JSGerson

Next, the pintle hinges were positioned and CA glued to the rudder while ensuring there was enough space for the gudgeons to slide under the pintles. The picture below is of the pintles dry fit up.

The pintles were fabricated initially as a gudgeon with one extra step. After fabricating the preliminary gudgeons were formed, a length of 1/32” brass rod was sliced into five 1/8” pieces using the razor saw for clean cuts. These 1/8” pieces were inserted into the gudgeons converting them into pintles and fastened with CA glue to complete the process. CA glue was used because it set quickly, was strong, neat, and needed no additional cleanup.

Using fine toothed hand saw, the hinges were cut apart. I thought about using my Dremel with a rotary saw or cutting disc, but I realized I couldn’t hold my hand steady enough for a clean cut. A few finishing touches with a file to clean off and smooth the edges, and the hull side hinges and gudgeons were formed.

The hull side hinges consisted of two parts, the strap structural element that attached to the hull and the gudgeon. The trick was to form the five gudgeons in perfect alignment so the rudder would be able to pivot smoothly. This was something that Ken Forman made note of. I modified his method so I could not only maintain alignment but made the silver soldering easy. First, I formed the hinges by wrapping the copper strips over a 3/8” thick piece of stock basswood. Then I drilled a 1/32” hole into a piece of wood so a length of 0.032” stiff music wire could be inserted. A length of 1/16” brass tube was slipped over the music wire. The five hinge straps were draped over the same piece of wood that was used to form them and clamped on either side. The block of wood holding the music wire with the brass tube was then held in place over the hinges with a rubber band. When silver soldering paste was dabbed onto each hinge and the brass tube positioned onto the hinges, everything was in place. With a couple of passes with a small torch, the tube was soldered to all five hinges assuring the gudgeons would be perfectly aligned.

I used my Byrne’s saw with a fine-tooth blade to slice the 1/32” strips of copper from the sheet without any problem. The strips were cut to length. Some builders attempted to simulate the hinge fastening bolts, but I decided, as much as I wanted to, to forego the attempt as the final product would most likely be out of scale or be too small to matter at 1/76.8 scale and not worth the effort, less than 1/128” in diameter or about 1/3 the width on the hinge.

I had to do some thinking about how to fabricate the rudder hinges. Robert Hunt’s practicum opted to make a non-functioning rudder using styrene as the build material of choice. Looking at Ken Forman’s (xKen) build log (my go to alternative guidance), he created functioning rudder using brass which I liked. Both builders painted their hinges black. Others who used brass, sometimes left their hinges as bare shiny metal. However, looking at the pictures of the actual rudder, I noticed the color of the hinges matched the background colors of the green patina of the copper plate, the red waterline, and black painted hull. Does that mean the green hinges are made of copper? More than likely they were made of iron but were colored by the bleeding patina of the copper plates. For my model to have the same color of the copper plates as it ages, my hinges were made from 0.016” copper sheet. Remember, it’s a model, not a miniature replica.

Rudder Hinges For a simple mechanism, the hinges will require a high degree of precision to allow the rudder to pivot effortlessly. All the hinge parts must line up precisely or the rudder will bind. Also, the rudder must be able to move vertically to provide sufficient clearance space for the pintles to move into position to drop down into the gudgeons.

As part of your research, here is what I did and strongly suggest you do as well: Download all of the US Navy Plans from the USS Constitution Museum website as a supplement to the kit plans. They have been invaluable in my build. Download as many pertinent photos of the actual ship from the web as you can. Anything that shows details of the stuff you are going to model. I personally have and cataloged about 3,700 images. If you can't find something, just ask, there is a good chance I may have it. (if you have any interesting ship photos that you would like to share, I'd be willing to accept them). Study other build logs of the USS Constitution to see how they handled the variety of tasks/problems they encountered during their build. I've actually copied those logs and so I can access them offline. Sometimes stuff just disappears from the web. You can learn an awful lot of useful stuff from other people successes and mistakes. Get access to reference material about the USS Constitution, building techniques (model and actual), etc. Visit the actual ship which you've already done and likely will do again. I grew up in the Boston area and visited the ship about 4 or 5 times over the years, so I have a personal affection with the ship. My last visit was just before her last restoration in November 2014. I'll give you my 2 cents worth of wisdom (such as it is), just ask. Good luck on your build. Jon

Welcome on deck! Y'er in for a bumpy ride! 😁 I look forward to your build log. I've been working on mine since 2017 and still have not finished the hull. All I have left on the hull is finish stern and the hull side of the gun ports and I can resume work on the gun deck interior. Jon

Well, Model Expo came through sending me, at no cost. Kudos for their excellent customer service. The laser cut sheet that had the raw rudder. Just like before, the raw stock part was shaped, coated four times with Wipe-on Poly, copper plated, and painted. Now I’m ready to get back to the hinges. However, as of this writing, I still have not found the original rudder.

Ah. we are a mutual admiration society!😁

Histprof1066 - I wouldn't expect your model at 1:100 scale would have the level of detail as a kit like mine at 1:76.8. Each step were comprised of three separate pieces 1/64" thick. That was tough enough at the larger scale. I don't think you or I could have handled anything smaller with that detail. My fingers would have been too fat for the task. As for the plans I use through out my build, I started collecting the them from the US Navy and the Constitution Museum years before I even started woulding on the kit. I have them all identified and cataloged in a spreadsheet. I just do a word search and if I have a plan, I can find it almost immediately. I also sorted into folders, my 2,500 odd images of the actual ship I collected off the internet and fellow Constitution builders. These range from an overhead aerial view down to tight shots of individual items from multiple angles. I also have a section photos based on the early history of the ship. I found that if I Googled one thing, there was a good chance I would find something totally unrelated to my search, but worthy of being downloaded into my collection. If I had tried to find that image directly, more often than not, it would not appear as part of the search results. That's what I enjoy about this build, the wealth of information that is available and accessible. Jon

