JSGerson

Gundeck Gunport Framing The gundeck gunport framing is more complicated than I thought. At this point I am not following the nice detailed instructions in the practicum because he is not kitbashing the model, so I am constantly second guessing myself. The consistent benchmark from which all measurements originate is “top of gundeck.” However, my “top of gundeck” has not been completely rebuilt yet as the 1/16” decking has not been installed on top of the 1/32” plywood support. The kit plans show that the top edge of the gun port sills is 3/8” from the top of the gundeck. I want to use a spacer block as a jig to ensure all the sills are installed at the same height be having the sills resting on top of the spacer. But because I have installed the gundeck waterway, the spacer must rest on it rather than the plywood. The top of the waterway is 5/32” from the top of the plywood. The top of the spacer goes to the bottom of the sill. Confused yet? I was getting myself lost, so being a visual person, I made a dimensional plan. Now I know (I think) that if I lay a 5/32” thick spacer block on top of the waterway, the sills lieing on top of the spacer, should be at the proper height.

You make it look easy...OK, easier than it actually is. I'm just starting the gundeck gun ports myself and I'm glad I have your build log to help guide me. Jon

According to the kit plans, the bowsprit rests at angle of 25.5 to the deck°. To my delight, so it is on my model. As you can barely see from my photo below, the dowel that is to become the bowsprit needs to be beveled so it fits flush to the face of bulkhead “B” as well as have a tenon carved into it to fit into the bulkhead “keyhole.” Using my disk sander, I made the bevel. The dowel was then inserted into the bowsprit slot to verify proper fit. Then, with a fine paint brush with a small dab of white paint, a mark was made on the face of the dowel by painting it through the “keyhole” while on the model. The tenon was made with an X-acto knife. And as stated above, because this part of the bulkhead was removable, fitting the parts was relatively easy.

When I did the lobotomy on the bulkheads and keel to create the gun deck, I spliced off that part of bulkhead “B” which had the “keyhole” for the bowsprit to lock into. When I did that at that time, I thought, “Oops, I should not have done that;” but I did not throw that piece away. (If the truth be known, I don’t throw away anything that I think I could use sometime in the future. Luckily(?), I don’t have a significant other, or she would have toss me out 8-). It was fortuitous that I did. It made it a lot easier to fit the bowsprit into it during the carving process. If you look closely at the base of the “T,” there is a wedge of wood I used to level off the part. I had cut the bulkhead off at a slight angle. In addition, due to the waste from the cutting process and the addition of the plywood, the part no longer fit. The wedge corrected both problems. Note, I haven’t decided yet whether to glue the bulkhead back on now or wait till the deck planking is finished. If I wait, the planking will be easier, but I will have trim down the bulkhead again for the 1/16” planks.

Fitting the Bowsprit If I were strictly following the practicum, Mr. Hunt would have me plank the spar deck bulwarks “without concern for the locations of the gunports.”The reason for this was as he stated, “Later, when we have framed the gunports out, we will cut the openings through these strips.” I will have to check out the wisdom of this method before I commit to it. So, skipping that section brought me to the last section of Chapter 2 of the practicum, fitting the bowsprit. The first thing that needed to be done was to create a concave surface on the stem for the bowsprit to rest on. A curved file did the trick.

On a Side Note… In anticipation of constructing gratings for the gundeck, I contacted Model Expo, the manufacturers of Model Shipways models. They have a guarantee replacement policy for lost, missing, broken, or even builder screwed-up installation parts. My situation was different, I wanted to buy an additional laser cut “Part S” to use for the gundeck. This is the part with all the gratings. I was trying to be honest. I called them on the phone and finally got a hold of “John.” He sounds like a really busy guy because some days he doesn’t answer the phone and you have leave a voice message. He will get back to you…most of the time. I told him I wanted a special order. I wanted to buy a USS Constitution kit part. I guess this was unusual because he had to email someone in order to get a price and would contact me later with it. Three weeks later, after 3 follow-up calls, it turns out that at present, their computer system cannot handle this type of special order. They were in the process of upgrading their system so in the future they could do special orders, but not just now. He then told me to request the part as a free replacement instead, which I did. I offered to buy the part and pay shipping which they couldn’t do (?), but a free replacement, no problem, go figure. It’s been 3 days since I requested the “replacement” part…we’ll see what happens.

