usedtosail

Wonderful work Danny. Thanks so much for the great tutorial.

Jay - Thanks for the advice on tapering. So far I have been using the table saw with the tapering jig which has worked really well. I am sure I will be eye balling things as the space gets filled up. For the planks along the waterway, I started filling those in on the starboard side last night. I got to a point where they were getting very pointy, so I decided that a nice hook scarf joint was needed. I used a wider plank, fit it to the waterway at the front, then used the table saw to cut the rest of the plank back to 1/8" wide. I would not attempted this if I had to do it by hand, as getting a nice straight edge over the length of the planks would have been difficult. I did have to cut the ends of these planks at the hook scarf by hand, because I did not want to get my hands too close to the blade (see current posts on this subject). I am happy with the way these came out, even if they may not be historically correct for the Constitution. My feeling is that the decks have been replanked many times so just because they don't have hook scarfs now doesn't mean they didn't back in the day. Of course, if one of you knowledgeable folks tell me that the US at the time never used them, that is a different story. Nothing is glued down yet. I may use some of these hook scarfs near the stern too, as these side planks could get very narrow. At least it is an option. I sanded the planks near the front of the main hatch coamings to even them out some, and they will get more sanding as I do the rest of the planks later. In this shot we can start to see how much of the gun deck details will be able to be seen after the spar deck is planked. The stove is just about completely hidden now. Good thing it has that big stack on the spar deck to show where it is.

Just found your build log Wayne, and you look like you are off to a good start. Thanks guys for the endorsement, but Wayne I feel like you most of the time - my work just doesn't look as good as what I have seen in other logs. But, I do end up reworking almost everything at some point and the way I look at it, it just makes that build that much more interesting. I certainly relied on others logs before I started too, like: Jeff Toma (http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/94-uss-constitution-by-jeff-toma-model-shipways-scale-176/?p=564) Modeler12/Jay (http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/103-uss-constitution-by-modeler12/?p=676) and Bob Riddoch (http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/423-uss-constitution-by-bob-riddoch-model-shipways-scale-176/?p=4442)

Thanks Tim, George, Sal and the likes. The planks are only tapered at the stern, so that does make it much easier at the bow. And they are not joggled either, just cut at an angle to the waterway. Here are the plans for the bow and stern and you can see what I mean. I continued planking on the starboard side of the bow. I was a bit worried about where the planking would end at the edge of the main hatch coaming, but I got lucky and it ended right at the edge of the coaming, almost as if I had planned it. The heights of the planks along the front edge of the hatch coaming are a bit uneven in height so will require some sanding to even them out.

That's a beautiful looking deck, Dennis. You are doing wonders with those tiny parts.

Dry fitting the planks is one thing, but actually getting them all back in place and glued down is another thing entirely. I first had to figure out in what order to glue them down. Should I start from the center and work out, but then the tight fit along the coamings may not come out right. Should I glue the planks along the outsides of the coamings first, but then I have to make sure I have the ends at the right place on the transom, since they bent in. I chose the second option, but first I put a piece of masking tape on the transom and marked the locations of the middle and two outside planks before removing all of the dry fit planks. I almost screwed this up because I had added one plank outside of the planks along the coamings, which I caught a little too late but not late enough to fix. Once these planks were glued down, it was just a matter to fill in the planks between them. A few of the very middle planks needed a bit of sanding along their edges to fit into the remaining space, but not much. I use a Sharpie to mark one edge of each plank as I glue them down. I don't use it on the ends of the planks, though. I used this technique on the gun deck planks too, which you can see in some of the pictures. Once the planks are leveled and sanded, the effect is not as dramatic as these seen on these raw planks. I then used the same method on the bow area. This picture was taken the other night with just the two outside planks glued in. The rest have been filled in, but the picture is still on the camera. I am not sure how interested the next few posts are going to be, just more planks being added until I fill up the spar deck. It keeps me motivated to continue to record the progress, but feel free to skip them until I get to more interesting stuff, like the deck fittings and carronades.

Sal, try using a hemostat to hold the cleats while you file them. It works pretty well for me, anyway.

Thanks George and Jp, and the likes. Jparsley - you can see the taper jig in the first two pictures of my last post, on the saw. It is basically a sled that has an angle adjustment that rides along the fence of the saw.

Thanks George and Dan. For the tapering of the deck planks at the transom I did end up using the tapering jig on the Byrnes saw. It worked great. I set the jig to a 1/2 degree angle and set the fence so that the end of the plank would end up at 2mm. I couldn't run the plank all the way through because the jig has a piece that pushes the plank, which would have hit the blade. I used a piece of tape to mark the location I needed to stop the jig, and then I used a sanding block to remove the little nub at the end of the plank. I like this set up because I can cut the planks to length first then put the taper on them. I replaced the two wide planks in the center with three regular width planks, and I like it much better. I tapered all of the planks that go to the transom so far. These are edge bent slightly at the transom and the joints look pretty tight, so I am happy with this method. Oops, I forgot to cut the planks for the mizzen mast hole. Simple fix. I will be using a three butt shift with around 20 cm long planks, like I did on the gun deck planking. I have to figure out where to start this with the planks I have already cut.