You've got fantastic sewing skills! I couldn't put three stitches in a straight line, never mind making them all equal lengths. Great job! Jon

Basically, the same technique ERS Rich's tooth picks. The wicking depends on the plate to hull gap size and the amount of glue on the applicator. The narrower the gap, the strong the capillary action. Jon

To make matters more confusing, although both the Kit’s plan and the US Navy show eleven steps, the US Navy plan shows seven of the steps are below the gun port while the kit shows only six. To clear this up I checked my photos, only to find the actual ship only has ten steps total. It did show, however, that there are only six steps below the gun port. I think the eleventh step was removed at the very top to allow for the visitor gangway to be installed. The step locations were marked by a piece of tape positioned on the hull which aligned the steps horizontally. A spacer block was used to ensure vertical spacing was consistent. BTW, it’s been a week and I’m still waiting for the replacement rudder.

Comparing the US Navy plan No. 24999001 vs the kit’s, I noticed that the steps on the kit’s plan drop vertically straight down while the US Navy plan, six steps skew diagonally forward a maximum of 6.5” or 5/64” scale. The reason for the skew is there is a scupper cover the steps are avoiding. As it turned out, I did have the scupper located where it should be but did not have to make any adjustment that the eye could perceive.

Using a 1” right angle block, the pieces were glued into a pyramid stack. I used very tiny drops of white glue which allowed me to position and adjust the pieces into position before the glue set. I would have made a mess with CA glue. The steps were then painted white with a couple thin coats so I wouldn’t lose the pyramid details in the steps. Everything was painted except for the side that was going to be glued to the hull.

The practicum uses styrene as the material of choice. I chose to use wood instead of plastic. I used boxwood because it doesn’t splinter apart when cut to short narrow pieces and it can hold an edge. I used my Byrnes saw to cut a 3/8” wide strip, 1/64” thick from some stock material. Then I cut the strip into 5/64”, 4/64”, and 3/64” length strips. These strips were then cut again to 21/64”, 19/64”, and 17/64” length pieces respectively using my micro miter and razor saw.

Sea Steps The kit plans indicate there are eleven sea steps on each side of the hull, climbing from the water line up to the spar deck. Each step is comprised of an upside down, three-piece, four-sided pyramid. Three sides step outwards by 1/64” per tier on the edges while the fourth side is flush with and is attached to the hull. Surprisingly, there very few images of the sea steps with detail. This one will have to do.

I too had these issues with the copper plating. If I were to do it over again, I would have applies a couple more coats of polyurethane on the hull to make it as smooth and glass-like finish as possible. Embossing the surface of the copper tape to simulate nail dimples reduces the contact area of the tape somewhat so it needs that extra smooth surface for adhesion.. I made a CA applicator out of a medium sized sewing needle by cutting off the end of the eye creating a two prong fork. I then added a long thin wooden handle by drilling a hole into a piece of wood and inserting the point of the needle into it. I didn't glue it, but just pushed it in hard. This allowed me to switch out the needle with a new one when needed. Cleaning the open eye is done with a butane cigarette lighter. The excess CA burns off real quick. I had to constantly apply CA glue to various areas of copper plating over the course of its installation as it took time for the weak adhering plates to reveal themselves. It was a pain to constantly do this. In the end, I got the effect I wanted. Jon

I just discovered your build log today and admired your workmanship. I built the Mamoli Rattlesnake in 2017 as my first square rigged wooden ship using Robert Hunt's practicum as my bible. I could not have built my model without it. The build was a kit bash adding all kinds of details the kit did not have. and was a challenge for me as a first time builder, but I think it was worth it. The Rattlesnake is a beautiful ship. I look forward to your future posts. Jonathan

Congratulations on a job well done!

I have high praise for Model Expo as well. It costs them money to replace parts and they don't charge for shipping which is amazing.

WTF I had expected that my next post would be the fabrication and installation of the rudder hinges. Since my last post, I have fabricated the gudgeons and was about to install them onto the hull. To do that, I was going to use the rudder I finished last August, to mark the positions of the hinge and gudgeons on the hull so they would align with the rudder pintles. There was only one teeny, weeny, little problem. My rudder has vanished! It wasn’t in the box I thought I put it in. I’m pretty good at finding tiny bits of stuff I drop on the rug in my work area. I swear that rug eats anything, and things don’t bounce on it in a logical manner. Yet, I manage to find what I’m looking for (most of the time) given enough motivation. This is a painted and copper plated object about 5” x 1” x 3/16” and I can’t find it after two days of searching! There is no one else in my house as I am a lifelong bachelor except for my 14-year-old cat who grazes on her food throughout the day when she is not sleeping or asking for affection. She has never ever touched any of my model stuff in her life, but even so, I did check under the furniture in the whole room just in case. Nothing. It appears it has vanished to the realm of missing socks or some such place. I do know of one method of finding it, and I’m afraid I am going to use it. All I must do is fabricate a new one. Once I’ve done that, the original one will miraculously reappear. So, today I reluctantly ordered a replacement part from Model Expo. In the meantime, to keep working on the model, I plan to work on the sea steps. I will post my progress with that then post what I have already done on the rudder hinges to keep the processes coherent for the readers. We’ll see what happens.

The last step was to add eyebolts on the inside face of the doors for the pull cord that opens and closes the door. Plain sewing thread was used. One end tied to the eyebolt and the other loose. Once the thread was stiffed with CA glue, the loose end was inserted into the round tunnel after the port doors were nailed to the transom. The stiffened thread looks taught, and no one can see it’s not secured to the inside the hull. The doors were positioned by bending the hinges, so they hung perfectly vertical.