JSGerson

Hearts The actual hearts are partial filled in and have 3 grooves. At this scale, it is not practical to make nor likely to be seen by a casual viewer once the parts are paint black, hence a simple open heart was fabricated. They were made by slicing 3/32” dia. brass tubes to create rings. The rings were placed on a mandrel for ease of handling and a circumferential groove was filed. Brass wire was used to strop the hearts because the actual hearts were stropped with metal. This was done by wrapping the wire around the ring and securing it to the eyebolt.

Cathead Hardware For such a small structural piece, the cathead has a lot of hardware. All the double blocks and hearts are attached to the cathead with eyebolts and shackle connections. For the model, simple eyebolts were used due to scale. h-Bracket I don’t know the technical term for this, but I’m calling it an “h”-bracket due to it being shaped like an “h.” I used a typical picture hanger nail and bent the pointed tip 90°, flattened, and thinned the bend portion. This was then cut off. A piece of brass plate was cut a bit larger than the final bracket size for ease of handling and a hole was drilled to accept the fabricated right-angle piece. These were silver soldered together so that the flattened nail tip was parallel to the plate leaving a fine gap between the two. The excess brass plated was trimmed to size. The actual size of the bracket was based on its relative size as compared to the cathead beam as were all the pieces of hardware. I did not have dimensions for these pieces.

I waited 24 hours to make sure the glue dried solid. The kit supplied catheads were traced onto the assemblies and the location of the pulleys were located and drilled. I did check the kit’s cathead shape against the US Navy plans and they are a close match. The spacers were removed after the holes were drilled. Wood plugs, which would become the pseudo pulleys were then inserted into the holes, glued with CA glue and the ends cut flush. Finally, caps were glued onto the ends of the sheaves to complete the assembly. Using my drill stand mounted Dremel rotary tool with a drum sander bit, I shaped the raw pieces. The finished catheads looked almost identical to the kit supplied pieces, but these now had sheeves and pseudo pulleys.

Using the kit supplied raw shape catheads, stock 1/32” and 1/64” birch plywood was cut to size, 4 pieces of 1/32” and 3 pieces of 1/64”. with one end sliced 60° to the long sides. Also, the 1/64” pieces were also sized ½” shorter length than the 1/32” pieces. The pieces were assembled, clamped, and glued with wood glue. Temporary 1/64” spacers were added to maintain separation during gluing.

After studying the photographs long and hard, the practicum, and other build logs, I’ve concluded that this going to be a bitch. The problem I see is that there is not a straight line anywhere, the plans provide no explanation as to how to fabricate the bow rails. The practicum does try to show how its to done, but for my skills, I needed more details. What I did realize is that I needed to install the catheads now because the head rails tie into them. Catheads If I were following the practicum religiously, which I’m not obviously, the cathead would have already been installed by this time. I had planned to install them when I started to work on the spar deck. The kit provided the basic raw cathead shapes which I used to ensure that I made the cathead hull openings the proper size earlier on in the build. At the outside ends of the catheads, there is a triple sheave. Mr. Hunt in his practicum simulated these sheaves in the kit provided catheads by drilling two holes per sheave at the outer end of the catheads and carved a groove between each pair to give them the appearance of the imbedded pulleys. The catheads do not extend out from the hull horizontally, but at an upward angle. This requires that the triple sheeves openings at the end of the cathead must be drilled at angle, so they are vertical when installed. Drilling six holes perfectly parallel at an angle for each cathead is beyond my skill set or available tools at my disposal. Instead, I made the holes by layering 1/32” and 1/64” birch plywood using the plan below. I chose to alternate two thicknesses of plywood because the final cathead must be 3/16” wide. Seven pieces of 1/32” plywood is too much. With the addition of glue, the combo plywood assembly worked out exactly 3/16”.

Bow Details it’s time to work on the bow details, Chapter 8 of the practicum. Taking a deep breath and I jumped in with both feet. The practicum instructions provide an annotated image of the bow with the pertinent nomenclature.