Thomas - yes that little lathe really comes in handy. I am using it more and more. I continued cutting planks for between the coamings. I used a small round file to notch the planks around the U shaped pin rail supports. I lucked out that I didn't have a plank with the support right in the middle. I used wider planks for the two center planks, but now I am going to replace them with three regular width planks, because they look too different. I also measured the widest portion of the spar deck to determine that there will be 41 planks across the width of the deck, so I have to fit all 41 into the 8.4 cm at the transom, since these planks are tapered at the transom. That means each plank at the transom needs to be 2.04 mm wide. I have to figure out the best way to taper these planks, since this area will be very visible and not painted, so I can't hide my flaws. I recently bought the tapering jig for the Byrnes saw, so this may be the time to break it out/in. I am open to other suggestions too. For hull planking I have been cutting the planks with an X-Acto knife and sanding them afterwards, but I don't always get nice flat edges that way. Here are some pics of the planking progress. None of the planks are glued down yet, and I have yet to mark the edges of these, for which I have been using a Black Sharpie on one edge.

Thanks George, Dan, and Jay, and thanks for all the likes, guys. Dan - I am an old guy too, so we old guys need to keep inspiring each other. I hope you get to start your Conny soon and I will enjoy following along. Jay - Thanks. I wanted something a bit different and when I saw how the bulkheads were shaped, I figured I could pull this off. Also, since ME sells the extra guns. I think others in the past have modelled the gun deck too. You are doing a great job on the cross section and the research especially is very useful. Your full model is pretty terrific too. As for the stove placement, here is what I have. The part of the gun deck I modelled includes only the back of the stove, but you can see where it is in relation to the riding bitts aft of the fore mast on the gun deck and the fore mast location. I think maybe I moved the bitts a bit further back to make room between it and the stove, but to me it looks workable. And here is what I worked on last night, cutting planks to fit around the forward coamings. These are just dry fit, but they are the right size planking now. The fore mast hole is too wide, so I have to replace the four outer cut planks with two full planks.

Nice job on the painting. Your waterline looks great.

I thought this was going to be a better update than it is, but I do have some progress to show. First, here is the U shape main pin rail dry fit in place before finishing. It was a bit challenging drilling those four holes in the right places, but I took my time and measured many times before drilling. You can see how much sturdier this rail will be being glued into those sub deck support pieces. I then gave the fore and main pins rails and the bitts a coat of pre-stain and two coats of oak stain. I then positioned and glued most of the coaming hatches in place. There is one small one that goes just in front of the fore bitts, but I want to wait until the bitts are in place to get it in the right spot. I started measuring and dry fitting deck planks between the forward coamings, but after I took these pictures I realized that I was using the wrong size planking strips, so I basically have to redo all of this. Not a big deal, but I did loose about an hours work. its all practice for the rest of it though, right? I was happy with the way the planks line up along the coamings. This has not always been the case on previous builds.

Looks great Nenad. Keep talking to yourself.

Jay, I am both glad to have been of help but also I feel bad for stirring up so much trouble for you. Crack on though using the current ship as reference and you will have a great cross section. Your redos will be well worth it. BTW, I just passed along the link that I received from someone else on this site. That is one of the things that is great about MSW, knowledge like this just keeps getting passed along as needed.

You can also go to the Google maps page and look at the stove from different angles: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.372429,-71.056398,3a,75y,320.17h,95.15t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s6yRcVEMl1hYAAAQZLBJ9aQ!2e0!3e2!7i13312!8i6656

Thanks for the heads up Bob. One of the reasons I haven't gone yet is that Salem is one of those places that is a b***h to get in and out of, any time of year. But you are right about the summer and October. Early Fall might just work fine.

Yep, that is perfect Dan. Thank you very much. And for once, I don't have to remake something.

No further work needed. Those two middle images show what I was looking for, which is how I made the fore pin rail. Thanks a bunch. You know, the irony is that I live about 5 miles from the Peabody museum but have never been in it. I have been meaning to go for ever and have just never gotten around to it.

Dan, yes that at least looks similar to what I made. Do any of those pictures have the rail at the fore mast? That is the one I am not sure of.

Thanks JS. I am going one further than pins - I have added wooden strips that will support the deck planks and will drill holes for the posts in these support pieces, glue in the rail to the supports, then plank around the posts. I was concerned that even with pins these small posts might pull out.

