popeye2sea

Mine is still afloat after 225 years!

Regards,

Henry

NO!  It is the knight head at the fore mast on the forecastle deck.  The large one aft of the main mast can stay where it is! 

Regards,

Henry

I am building a 1:100 Soleil Royale.  I used a 2mm block for all the gun tackles.  A 2mm block scales to 7.8 inches for the actual size. That is not far off what would be be used. And, visually it looks pleasing on the model. You get a decent drift between the two tackle blocks.

Regards,

Henry

19 hours ago, Kolvir said:

Suit and tie, you guys are disgraceful. How can you go about our great hobby without your powdered wig on?

Hear, Hear!!

Regards,

Henry

I have 3, 4, and 5mm dead eyes for my build.  I used 2mm blocks for all the cannon rigging.  I plan on 2.5mm for the smallest jewel blocks and the like while the majority of the rigging will be 3, 4, and 5mm up to 6 and 7mm for the very largest of the blocks (main stay, top ropes, and mast tackle pendants).  I purchased most of what I will need already from Syren.  The dimension of blocks usually refers to the overall length.  

I find the molded Heller blocks to be very unrealistic. I will not use them.

Take a look at what I did to move the fore halyard knight head.  It should not be directly behind the fore mast.  If left there the main stay will foul the halyard tackle.  I shifted the knight head to starboard.

Regards,

Henry

Part #162 are the four large knight heads that go in a square pattern around the mizzen mast.  There will be three smaller knight heads (163?) that go in a triangle pattern around the mizzen. One centered in front of the mast and the other two in the holes outboard of the larger knight heads.

Regards,

Henry

I replied before I read the further posts.  This has already been answered. Oops!!

I might add that if you look at the gun port lids from the kit there are two rings molded on each for the ropes. They are at the extreme end of each hinge.

Regards,

Henry

Topsail,  topgallant, and royal square sails do not need tack lines because when they are sheeted home their lower corners are confined to the yards below them.

For the lower courses the sheet serves to pull the lower corner down and aft, and the tack serves to pull the lower corner down and forward.  Thus both are needed to control the lower corner (clew) of the sail.

Hope that helps.

Regards,

Henry

Interesting!   I'll have to look for that.

Regards,

Henry

My plan, I have not done it yet, is to not drill all the way through but to make small dimples or partial holes from the outside and then use short lengths of rope or small painted wire glued between the gun port cover and the hole.

Regards,

Henry

7 hours ago, bruce d said:

Popular Mechanics, January 1926. 

Really.

 

Reminds me of the eyeglass nose bridge handle thing from Steve Martin in "The Jerk".  How many people went cross-eyed from this gizmo?

Regards,

Henry

Not so long ago any respectable man would not be out in public without at least a waistcoat, neck cloth, and hat.  Up until the early 1800's your shirt was basically your underwear/night clothes.

Regards,

Henry

I agree with Marc. Heller does this to give an attachment point to each anchor cable. They are totally unnecessary.

Regards,

Henry

Bill, make sure that part 266 is well secured in the hull.  Your main mast angle will be determined in part by its alignment with the holes in the decks.  I took some extra time to make sure the mating surfaces actually made good contact before glue up. I don't think the hull halves meet at a flat angle at that point.

Regards,

Henry

I agree with Marc,  reinforcing the center seam is a good idea.

I am not a fan of the Heller stand.  If you do go with pedestals I would highly recommend using something like epoxy to fix a threaded nut into the base to take the bolts of the pedestals. You don't want them to come loose. Mine did and now I have to come up with another plan to secure the model to it's base. It is going to involve further surgery to the keel.

Regards,

Henry

If your intent is to show how much potential canvas they could carry then any angle will work. I think your only consideration will be with all that canvas set if you have the yards braced hard up then a lot of your hard work on the rigging will be hidden. Then again if the model is to be viewed from both sides you will have one side with a cloud of canvas and the other exposing much more of the rigging. Personally, I think clippers are beautiful with every stitch of canvas aloft.

Realistically, the direction of the wind and its force would determine which of the stun's'ls would be set.  If you look carefully at your diagram you can see that some of the forward sails would be blanketed by the aft sails. Perhaps in this instance on the main only the topmast stun's'l to leeward would be set.

