JSGerson

Out of curiosity, how did you get such beautiful consistent square cuts? Are you an expert X-Acto knife user or do you have a specialty tool you used?

Once the top masts were installed, the stays and ratlines followed.

To install the topmasts, the fid needs to be fitted into the masts. Per the practicum, Mr. Hunt simple glued square piece of ebony to simulate the fid. I chose to actual put them through the masts to ensure a good mechanical joint. It wouldn’t do well for the simulated fib’s glue joint to fail due to the tension of all the lines. It would be a mess to fix. Since I didn’t have any ebony, painted boxwood was used.

I made sure that the fid was no more than 1/3 the width of the top mast. You may notice that the fid is square in cross section and the hole is round. Here is a case where one does fit a square peg in a round hole! The very slight gap between the fids and the holes vanishes unless one uses a very strong magnifying glass and even then it’s hard to see.

I traded some Constitution plan images with DanO recently and found this 1906 plan drawing of the Orlop deck in the images he sent me. They were larger than the site would allow, so I've re-sized them to the max the site does allow. I don't know if you have it, but you got now.

From: A Sailor's Life for Me (an educational site for young minds)

Buried [aft] deep below Constitution's waterline was a strange, cramped, dark, place: the magazine. Copper lined the walls. The only light came through a window from a lantern in the next room. Sailors working here were forbidden to carry iron objects, and they wore felt slippers. These precautions were needed because the magazine was a store-room for gunpowder. If it got damp, Constitution's guns would not fire. And if just one spark entered the room, the ship might instantly explode.

 

I thought the illustration might be of some use...maybe.

Mine predates yours. Have have model 212...sigh 8-(

Like I said, I have an older version Dremel drill stand. Nothing rotates; you have to slide the head completely off the vertical pole and re-attach it in the horizontal position using a different opening in the head. I guess that's why they made a newer version. 8-(

I have an older version of the Dremel drill press than you and it only has two positions: vertical and horizontal. Obviously you were able to rotate your drill 45 degrees. After going online and looking at the newer Dremel drill press, I still can't see the mechanism that allowed you to set the drill to 45 degrees. Is there something I don't know?

Found these images of the powder room. I didn't know if you had them. The first one is the powder room the second is the scuttle to it. You will notice the room is copper clad which should add some interest to your model. I assume that the cladding prevents static charges so things don't go bump in the night.

Jonathan

I ran across this US Navy file I collected some time ago about the mystery pump (discussion started in post #248):

ConstitutionPumps.pdf

It confirms that it was a fresh water pump and dates back to the 1870's.

Unfortunately, now I cannot find the website source I got it from.

Dan - Nope, I don't have Nos., 24402 or 24403 on the CD. I even have a bunch of plans I downloaded from the US Navy (but can't seem to find their internet source now) and there not listed there either. If I find the Navy source again I'll let everyone know. If you can find your source who knows what else is there?

Jonathan

Dan - I have the CD from the Constitution Museum Store you describe but I can't find anything labeled: 'Drainage, Flooding, Fresh Water, and sanitary piping" or '0930 Orlop' or '0929 Berth' or '0928 Gun.' Are you sure it came off that CD and not something else? I plan sometime in the future to build my own Conny model once my Rattlesnake build is done. I'm gathering all my research material now so when I'm ready to build, I won't have that excuse not to start.

Jonathan

It's a thought, but I'll try adjusting the line first. I do have a supply of music (piano) wire in a variety of sizes.

GuntherMT - I did notice the alignment change. The problem I had, was that the stays are not very taught so any line attached to them is going to tug on it. I'll try to readjust them to reduce the obvious kink in the stays. Thanks for keeping an eye out for me.

Jonathan

Now it was just a matter of weaving the lines to make the crowsfeet and securing the euphroes to the stays.

After the second block was fashioned, the pieces were assembled. The lines for the crowsfeet were made long to ensure there was enough when it was rigged to the model. 

Once the block was attached, it too needed a loop so a line could be attached and fastened to a block attached to the stay. The loops at both ends were made using a piece of wire to form the loop opening.

Assembly

At one end of the euphroe is a small loop used to attach the center crowsfoot line. At the other, a four inch block needed to be attached. A four inch block works out to 0.0625” or 1.59mm. The smallest block I have seen/used is one made by Warner Woods West (warwoods@infowest.com) at 2mm. I was using his blocks before Chuck Passaro’s Syren Ship Model Company started selling theirs. However, Syren’s 2 mm are a bit bigger than Warner Woods’. Luckily, I had some leftover from my Evergreen build.

The pieces were cut off the strip and the ends rounded. A groove was filed along the length of the euphroes for the rope stroping.

