usedtosail

Thanks Tim and Lukas. Lukas thanks for the description of your work. I came across your build log when I was about half way through with these guns and it just blew me away how realistic yours looked. I figured they were glued to the deck and I will try that approach on the spar deck guns. Weighting them down is good to know too.

Thanks for the likes. I finally finished installing and rigging the starboard side gun deck guns. It's not that it was time consuming, I just didn't have the time to work on them lately. Lots of stuff going on outside the workshop, including my son's college graduation this weekend and getting the lake house ready for summer. But, I have some time this week to work on her. Here are the starboard side guns, from inside and outside. And here are all the guns on the gun deck. Now for some self criticism. I have always had a problem with the breaching ropes looking realistic, as they want to stick out from the sides of the carriages. Here is what I think looks very realistic, from Lukasvdb's Le-Superbe build. For one thing, these breaching ropes are longer and drape nicely on the deck. I think they are probably made with nicer rope too that is more flexible than the nylon stuff I made. I may try to do the breaching ropes on the spar deck this way, using cotton thread to make the breach ropes instead of nylon. The next task is to add the chain pumps that I made earlier to the gun deck. I have also started to think about making this U shaped main rail, which is not what is on the ship today. I found the plans for it on the Constitution CD, so I have everything I need to build it. I thought the legs for this would go all the way down to the gun deck or below, but the plans only show them going 12" into the spar deck. I am going to make the lower monkey rail in front of the U shaped main pin rail go all the way to the gun deck though. I am getting to the fun stuff now.

Bill, so this is what you've been up to since the Connie. I had no idea. This is a nice step in the right direction. I have actually read the dissertation on this ship and found it fascinating. You are doing a great job on the framing. I hope to be able to scratch build some day and will use your gantry method for sure.

Well said, Ed.

Those are beautiful little mortars you have there, Matt.

I use the same approach to rigging (I am also a software developer, too). I make a spreadsheet of the rigging in the order that it is to be done in. This order changes as the rigging progresses, however, as I see what kind of tight spots are being created. One bit of advice I would add is to look at the many practicums that are available, especially those by Chuck Passaro. You can find these on the Model Expo web site for the Phantom and Sultana models, among others. I think he has some on the Syren web site too. The order that he uses is basically the same order I use, but tailored for whatever model I am working on. I usually still spend quite a bit of time filling out the spreadsheet, but it makes the rest of the rigging process so much easier.

Thanks George. I started with 1/8" double blocks and filed/sanded them down to roughly 3/32" I already had 3/32" single blocks, so I used them for the other side of the tackle. At this scale, 6" blocks would be 5/64".

George, you were correct. After more experimentation last night, I was able to make some nice rope that did not want to untwist. I twisted the individual strands longer than pulled the rope to harden it after it twisted up. I then got brave and tried to make thicker rope from the thinner ropes. The first attempt was a disaster, as I did not twist the individual strand enough. The second attempt, after having to remake the individual ropes again, was better, but still did not look good. I quit for the night and this morning I tried it again using a heavier weight. This was a success. I made these ropes with white thread, so I stained them brown by soaking them for a minute in brown shoe polish, wiping off the excess, and letting them dry. OK, since I was taking pictures I figured I'd show where I was with the starboard guns. I did more rigging of them after the rope making experiments yesterday and today.

And I will update my question and answer. The additional twisting of the individual strands did produce rope that did not want to unwind. I then experimented with making thicker rope from these thinner ropes, rotating them in the opposite direction. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts, I was able to figure out the right weight and amount of twist to make decent rope. I am really pleased with this rope walk and look forward to making the ropes for the Constitution.

I haven't tried that George, but I will give it a go. Chuck hardens his by stretching it after it is made while still on the rope walk. Also, putting enough tension on the individual strands before twisting them together seems to be the trick to keeping rope wound. Looks like I have more experimenting to do.

Ok, I am going to answer my own question. After doing a search on "unwind" in the forums I found a few threads that talk to this problem. It looks like it is the amount of winding of the individual threads that is the trick to not unwinding. So, I will try adding a lot more twist to the individual threads before releasing the weight.

Yep, using a disk with notches works really well with small threads. I made one out of cardboard. No problem with them breaking. I do have a problem with the rope wanting to unwind itself. Has anyone solved that problem?

