usedtosail
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Thanks Tim. Despite your current setback with the Essex I am really enjoying following your progress.- 1,348 replies
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Oh yes, this is part of her history, and not a very good part to me.
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Here are the pictures of the main rail installed and the cross beams to hold the gratings. I was able to fix the white stripe on the port side by painting white above the stripe, then masking it off and repainting the black. Now the gaps on both sides are the same. I have the gratings all cleaned up and I am in the process of staining them. I also made the seats of ease and stained them too. After I install them, I will add the rest of the top rail and the knee at the front of the stem, then plank the area between the middle rail and top rail.
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Arthur, after suggesting to you to use thin CA, I thought I better give it a try myself. It worked great, and was easy to do. Just don't get any CA on the outsides of the plates as they will not age under those spots like the rest of the plates.
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That gun looks great, Ken. You look good to go with them.
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Have you seen this topic? http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/12197-bolt-heads-on-brass-strips/?p=369370
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Ken, because I used the planking to plank part of the gun deck, I ordered more to plank the spar deck. I think I just ordered one of ME's basswood strip packages. I ended up with almost just enough - I had to rip a couple of planks from wider stock to finish the spar deck. I would recommend making up one of the cannons to test the gun port height. I used the dimensions like you for the subsurface and the planking, but the guns were too high in the ports. My solution was to trim down the carriages along the sides.
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Jay, nice job on the masts and figures. This is great work.
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Sal, your attention to detail and your craftsmanship are top notch. This is beautiful work.
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Thank you George, Greg, Jay, and Sal. And also the likes. Last night I added the main rails, but tonight I need to do some clean up of the paint around the rails. The main fix I need to make is that when I added the main rails, there is a very noticeable difference in the gap between the rail and the top of the white stripe on the port and starboard sides. In the last picture you can see that the white strip is actually thinner on the port side than the starboard side on the end, so I am going to attempt to correct that tonight with some white paint and masking tape. I will have pictures of how it turns out either way.
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Arthur, if you used the self sticking copper tape that came with the Phantom for the copper plates, these usually stick very well. Did you prep the wood under them? I prime the wood before applying the plates.I also burnish them after I put them on with a popcycle stick. I did this on the Conny I am working on now and I have a few plates where the overlapping edge with the next plate is coming up a little along the top row. I will probably just peel up the offending plate slightly and use a piece of small wire to apply some thin CA glue to the back of the plate, but I haven't done it yet. Maybe you can try something similar for yours.
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As promised, here are some photos of the hawse pipes. I finished up the head timbers and gave them a few coats of black paint. I used medium CA to glue them in place because there was no good way to clamp them. Since I took those pictures, I have sanded the tops of the timbers to be flush with the top of the middle rail, so I will need to do some paint touch up tonight. Then I need to fit the main rail onto these head timbers.
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Oh Dave that is so awesome. I am definitely going to use that technique on a future build.
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Ken, it looks like you have solved the transom framing problem very nicely. Great work.
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Ken, I just went back to my notes and saw that I had to glue some wood onto the front of those side pieces so they would sit back far enough so the slots would line up with the middle pieces.
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Bolt Heads on Brass Strips
usedtosail replied to mikiek's topic in Metal Work, Soldering and Metal Fittings
I have used tiny drops of medium CA glue on painted metal surfaces to simulate bolt heads. I think that was in one of Chuck's tutorials for adding bolt heads to rudder pintles and gudgeons. -
Ken, I remember having to fiddle with those corner pieces to get them to fit right. As for the AOS book, there has been a lot of criticism about it, so I am not using it too much. It may only suggest what the Constitution may have been like or it may describe a generic frigate, as I saw in one review. So, it is good for what it is but don't use it as a major reference.
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Greg, I understand. There are many parts of this kit, like the head frames, where I am going with the current version because it is what I have. It is not too hard bashing a kit but it is sometimes hard to keep all the changes straight. Your question actually had me second guessing myself until I looked up my notes, so I do appreciate the questions to keep me thinking straight.
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Thanks Tim. I am not out of the woods yet, as fitting the head timbers and the middle rail is proving to be quite a challenge.
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I feel your pain Scott. I broke off many of the bulwark extension on the Conny before I got it planked. One thing I did do that may help you in the future is that when I glued the extension back on, I used a wood strip like you show in the above picture to align it to the other extensions and hold it while the glue dried. This helped me keep them in alignment as they were reguled.
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