The gundeck waterway was installed in two pieces like the spar deck only it falls short of the bow. That portion of the gun deck won’t be seen. This made it easier to bend the waterway. A little touch-up with glazing putty and sanding at the waterway joints, and the they were painted green. It’s much easier to paint them now than later.

I determined which and where the openings in the gundeck were to be, measured for their locations and cut them out of the plywood gundeck support pieces. Not only did the support needed to be cut, but areas of the keel and certain bulkheads under them had to be modified to allow the installation of ladders. The support pieces were placed back onto the model, so I could mark where the keel and affected bulkheads needed to be cut. I figured that approximately 1” in depth needed to be removed to give the illusion of the berthing deck below. I thought about just painting those areas black, but if light hit those spots wrong, the bulkheads and keel might be visible, and the illusion would be lost. Images below were taken just before the plywood was glued down.

My two cents about the open waist. Here is the US Navy plan for the open waist dated August 2009.

Very nice pictures. I've added them to my reference library. The gun deck is looking great too. Jon

I'm amazed you even attempted those carvings, let alone succeeded in pulling it off! Well done!

Welcome to my build Bill, pull up a comfortable chair because anyone who has followed my builds, knows that I am sssssslllooowww. The practicum I am using as a guide was written by Robert Hunt and can be purchased ($100 plus $60 for the rigging instructions) on his site Lauck Street Shipyard. I bought mine as a bargain sale. If you are new to ship building or have limited experience, or just plain intimidated, his practicums should help you. They are not perfect, but without his document, I could not have started my Rattlesnake, let alone build it. If you follow his instructions, you will get a nice model. If you use his practicum as a guide and use the wisdom of the build logs on this site, you will get a superb model. Jon

The simple answer to your question kmart, about percent scaling of the US Navy plans to fit the 76.8 scale of the kit is…I don’t know. For the complex answer, I need to explain. In order to reduce the size of the gun deck plans, I used my super sophisticated CAD program, MS PowerPoint. I don’t have a real CAD program or any “Photoshop” type software. The first thing I did was import the plans images (two separate images) into PowerPoint and align and group them into one complete image. So now the fateful question arises, how small do I reduce the plan image? I needed something on my model that I could measure and in turn measure on the Gun Deck plan. I chose the distance between the Main Mast and the Foremast. I believe that was about 12” or so. Along the edges of the PowerPoint work space are rulers, one vertical and the other horizontal. Using the horizontal PowerPoint ruler, I reduced and positioned the image so that the mast separation reflected the distance I measure on the model. To print the plan, the image had to be in 3 positions, so the print area covered the complete image. The 3 prints, each with a portion of the complete plan, were then aligned, taped together, and trimmed to fit onto the model. It was then that I discovered that the PowerPoint ruler was inaccurate, the printed mast positions did not match the model. Since the built-in PowerPoint ruler left something to be desired, I made my own I knew the distance between the mast as 12” so I drew a line in PowerPoint between the masts in the image, added 13 tick marks of equal spacing to create the ruler and printed it, and compared it with an actual ruler, made adjustments as necessary and printed again. After about 4 or 5 tries of readjusting the image size by trial and error, I got a match. Now with the accurate PowerPoint ruler to measure the mast separation, I adjusted the plan size and voila, a perfect template.

Beautiful!

Only the most discerning eye would know that there should be a plate and that it was missing. 99.99% of the observers of your model wouldn't have a photo of the real ship to compare and be observant enough to note the omission. You however are in that 0.01%. If this is something that will eat away at you, then by all means fix it. If however, you claim artistic license, well then, beautiful work, you should be proud. Jon

Those openings which will be covered with a grating, do not need to be cut. So, the only places which do require cutting a hole, are where the ladders pass through the hatches to the berthing deck. That should be easy too, I have the US Navy plans to show me where to cut…But not so fast. I have two detailed arrangement plans for the gun deck, one dated September 30, 1931 and the other November 1927. For the gun deck main hatch, they don’t match. To make matters more interesting, neither of them match what is existing today. My original assumption was that the 1927 version was the “before” and the 1931 was “after” the restoration. But somewhere along the line, there is what actual exists, so the plan is to build the reality.

