patrickmil

Bob, I noticed you did an excellent job with your kit's cannons. Did you have to do any reworking or reshaping to get them to look so crisp? I'm looking at the ones in my kit and shaking my head. Thanks for looking in on me.

Evan and Russ, thanks for the input on that. Having no carronades may make getting her guns a little easier. I'll just need to read through AOTS and some other books I have to dig out of storage. Thanks for looking in.

Thank you Sailor. Your compliment and time mean a lot to me. I'm hoping to do a better job on my Connie.

Danny, I've been following your builds since I joined this website and have yet to comment on one of them. Your work is simply immaculate. I'm glad to see some active progress despite the difficulties.

Mike, I really enjoy the progress we're steadily seeing. Your scratch building skill are amazing. I especially like the selection of wood you are using.

shihawk, I know you wanted to go with an all natural wood finish. Have you heard of yellow-heart wood. It's absolutely yellow and might serve for the yellow stripes on your Victory. I haven't worked with the wood myself but constantly see it in woodcraft stores. Ebony or a dark wood with ebony stain might suit you for the black parts of Victory as well. I just figured I'd add my two cents while looking in on your log. I plan on tackling the Billings Victory one of these days myself and am looking in on others building the same kit.

@ Tim, I don't know if it's more detailed or not. I'm just trying to pool all of the available resources to do the best job I can. I've heard about a mythical CD in the past, but can't remember where I heard about it or where to order it.

Nigel, I thought of them and Billings. It's now mainly a matter of me measuring my kit's cannons to see what their dimensions are to see if they match. I was also wondering if Chuck's 12 pounders might come close. I am already planning on ordering a number of blocks from him to begin with. 1/76th scale is just an oddball scale in ship modeling. I will continue my research.

Ben, I'm hoping to get some work in before the weather here in Ohio turns too nice and I am drawn outside like a moth to a flame.

Ben, thanks a ton for the compliment. I'm glad I finally got her wrapped up.

D, I'm very excited to be getting started on such a long journey. I've been salivating over this kit for the last year. The box has just been gathering dust and I don't have the space to work on two tall ships at the same time. You'll need to get your log started so we can compare notes as we progress.

Hello to all. I have completed Niagara and am moving on up in the scope of building difficulty. I have chosen The Constitution for my next subject because I fondly remember building Revell's version of her years ago and I have always been in awe of this ship. I know we have quite a few of her being built at this time so I'm sure you're asking "What's going to be different here?" Like a few of the others, I'd like to show a full gundeck with rigged 24 pounders. I'd also like to incorporate some of the bulkheads and cabin details. Plans to light her up below-deck are also on the table to attempt to show off some of this detail. Part of my plans on the gundeck also include the installing the knees and riders. Now you may be asking "Why? Most of this will be completely covered by the spar deck" I'm doing it because I'll know it's there and I'd like to try my hand at seriously bashing a kit before the possibility of scratch building. I have not yet fully determined the time period I would like to model, but I have been giving some thought to modeling her as she was when she was new with the Hercules figurehead. The biggest headache with that time period are that the details of her configuration are even sketchier than how she was in 1812. My plans are all negotiable until I get to her stern anyway, so here goes..... I photographed the typical box contents and a few resources I'll studying. The last picture is of the main building board materials and a new toy. You may also notice that one of the pics has two false keels. I didn't like the feel of the one that came with the kit so decided that I'd make my own out of 1/4" ply basswood. This build is going to take forever as I plan on making many pieces from scratch and am ordering many aftermarket items like new 24 pounders (if anyone has any ideas where I can get these in turned brass, I'd be indebted to them), new 32 pound carronades (see above parenthesis) and some boxwood deck planking material. As always, thanks so much for looking in and all of the wonderful support this site has to offer.

Mike, thanks for your kind words. I'm going to be posting the beginning of my Connie log in a few minutes.

Larry, thanks for that compliment. It's all the support that has helped to really make this fun.

Tim, I have that book already. My concern here was that Tom pointed out in one of this posts that he had some drawings from a CD that didn't agree with AOTS. I just wanted some information regarding that CD so I could order it and see it for myself.

Wow Bob, the cannons and cable bitts are very impressive. I don't know if you have mentioned this in a previous post, but what size cannons do those represent? I also meant to ask you earlier, I don't recall seeing any discussion of scale for this ship. Is this 1/64?

Augie, thanks a million for the compliment. I will have a seat waiting for you when I start the Connie. AJ, thank you as well for the kind words. Niagara actually took me over 3 years to build. I started her before I became a member on the old website and have been dragging my feet for this long to get her completed. Slog, thank you as well for your compliment. Everybody's words are treasured.

Nigel, Tim and Sjors... thanks so much for your kind comments. As I said earlier, comments like these from such talented modelers have really helped me along and mean a great deal to me. Thanks again for the ton of support.

Andy, as much as I'd love to see your SS Stadacona, I am nowhere close to Toronto. Your pictures will have to do for now. Are you getting on with your Pegasus at all?

Andy, thanks for your compliment. These words coming from so many excellent modelers have really made the build log worth posting.

Tom, as I am formulating plans of my own for a similar build, I need to know, where did you get a CD with Connie plans on it? I would like to order one of my own if it's drawn from better sources. By the way, as long as you don't mind, I will most likely be following some of your methods here (don't worry, mine won't be an identical copy of yours). Your work is very thorough and clean.

I'm with Popeye on this one!

Popeye, Bob and Nils, your kind comments really mean a lot to me. Thanks for following me through this build.

Thanks again for the positive comments throughout my build John. It has really meant a lot to me. I will have many seats available for Connie. I'm planning on bashing the heck out of the kit and once I have my plans and materials lined up I'll have a log going.

Here are my finished pictures. I will get these over to the gallery after this post. Thanks again for all of the support along the way.