usedtosail

Oh, I should say first that I had the plans copied at Staples when I started the build and have been cutting up the copies as I need them. I cut the side view from plan sheet 3 (I think), then just scanned that piece into the computer.

I know Tim. And these are the small holes. I thought about drilling the hawse holes now too, but those can wait. I have a cheapo Canon Printer/Scanner that came with a scanning application that saves the scans as jpegs or pdfs. I saved them as jpegs then imported them into a free image processing program called GIMP 2. I then exported the joined images as a jpeg and imported it into a free vector graphics program called Inkscape. I printed the templates from Inkscape although that took a little fiddling to get the images to print out at the right scale. Mostly trial and error.

I turned the hull around and used the same technique on the starboard side: One nice thing about having the plans scanned into the computer was that was able to flip the image in the computer and print out the three pages for this side, so I didn't have to work through the back of the plans. Now that this little task is complete, I will be focusing my attention to planking the transom and counter, then finish the rest of the hull planking.

I haven't had a chance to test blackening the britannia metal yet, but I have been working on the hull. As I mentioned last time, I wanted to drill all the holes in the wales for the air ports and scupper covers now, just in case I messed them up. So, to start, I scanned the side view from the plans into the computer and used an image processing program to align the three page size pieces. I had to scan the plans in pieces as I only have a letter size scanner. To check the alignment, I exported the full image to a vector graphics program and drew a straight line on top of the reference line along the bottom of the plans. I would them go back and rotate the pieces again, then check the reference line. It took about three iterations to get the three pieces aligned nicely. One thing that bothered me from the plans was that the scuppers, which are on the bottom of the gun deck, and the air ports, which are in the top of the berth deck, looked too much in line. When looking at images of the Constitution, like this one: it looks like the air ports are a little lower than shown on the plans. So, since I had the plans now in the graphics program, I made up little symbols to help drill the holes and positioned them just a little lower at each air port location. I then printed the plans out with the symbols as three sheets, like this one: I was going to cut and tape these piece together to make one long template, but found that I could use them separately and tape them to the hull as separate templates. I cut them out so that I had the locations of the gun ports for horizontal alignment, as well as the top of the wales for vertical alignment. I taped all three templates to the hull and lined them up where they overlapped: I then drilled pilot holes through the templates, which you might be able to see on this image: Then enlarged the holes using very sharp bits in a pin vice and this drill bit holder that I found somewhere online: To clean up the holes after drilling, I first sanded them flat, then used the back of the drill bit to clean out the hole: I used the air port and scupper cover fittings to check the holes and here are the results: There sure are a lot of holes in the wales now, but they came out nicely without any tearing around them, which is what I was mostly afraid was going to happen. While testing the scupper covers to figure out what drill bit size to use for them, I found that the posts on the back of them were oblong, not round, so I filed them a little smaller and round so I could use a smaller drill size. Even so, the top of the hole can still be seen when a few of these are in place, but I can use a bit of filler later to hide them.

You have done a great job Sal. Congratulations and display his model proudly. Oh, and get started on your next one, already.

Rich, that bowsprit rigging looks great. I can see now why they may never have had a sail on this spar - no room for it!

Thanks for the link George. I happen to have a bottle of the Casey Gun Black, too, so I may try both methods now. Good luck with your tests too.

George, take a look at this topic if you haven't seen it already: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/6977-the-blacken-it-trials/?p=231549

Thanks George. I have never tried Blacken It on britannia castings but I think others on this site have with some success. I do use it on copper and brass and like the finish very much. I might have to try some experiments to see how it works on the white metal, as I have a few dummy barrels that I won't be using on the model.