Gun Deck Waterway – Plywood Foundation There are several different paths I could have chosen pertaining to what to do next. Some builders installed their framing for the gun ports, others worked on the transom. Since I just installed the waterway on the spar deck, I decided to install the waterway on the gun. To do that, I purchased a large sheet of 1/32” plywood and using the US Navy plans for the gun deck as a template, three pieces were formed to fit onto the bulkheads. This has a twofold effect; it provides a solid smooth support for the gundeck planking and it smooths out any imperfections in bulkhead heights and shapes of the deck when I modified the bulkheads and keel. Once the plywood is installed, the waterway will sit on top and against the bulkhead frames just like the spar deck. I decided that since the interior of the gundeck bow from bulkhead A forward would be unviewable, that portion would not be detailed. Before I can secure the plywood to the bulkheads and keel, now would be the time to cut the holes for the masts and any openings that may be seen through the open planks I plan to leave on the spar deck. The masts were simple enough, I drew the center line on the 3 plywood deck pieces and measured where the mast opening had to go and cut them out with an X-acto knife. That worked just fine. As noted, the plywood is not glued down in the photos below.

Phenomenal job! Thinking ahead to when I get to this stage, or in your case looking back in hindsight, would it have been easier to make the triangle panels from a single piece of wood with openings cut into them rather than assembling 4 tiny pieces with extremely tight tolerances? Or would the solid piece just fall apart due to the nature of the material at that scale? As you found out, just the slightest deviation causes alignment issues. For such a small item, there are an awful lot of components. Out of curiosity, what type of wood did you use? I can't imagine you used basswood for this. Jon

More digging: Per Fisherman Outfitter How accurate / authentic the information is, I don't know. The choice is yours. Jon

Thanks for the feed back. I got curious about the life preserver and found this at Nauticapedia: So yes, the Constitution could of had a life ring (kisbie), but not until 1855 or later. Jon

Very nice recovery on the bowsprit steps. I have to admit, I'm very leary about making ladders and stairs. Consistency in the steps geometry is paramount. How did you make them? I checked back in your log to when you first made them and you didn't address your method. Were they hand cut? If so, that is some precise cutting; or did you use a milling machine? I have a long way to go before I get to that stage, but I'm already apprehensive. Jon

You may have noticed that when I originally cut the bulkheads to allow the formation of the gundeck, I left a remnant of the spar deck on the bulkhead. The waterway was fitted against the bulkheads and glued to these short outcroppings. Then the planksheer, made from 1/16” x 1/16” basswood stock, was fitted and glued on top of waterway, also flush against the bulkheads.

I found that I could not fit the curve onto my piece of ½” wide wood. Instead I opted to buy a 3” x 3/16” piece of basswood from my local hobby store. This enabled me to make a one-piece pattern directly from the kit plans. Note that in either case, the stock wood was 1/32” too thick and had to be sanded down. As mentioned in the post “The Next Step”, the waterway has a trapezoidal cross-section that changes as it moves away from the bow and stern. Mr. Hunt made his bevels using an X-acto knife. I’m not that good that I could make consistent cuts over the length of the model. I chose instead to use my $10 mini razor plane I got a Micro-Mark some years ago. The curved section was however had to be formed with the X-acto knife, files, and sanding sticks.

The Waterway and Planksheer The waterway is made from 5/32” x 5/16” basswood stock. This is fine for most of the waterway but trying to bend this thickness of wood from bulkhead E forward around the inside of the bow would be exceedingly difficult. For this reason, the practicum directs the builder to use the ½” x 3/16” basswood stock supplied with the kit to make a two-piece pattern for the curve for each side of the bow as shown in the images below.

You've got a great looking model and I hope mine will eventually would look as good as yours. Jon