Greg, there is no whaleboat planking. The boat hull surfaces are painted which would erase any evidence of the planks. If you look at pictures of the real whaleboats, they are smooth as a baby's butt 😁. Hope this makes it easier for you. Jon

That was an awesome step. My heart would have been in my mouth if I did it. You are going to have a fantastic model when you're done. Jon

I'm sorry, I meant to give you the the earlier post where I made the scuppers as well. Take a look from Post #546. The air ports (round holes) were precast Britania metal provided by the kit. I didn't like the precast scuppers. They were made from brass a tube which were sliced like a loaf of bread. Then they were flattened into "race track' shape with a vise. The scuper lids were cut from brass plate and CA glued. Jon

Here's an image of the airports and scupper. Model Shipways' plans show the locations of the airports and scruppers. If you have no luck finding and image/plan that shows these locations, PM me and I will scan my plans for you. BTW, I made my own scuppers, not that you can see them from a foot away at 1:76.8 scale (see my blog starting at post #625).

Very nicely done Jon

The results of my efforts are shown below.

Using 5/32” x 1/8” stock boxwood, twenty pieces were cut 21/32” in length. Boxwood was chosen over basswood because it holds a very fine edge. The chamfers were created using a sanding block. I didn’t trust myself to cut them using an X-acto knife as Mr. Hunt did in his practicum. Then, using a drum sander bit on the Dremel rotary tool at a slow rpm, the hull face side was sanded down every so gently to match the contour of the hull at each position. The fenders were identified on the inside face with an arrow indicating UP orientation, S or P for the proper side, and the position 1 -10. I just arbitrarily made the aft most position No. 1. Using left over metal wire trimmed from eye bolts and other hardware for the pins, holes were drilled into the backside of the fenders and the pins were CA’d into the holes. Before installation, the fenders were painted red. Pressing the fender onto the hull, the pins left an impression indicating were I had to drill holes into the hull for the fender pins. The fender locations were premeasured and indicated on the hull with paint trim tape.

I followed the practicum for the most part in constructing 20 fenders, 10 for each side with the following modifications: The MS plans, the practicum, and the pre 2015-17 restoration photos, show the fenders are chamfered on the vertical sides and top edges, not the bottom. According to the 2015-17 restoration photographs, all four sides are now chamfered. The practicum left the fenders as bare wood, but the photographs (even before the 2015-17 restoration) showed they were painted the same color as the red stripe. The practicum would have you just simply glue the fenders to the hull. I added two pins each fender for a more secure attachment. To be fair, at the time the practicum was written sometime in 2014 I believe, there were very few images available showing details of what the fenders looked like on or off the ship. I’ve only located these images from the 2015-17 renovation shown below. Moreover, when the ship is afloat, most of the fenders are not visible as they are hidden below the waterline. And, for some reason, very few images with any detail are available even today (at least on Google) when she was in dry dock. I guess they’re not a very interesting subject to photograph.

Fenders Per USS Constitution Museum: What’s interesting is that the 1927-31 restoration MS based plans show the oak fenders. How are there fenders on the plans? It also states that the fenders are “Not a historical feature. Installed by Navy to protect copper from camel damage in dock” Again, my argument that anything the Navy does to a commissioned ship, IS historic. Albeit, adding permanent fenders is not something you would do an active warship as it would obviously slow the speed of the ship.

The red stripe was painted by applying Model Shipways primer white and two coats of Cherry Red mixed with a few drops of hull black following the lead of the practicum. I neglected to take pictures of the resulting red stripe.at this stage.

My sister is an accomplished artist who uses acrylic paints (see PaintedFurnitureBySue). I told her about the peeling problem I had with the Rust Red paint. First thing she asked was who manufactured the paint. I told her Anita’s Craft Paint for the rust red and DecoArt Americana for cherry red. She informed me that the proper term for the peeling was crocking, and it was an indicator of poor-quality paint. She was not familiar with Anita’s Craft Paint, but that DecoArt Americana was a high-quality paint which she uses. Here are the paints I referred to in my earlier post.

Geoff, good to hear from you! I had been following your build long before I started my Conny and then you just stopped posting in Jan 2019. I hope everything is OK with you. Did you finish your model, any more pictures, etc.?

Thanks Rokket, I need all the encouragement I can get! Eventually, those knees will be accompanied by more structural members as I populate the gun deck with the guns after I work on the stem. Jon