Euphroe

The euphroe is a special type of “block” which gathers the lines coming off of the mast top. In my case, at 1:64 scale, it worked out to about 3/16” in length. According to Sproul, there was no universal shape used. He provided different examples from oval to egg to straight with various cross sections. At this scale I stuck with the very basic – straight with rounded ends.

I started with a strip of 3/64” square boxwood which I mounted on my rotary drill press stand equipped with an X-Y table. After numerous fiddlings and adjustments with the table to get the wood strip lined up with the table, I used a #78 drill to drill 6 holes for the main and fore masts and 5 holes for the mizzen mast euphroes.

I am amazed that I got what I did. The drill press stand is not ridged. Moving the drill up and down with the lever, has a minute lateral movement. To make matters worse, the drill (a product of Sears not Dremel) does not spin exactly on it center axis so it has a minute wobble. One of these years I’ll get a proper drill press…someday.

That being said, according to Mr. Antscherl, who quotes Steel, the crowsfoot  is made up of ¾” circumference line which converts to ¼” diameter rope (actually 0.24”). At 1:64 scale, that works out to 0.004” thread. That is thinner than normal cotton sewing thread.

OK, I need very fine thread. Trying to find some and getting what you want is not so simple. In the world of thread (at least for the normal consumer) there is sewing (needle point, embroidery, clothing, etc.), thread and fiber manufactures, and even fly fishing suppliers among others, nobody talks the same language and nobody talks thread diameters. Everybody it seems has different ways to describe thread sizes not to mention plies, weights, strength, materials, etc. except diameters.

Early on during this build, I tried using fly fishing thread size 3/0 (whatever that means) for sizing rope and didn’t like it much because the thread fibers were not twisted very much and would get a frayed look to it. Mr. Anscherl stated that he used brown 6/0 fly fishing thread. I don’t have a local source of fly fishing supplies and must buy mail order. The postal rates make the cost of a spool of thread ridiculous.

Going back to my only local hobby store, Hobby Lobby (which is more of a crafts store), I bought some hemp-colored two-ply polyester thread. That seemed to do the trick. As near as I could measure it, it came close to the desired diameter. Pure polyester doesn’t fray like cotton so doesn’t need to be waxed either. Although when looked at with a magnifying glass, it doesn’t have the look of rope, but at these scales even if it did, no one could see it so it doesn’t matter.

Crowsfoot

According to David Antscherl, it is now time to make the three crowsfeet. As it happens, the latest issue of the Nautical Research Guild’s Journal (Vol. 60, No. 2 Summer 2015) has an eight page article complete with photos, formulas, and diagrams by William E. Sproul entitled “Making a Crowsfoot Assembly.” How convenient…or so I thought. Up until this point I had initially followed Mr. Petersson (Rigging Period Ship Models) and then Mr. Antscherl, when I got his book. They seemed to match where their details over lapped. However Mr. Sproul appears very knowledgeable as well, but things became less certain with all the detail he provided.

To determine the number of ropes that made up a crowsfoot, I counted (as best I could) the ropes in the crowsfoot as indicated on Harold Hahn’s plans and got 13. Neither the Mamoli nor the Model Shipways kit used the crowsfoot in their rigging plans. Antscherl’s book on rigging a sixth rate sloop, which is very similar to the Rattlesnake had 23 ropes. Mr. Sproul gave a formula to determine the number of ropes which he said was between 10 -24; so far so good. However he also stated that the number would have been an even number. He stated:

“Having an even number of ropes in the crowsfoot allowed sailors to do all the rope handling from the top itself. Having an odd number of ropes would leave one end secured to the euphroe. Can you imagine having to shinny down the crowsfoot ropes to the euphroe on the stay every time an adjustment needed to be made…?”

 

Both Antscherl and Petersson show an odd number of lines and the crowsfoot line secured to the euphroe in direct contradiction to Mr. Sproul. Maybe it was done both ways, but since I had already drilled the holes in the tops with an odd number of holes, I will continue to follow Mr. Antscherl.

Here is an image from the opposite direction

Fine work!

I would strongly suggest that you add some pins to the stanchions so that you can anchor the assembly to the deck. I've read numerous build logs where the pin rails have been pulled off the deck when rigging lines were attached.

Dave, I'm sure you can make the necessary fixes and most people won't know the difference. Be aware however, there may be ripple effects as a result of the repair down the line as I found out when I compensated for my mistakes. Once your fix is made you will have to check everything from that point forward for fit because now you have deviated from the plans. One of the results of my troubles with the transom was the rudder. I really didn't have much room for the rudder post. It came out of the deck a bit too close to the transom wall, so again I had to be a bit creative.