Regards,

Henry

3 hours ago, Bill97 said:

Popeye2sea i can not wait to follow that build when you start it. That would be great to see. As I mentioned I have built it twice. Once like you many years ago and another time about 3 years ago. Right when I got back into modeling after retiring. That build is here on MSW but looking back at it now I see how elementary my skills were and how I think I have improved over time with the help from you guys. If you have a photo of you on board in uniform I would love to see it!  Post one here. 
Oh well, back to painting cannons!

My profile pic is me next to a carronade on the spar deck.  I hesitate to post all that stuff here because it doesn't really fit the MSW profile. But, visit us at www.1812marines.org or our facebook page USS Constitution 1812 Marine Guard for tons of photos of our group in action.

Regards,

Henry

I found my photos of the truss pendants and tackles for Constitution.  Hope they help.

1 hour ago, Bill97 said:

Henry that is incredible!  What an amazing experience. Have you built a model of the Constitution?  Surly you have. I need to check the index. How great of an information source that would be. I can picture it. You working on your model and trying to figure out how something should be. Then thinking, I will just check the real thing tomorrow when I am on board. You have got to attach a photo of you on board in your 1812 marine uniform. 

I did build the Revell Constitution many years ago.  Long before MSW. But that model was lost, foundered in a storm of cleaning by the Admiralty Board (mom) while I was still a young lad.

I have another one on deck, waiting to start construction. I am thinking of kit bashing to her as launched configuration.  

Regarding popping aboard for reference photos, I do that all the time.  I have even done it on request for MSW members.

Regards,

Henry

4 hours ago, Ian_Grant said:

Awesome!  I've been aboard once but never seen her under sail. Amazing to think she still sails at her age. When I took my family there maybe 15 years ago they were talking about a refit to put camber back into the deck, undoing a previous refit which put down a flat deck for some reason.  Or did I mishear the story?

No, you heard right. 

Luis,

Studding sails are rigged behind the regular sail on the windward (upwind) side and in front of the regular sail on the lee (downwind) side. The idea being to avoid the principal sail being backwinded by the air spilling off the studding sail.

This rule was generally followed by merchant ships.  Some naval vessels set stun's'ls abaft all.

Regards,

Henry

Bill,

I am the current President of a non-profit corporation called Historic Marine Education, Inc.  We represent/portray the marines who would have been aboard Constitution during the war of 1812.  The active duty Navy crew aboard the ship consider us to be part of the crew. We are aboard regularly throughout the year to give demonstrations and interact with the public.  The ship conducts about six sailing demonstration per year out in the harbor. I have been underway on every one of them for the past 10 years or so.  It never gets old. I'll probably continue to sail Constitution until I can no longer make it up the gangway.

Regards,

Henry

R.C. Anderson has this image.  He has very little information regarding the practice for non-English vessels except for a few Dutch references.

Regards,

Henry

The usage of the term jig in this instance is short for jigger tackle, which is a type of tackle arrangement. Usually it refers to a single and a double block, both stropped with tails.

The tackle that is used to extend the stuns'l booms does not, as far as I know, have a distinct name other than you can refer to it as whatever it is being used for. To explain. This tackle used to haul out the boom would be termed an outhaul in this usage. But, the same tackle, by shifting its attachment point is also the inhaul tackle to bring the boom back in and the tricing tackle when employed to lift up the inner end of the boom to give better access to the men on the foot ropes while furling sail.

With regard to my reference to a cleat, in the diagram above there is a cleat with a sheave let in attached to the outer side of the trestle tree. The diagram shows the truss tackle pendant being re-directed up towards the top around those sheaves.  If you rig the pendants as I described above in my post the pendant gets re-directed upwards as it passes through the thimble of the strap around the yard. Thus the pendant will run fairly straight up and down to the tackle under the cap and the additional cleat/sheave is not necessary. The crossing over of the pendants abaft the mast is what pulls the yard in to the mast.

Regards,

Henry

2 hours ago, Bill97 said:

Henry did carving a new semicircle for the trunnions cause the barrel to drop about 1/16” or so?

Yes, the barrel did drop a bit. But the change was not large enough to make any difference in the placement of the guns in the ports.

Regards,

Henry