fit between the window frames. I also did not add the spar deck chase ports as the notes I have said they weren't cut in until 1813. But it really comes down to what year your are going for and what other changes you want to make to conform to that configuration of the Conny. If you are building to today's configuration, I would keep the 3 windows as in the kit. If you are building to an older version you have to look at what other changes have been made since then.

Hi Ken. Nice job on those quarter galleries. I ended up remaking the windows closest to the hull from scratch so they would fit right, but yours look great. That is pretty ingenious to make them removable like that. As for the stern windows, I made mine 5 windows so that it was easier to use the kit supplied transom pieces. I think 6 would have been more historically accurate for 1812, especially since that is what the Hull model shows. I liked the 5 window configuration because the windows look square, whereas with 6 they would look thinner. Anyway you do them, I feel they will look great.

Oh yes, this is part of her history, and not a very good part to me.