Thanks Tim, Dan, George, and Jay, and the likes. Jay, the plans I am using show the rail in relation to the main mast, so I can locate it from that. Of course, if the main mast location has moved since 1812 it won't be exactly right. One more shot of the rail after some more work. I sanded the two lower rails so they are thinner now and match better. I also sanded down the tops of the posts so they are almost flush with the top rail. I didn't want to break anything so I stopped sanding when I got close. I also installed the sheaves between the two bottom rails. I used a strip of wood that I ran through the table saw on both sides to make a groove, then cut off squares and used a thin file to continue the groove around to the other two sides, to simulate a round piece between two square pieces. This picture is actually a little too close to see them clearly. I don't think I'll be running any lines through these as they are kind of fragile and the holes are pretty small. I can now stain the fore and main pin rails, mount what I can and get ready to plank the spar deck. There is a support for the spencer mast at the mizzen that I need to make too. I can leave the spider rail for the mizzen until I make that mast since it does not attach to the deck.

My problem with plastic has always been getting glue where it isn't supposed to be. Much harder to deal with than cleaning glue off wood, I think. But hten again, it has been probably 45 years since I built a plastic model

For marking the shroud locations on the card, I just mark the tops and bottom position of each shroud, then remove the card and use a straight edge on the bench to make straight lines between the two marks for each shroud.

I have been working on the U shaped main pin rail, which is a deviation from the kit supplied rails. I am using plans from the Constitution CD for this rail, which makes it easier to fabricate the pieces, at least. This U shaped rail is a distinctive feature of the Constitution over the other frigates of the time, so I really wanted to include it. I used the supplied rail for around the fore mast, only because I have no information on how it might have been different in 1812. I am also going to be adding the spider rail on the mizzen mast instead of the supplied rail, for the same reason as the U shaped rail. The Revell plastic kit includes these details, but the ME kit is the modern ship so does not have them. I started by cutting the three rail pieces. I copied the plans and cut out templates for the rail pieces, which I glued to what I thought was 1/16" birch plywood because I knew these pieces would be prone to split. For the two lower rails, I glued two sheets together so I could cut them out and shape them at the same time. I then soaked these in alcohol to separate them, which worked great. I used sandpaper and a rounded file to get the final shapes after cutting the rough shapes on the scroll saw. I then made the posts to hold these rail pieces. Here I deviated from the plans some. For instance, the plans show three separate sections for each post, with each section between the rails and sharing the holes in the rail. At this scale, I was pretty sure there was no way this would be both strong and straight. So, I made the posts as one piece, with the rounded parts the same diameter as the rest of the post, instead of larger as shown on the plans. It would not have been possible to slip the rails onto the posts if they were larger. I also used a thinner piece of dowel for the posts than shown because there is almost no wood left on the rails on either side of the holes if I used the larger sized dowel, as you can see on the above template. I made the posts on the lathe by marking off the round sections and using s diamond file on edge to round them, then some fine sandpaper to clean them up. I moved the dowel for each section so I was always working close to the chuck, to avoid breaking the dowel while turning it. It was now time to drill the holes for the posts in the rails. I first drilled the four holes in the top rail, using the template as a guide. I then used the top rail itself as a guide for the holes in the bottom two rails. At this point I realized I was not working with plywood, because both of the bottom pieces split. The holes were still rather large for these pieces too. So, I decided to make the lower pieces a bit more like the top piece with more wood around the holes. I traced the top rail onto the plywood then shortened the ends and cut them out individually on the scroll saw this time. I sanded them down a bit and drilled the holes, and was successful on one of the them. I had to remake the second, and again it split, although this time it was while dry fitting it to a post. For the final and successful try I traced the shape onto the wood, drilled the holes and made sure the poles slid in easily, then cut it out and shaped it. Here are the pieces, although the bottom piece was the last one that split. You can see the hole on the left is too close to the edge. By drilling the holes before cutting out the last piece, I could adjust the edge slightly to make sure the hole was centered more accurately. I also drilled the holes for the belaying pins in the top rail, then dry fit the rails and posts. I am pretty happy with the look so far. I am going to try to glue them up without taking them apart again, but we will see. I even added a few belaying pins to see how they would look. I had to shorten them by about a 1/32" to make sure I could fit a piece of line under them. And for full disclosure, here is the bone pile of broken rails. I still have a bit of work to do on this piece after gluing. I have to sand down the tops of the posts to be flush with the top rail, and even up the bottoms of the posts. I think I am going to drill post sized holes in the support pieces before I plank the deck and glue these posts into the support pieces, then plank around them. Otherwise I would have to glue these thin posts to the decking, and even with some wire through the deck for extra support I think it will be too fragile later on when rigging. There are also six sheaves between the two bottom rails shown on the plans, which I am attempting to reproduce. They are a bit small, but I have some prototypes made that may work. Of course, I will let you know if they work or not.