First of all, thanks for all the likes. It sure makes this hobby more fun to have folks like you looking in on the progress and the encouragement. Criticism and suggestions are more than welcome too. I finished up the starboard side wale last night. Here are the wale planks before sanding: This side came out much better than the port side before sanding. I guess I took my time more the second time since I knew how much work it was to get it to look good on the other side. Here it is after sanding, with no filler added: I did end up adding a little filler along the stem and near the stern, but that was it. I will try to be more patient with the rest of the planking to cut down on the sanding and filling. I have been working to clean up some of the metal fittings that came with the kit. I drilled out the bores of the dummy cannon barrels that came with the kit and the "real" cannon barrels that came with the extra cannons that I bought. I used a drill press to clean up the initial hole in the barrels, which were too small and not very circular. I then used a slightly larger drill bit in a pin vise to make the final hole. These are just a tad bit over 2mm in size. I then used a small file to clean up the rest of the outside of the barrels, mostly removing lines from the casting process. I want to drill the holes for the berth deck air ports and the scuppers now, so in case I mess any of them up I can replace that section of wale if I need to. I was not sure about the supplied metal fittings for these, but after I examined them I was pleasantly surprised how detailed they are. Now I just need to be able to paint them without hiding that detail. I am going to paint these black unless some one knows better what color they should be. I had to remove a little flash on some of these, but mostly they were in good shape. I used some scrap planking to test the drill bit sizes for these and found that the posts on the back of the scuppers are oblong, not round, so the hole was not hidden completely by the scupper. I fixed this by filing each of the posts down on them to make them rounder and thinner. OK, here is a question for you historians out there. Were the berth deck air ports just a hole through the hull or was there some sort of glass inside them? I found on the Constitution CD a drawing of a cover that went on the inside of these, which leads me to believe that they were just open in the 1812 era, but if anyone has any other information please let me know. I have made up some templates to help locate and drill the holes for these, which I will show in the next instalment.

Did the Constitution ever have a spirit sail, I wonder. Rich, your bowsprit and yard look great.

Looking good, Mundie.

Hi Warren. Thanks for looking in. As to your question, I also used the first free chapter when I started this build and found it helpful. I have built six ships before this one, starting with the Phantom as you did and working my way up to this one. This is only the third plank on bulkhead model, though. I wanted some planking practice with smaller ships before tackling this one, and I could probably have used more practice. The first two models I built had very good practicums and I was very nervous to build the third without one. But, I found that the steps are very similar for most models, and I managed to do it. The fourth was a more complicated model that had mostly Italian instructions and I was able to build that one (Beagle) with the help of the Anatomy of Ship Beagle book. I have not seen the other chapters of the Hunt practicum for the Constitution and I am sure they are very good, but I think if you take your time and follow along with the builds that have been done and the ones going on now you should be OK. A build log is the best way to get help as folks here can see your progress and offer suggestions to avoid too many mistakes, but as you can see from my log, I make a lot of mistakes, but so far they have been easily correctable. That said, I am still only on the planking for the Connie, so I have no idea what sorts of problems may await me down the road, but I have yet to find one that is insurmountable with just doing something over until I am satisfied with it. One thing I do is to make a list of the steps to be performed, using the instructions and plans, so I have a very good idea of the order to do things in. I try to work out all the possible steps that can be done before others to make the job easier. For instance, when I built the Phantom I did not paint the hull black until after I put the copper plates on. If I had done it the other way around I would have had a much better line between the tape and the copper. Of course, this list is not complete at first but I add to it and change it as I go and I have found that this has mostly eliminated forgetting to do something before it was too late or too hard to do. So I would say press on and good luck, and don't be afraid to ask questions.

Count me in Michael to follow along on this journey. Good start so far.

Amazon is where I bought these ball bearings. They are 2mm

Yes, I read on another post that you had to heat them because they were stainless steel. I didn't try them without heating, but that would be a quick experiment, I think. Hey at least you can start messing around with the extras you will be adding. I am doing that as I wait for planks to dry.

Thanks Tim. PVC pipe does make great wood storage too. That was my first thought until I saw how much pipe I would have to buy. As promised, here is a picture of the cannon balls. I took this picture 24 hours after blackening them. They were much blacker when I first took them out of the solution. I think they rusted a bit, as some are now a little red. Any suggestions on how to get them black again? Maybe put them back into the solution and dry them off when I pull them out? The problem is they are so small and light I am afraid I would loose too many in the drying process. Were the real cannon balls made of iron and if so would they rust too? Maybe I can just leave them like this? What do people think? And here is a progress shot of the starboard side wales going in. The strip clamped around the bow has been soaked and is drying into the rough shape for the next wale plank at the stem. Tim, I am heading up your way this afternoon to get some stuff out of my father's house in Henrietta. Then its off to LI to drop them off to him tomorrow, and back to Boston on Sunday. I am calling it the New York tour, but at least my daughter volunteered to come with me to help with the driving.