Nothing new to show on the Constitution. Installing and rigging the starboard side gun deck guns continues, but it looks just like the port side, so no new pictures. I do have a couple of new toys, er tools, in the workshop, thanks to my very generous Admiral. The first is a new rope walk from Dormanoff. As I mentioned previously, I wanted to try using this horizontally like the ME rope walk, using the back end of the ME rope walk. Like this: I have to say it worked well in this configuration, pretty much just like the ME set up but with less work. I still had to manually crank the other end after the threads were tensioned, but that went pretty quickly. In the first photo you can see some samples of Chuck's rope from Syrene, which is what i am using as a goal. My rope is not there yet, and still wants to unwind if left to itself. I then tried the new rope walk in the vertical position with a weight on the other end, like it is intended. It worked really well this way, too. The resulting rope looks better to me than the horizontally produced rope, but still wants to unwind. It is easier to set up in this configuration, too, so I think this is the way I will use it in the future. The other new tool is on the bench but I haven't used it yet. This is the Byrnes thickness sander. There have been a couple of times in the Connie build where I could have used it, so I should have a chance to try it out soon. It does look good next to the other power tools, hee hee... I'll get some pics of the cannons when they are fully rigged, I promise.

Not a problem, Steve. We all have our different reasons for what we do. I am really looking forward to your version of this great ship.

Great restart captain. I know what you mean about what will be seen on the gun deck, which is why I only did a partial deck instead of the whole thing. Those keel details you made look great.

Nice work on the waterways and plank sheer. Will you be adding cannons to the gun deck?

A Viking ship, huh. Have you been watching the show on History channel? It's got me thinking about wanting to build a Viking ship.

Thanks guys. BTW, its Nenads birthday today too. I just got back from a week vacation in the San Francisco bay area, so no updates this week. We had a great time. Spent the second half of the week in wine country. Have some bottles being shipped to me here, now that MA is finally allowing shipments of alcohol.

Happy Birthday, Cap'n Bob

Just a quick update. I assembled the first two cannons for the starboard side gun deck last night, pinning everything, and it worked great. I first used a barrel without a pin to locate the position of the quoin, then drilled a hole through the quoin and the carriage and put a piece of 28 gauge wire through with some CA on it, as well as CA on the underside of the quoin. I then put some pencil lead on the end of the pin in the barrel and used it to mark the location for a hole in the quoin for the barrel pin. I drilled that hole and glued the barrel in place with CA on the carriage at the trunnion cut outs, the barrel pin, and the underside of the barrel where it rests on the quoin. After the glue dried, this was a very solid assembly. I added the paper brackets and glued them onto the gun deck. Now I wish I had made the port side cannons this way. I will certainly use this method for all future cannon on this and following builds.

Thanks so much, Jerry, but your build log is pretty terrific. I am glad you reminded me about the differences in kits. That could have been very confusing.

Yes George, I pinned the port carriages to the deck and will be doing that on this side too. You can't see it in that last picture because the quoin is covering the pin.

Thanks Jerry. I will be honored to follow in your footsteps.

George I am pretty excited to see the ropes from Chuck. I am hoping his smaller ropes will look better when in blocks, as the stuff I have is kind of stiff and wants to stick out away from the blocks. Steve - I don't know about that strong, but hopefully it will lessen the oops factors as I proceed. Last night I did find some rope I had from an older kit that matches what I made really well, so I am using that for the starboard side breaching lines. Firstly, I tied up the loose ends (literally?) on the port side last night, so here ii is with all the rope coils installed: From the outside, I am pretty happy with the alignment of the guns. The head on shot shows some reflection from deep inside the gun barrels that doesn't show up in real life: I was able to drill into the underside of the barrels. I made a starter hole with a pin vise then put one of the barrels into my drill press vise and drilled deeper. This worked great except that these barrels are so soft that the vice kind of crushed the details on the sides of the barrel, so for the second barrel I drilled the whole hole by hand. I glued a piece of wire into that hole and will make a corresponding hole in the quoin for the other end. I suppose I should also pin the quoins down to the carriage, which I can do when installing them by just drilling through the quoin and the carriage base and putting a piece of wire through the holes. You can also see in this picture the how the line I found for the breaching ropes (right) compares to the line I made (left). I am glad I can continue with the guns, but there is still many other pieces that I can work on if I had to wait. I ordered the line from Chuck yesterday and it has shipped today, so I would not have had to wait too long. That is great service. I also ended up ordering the rope walk to play with, but since that is coming from Russia I have a feeling it will take a little longer.

Your Half Moon looks great, Jerry. That is going to be my next build, but at the rate I am going with the Constitution, I'll be retired first, which should be in about 7 years.