In case anyone is following where I am in the practicum, it’s Chapter 9.1.5. I skipped over Chapter 7 for the time being. In any case, this the part where the practicum adds the “iron red” (plans state “red lead”) waterline stripe. According to the Model Shipway plans, the stripe is “not an historic feature.” By this statement, I assume it was added in the twentieth century. But since this is a US Navy commissioned ship (oldest commissioned ship still floating in the world by the way), anything the US Navy does to the ship is, by definition, historic. Here is a blurb from the USS Constitution Museum newsletter from 2017: As most of us Conny builders know, this ship has been constantly modified. The red waterline is no different than painting the ship white with a red gun stripe like a hospital ship. So yes, I’m adding the “historic” red waterline. To make things a tad more interesting (read more complicated), the Model Shipway plans show the red stripe between draft marks just about mark 21’ to the top of mark 18’, which at scale is ½” wide. There are photos to show this is correct …aaaannnnd photos to show this to be wrong. The composite image below shows multiple locations for the top and bottoms of the red waterline stripe - top of draft mark: 23’, below the mark 23’, and top of mark 21; the bottom locations at just above mark 18’ and below mark 20’. ‘When the ship is floating, the actual water line on the boat is at mark 19 and just above 21’. Since there doesn’t seem to be a definitive position for the red waterline, when in doubt, follow the plan, in this case the MS plan which appear to follow the US Navy 1844 Draught & Lines plan #11249 which shows the high and low draught range.

Copper Completed Finally…the major milestone has been reached – The coppering has been completed, including the stem, keel, stern, and rudder. I’m estimating it took cutting, embossing, and placing 2,600 -2,700 plates to do the job. I’m glad that’s over and done.

2,500 or so Copper Plates so far My copper tape roll ran out 24 plates shy of completing the hull. However, I was prepared as Hunt’s practicum warned me that may happen, and I also read the same accounts in a couple build logs. This did not include coppering the stem, keel, stern, and rudder. Also, it was not unexpected that the oxidation color of the second roll of tape was of a slightly darker hue. Over time they will even out going from shiny new copper to old penny brown, and finally green copper oxide (if the model lasts that long).

As I mentioned, I have no experience with square rigged sails. That being a given, going from 1:75 to 1:100 is a big difference (to me at least). Take a micrometer, and measure the thickness of the sail cloth and figure out what the scale thickness is. If it sounds reasonable, then use it. But, if scales to something like 2" thick sails, for example) I'd think about using something else. A thought just came to me. If you look at real sails, they are semi-transparent; you can see the shadows of the masts through them. What if you use grocery store plastic bag material. I mean the kind groceries are put it as you go through checkout. They are semi-transparent, very thin & flexible for the scale, strong, and some come in a light beigse canvas color, and you can glue parts together. Just a thought.

I have never installed sails as I have only completed one square rigged ship. My logic, with no experience to back this up, tells me to add the sails after all of the standing rigging is done. It's called standing rigging, because that is what is left when the sails are down. If there are any required blocks and other do-hickys (that's a technical term) needed for the sails that could be installed prior to the sails, those should be pre-installed. Here's something to think about, you could install furled sails instead of the full blown sails (that's a play on words🙂). It would allow the viewer to see more of the ship's details but still have all of the running rigging. Think hard about what material you are going to use for the sails. Any cloth will be out of scale. The cloth will be too thick and maybe too stiff, the cloth weave too big, and any actual stitching on the sails, too large. I've seen model makers use fine cloth, silk, tissue paper (kind used on flying balsawood framed planes), and even thin formed plastic. It's all a matter of effect and the skill to pull if off.

You used the term “ballistic netting” That netting is used to hold the crews’ hammocks for airing when not in battle and as a shrapnel barrier during battle. So, I suppose the term “ballistic netting is somewhat correct. Take a look at Post 224 Robnbill’s  Mamolli Build 1:93 scale (close to Billings Boat 1:100) to see how it looks when filled. As for order of rigging, that is a matter of personal preference and skill. I’ve only done one other square-rigged ship, the Rattlesnake (which you can use the link in my signature) and I followed the theory of rigging the ship as it would have been done for real. In that case, I partially rigged the bowsprit at its base first, then moved next to the mast steps from the fore mast, back to the mizzen, rigging those portions of the masts. Then to the next mast step up, interconnecting the mast as required etc. I was trying to work from closest to the mast outward towards the bulwarks to have the least amount of rigging interference. Other builders build their mast completely off ship to have the maximum access to all the nooks and crannies. They assemble all three steps and place as much stuff onto the mast they possible can before installing the mast as a unit onto the model. This creates a lot of loose rigging hanging from the masts which must be meticulously tracked and not get them tangled. In both cases the yard arms were built off ship. I left mine loose held in place as would they be on an actual ship. Others pin the yards to the mast. Some people work stern to stem, some stem to stern. There is no “right” or “wrong” way. How am I going to rig my Conny? Probably some combination of all methods.