Whew! Thanks. That is a very professional looking stand.

Michael, I was nervous just seeing that bare metal so close to your excellent paint job. Those supports look great, though.

Thanks Geoff. I used the product called Blacken It (http://www.modelexpo-online.com/product.asp?ITEMNO=AW2), which is not the Birchwood Casey. I used it full strength, which always seems to work well for me. I have bought a bottle of the Birchwood Casey product to use this runs out, but haven't tried it yet.

Wow Nigel, just read through this whole log. What wonderful carving. I can't wait to see you back at it.

Thanks George. Yes, walking away sometimes is the right thing to do and I don't stay away for long. I finished sanding the starboard planks above the wales for now. These will get a final sanding when the whole hull is preped for painting. I then started adding the wale planks. The first thing I did was measure the wales on the port side at each bulkhead using a tick strip, then transferred those measurements to the starboard side bulkheads. I also entered them into my spreadsheet to get the widths of the planks at each bulkhead, and I used a planking fan to mark these widths onto the bulkheads too. You can see these marks on the bulkheads in the above pictures. I had also bought some of the 2mm ball bearings to use as cannon balls, so I spent a little time last night blackening them. Since these are stainless steel, I first heated them with a micro torch. I held them in a metal pipe cap on top of a few ceramic tiles. The first few I heated to red hot, but the rest I just heated them until they were hot. I then placed these into white vinegar to clean and pickle them, then into straight Blacken It solution for a minute or so. I took them out of the blackening solution and placed them on a paper towel to dry. They came out nice and black and it doesn’t seem to want to rub off. I'll take some pictures of these for the next instalment.

I just implemented this method, using 2" square by 25" square mailing boxes. I cut a section of the top off so I can get the full length strips in the boxes. I bought these on Amazon.

Carl, I found them on Amazon. They are Aviditi M2225 Square Mailing Tubes, 2" x 2" x 25" (Pack of 50)

OK, the other side project is more directly related to the build. To rig the guns on the gun and spar decks, I need small single and double blocks. I could have ordered really nice blocks from a few suppliers like Syren, whose blocks I will admit are works of art in themselves, and I haven't ruled these out for the spar deck, but the gun deck will be fairly hidden, so I decided to go with a more economical approach. The smallest single blocks I could get in bulk from Model Expo were 2.5mm which will work fine, but the smallest double blocks are 3mm, which are too large for me. So I came up with this process for making the 3mm blocks closer to 2.5mm, while at the same time making them less boxy. I use a hemostat to hold the block while I work on it, but you have to be careful closing them so as not to crush the block: I then sand the end away from the holes on a piece of rough sandpaper until the length is close to 2.5mm, then use a small file to round off the two edges on this side so the side profile will look rounder. I flip the block around in the hemostat and file the other two edges so the whole side profile is now rounder. I then use a small drill bit to open up the holes in case they closed from the hemostat. I then use the side edge of a small file to make the groove below the holes more pronounced. At this point the blocks looked pretty good to me and I was going to stop there. But, a few years ago I had purchased the Model Expo block tumbler, but was not very impressed with the results. Recently, in another build log, Chuck Pasaro showed his modification to the tumbler, so I thought I'd give it a try. I removed the hard wood paddles and replaced them with three pieces of 220 grit sandpaper at each of the four sides of the center spindle. I put these modified blocks in this new tumbler and ran it for only 45 seconds. I was amazed at the results, which looked so much better than what went in. Here is a shot of how the blocks look after each step, from left to right, and the completed set of double blocks for the gun deck guns, plus some extras: I admit they are not the same quality as the blocks I could have bought, especially since they only have one hole per sieve, but I am happy with them and I actually enjoyed modifying them. There are not too many jobs where I can pack all the tools and supplies in a plastic bag and take them with me to work on wherever I am, but this is one of them.