JSGerson

Yes, a very impressive service record. I never got any further than 3rd year Army ROTC while in college, when I was released from the program for medical reasons in 1969. But that's another story. Up to now, I have not looked too deeply into the deadeyes yet as I have not gotten that far in my build. (In case you haven't noticed, I'm very slow). So, I took a look at the real ship's hardware and discovered that for the lower deadeyes, the wire is not twisted, but doubled. It's a loop that goes around the deadeye and is bolted to the chainplate from both sides of the loop. At your 1:96 scale, a single larger gauge wire, twisted just at the meeting point at the bottom of the deadeye might be easier to do and would look more real than the twisted wire going around the deadeye. Jon

Bob's practicum is a wonderful guide and I wouldn't have started the Constitution without it, but it does leaves something to be desired. If you check, he did not even come close to finishing his model. He only did enough to show you how he did certain things. I am using Mr. Hunt's practicum, but only as a guide. I learned to do that after I followed his practicum for the Rattlesnake. At first, I followed it verbatim, slowly I noticed some minor omissions and errors. I learned to follow other builders' logs and compare what they did versus what Bob did in his practicum and then chose the most appropriate path for my skills and goals. As for the soldering, what method are you using? When I solder brass or copper, I use silver solder (both paste & "wire") and a torch as oppose to electrical solder and soldering iron/gun. I haven't had too many problems provided I made a proper jig to hold the pieces to be soldered in place. Pictures would help to illustrate the problems you are having. Jon

That will work. Jon

I'll keep that in mind, thanks Jon

The wheels turned out great! I hope I can do the same when I get to them. Jon

Peter: When I planked the gun deck, I started from the center and worked to the edges because I wanted to ensure the planking to look symmetrical. Any inconsistences would be at the waterways and would not be visible due the guns and visual access. On the spar deck, I also started from the center for the same reasons. However, at the stern, the planks taper to match the narrowing at the transom and curve following the shape of the bulwarks. I wanted clean looking planks especially at the waterways due to their high visibility, so I also planked from the water waters inward. Following the method from the practicum, the planks were tapered from full width from the last hatchway to half their width at the transom. That worked pretty well. As the two planked areas approached each other, I had to make some minor adjustments due to my workmanship and subtle differences in the supplied plank widths. For the bow, once more, I started from the center to ensure symmetry. This time the planks did not taper, but the planks bordering on the waterway had to be custom fitted as they intersected the bow curve. Once more for their visibility, I started the planking from the waterways inward to ensure proper fit. As the two planking areas approached each other, I could see that some planks had to be narrowed a bit to ensure the last plank to fill the gap between the two areas was the proper width. Gregg: The bowsprit dowel has not been shaped other than the base to fit into the square hole in the bulkhead. It is not glued into place. It does however slide into its seat easier enough when I move it in and out of the model. All the mast holes have been tested to accept their respective dowel pieces at their proper rake angles. The mast seating and rake angles were set when I was adding the structure elements to support the spar deck. As for staining the deck, I’ve made some initial tests of different stains and combinations but have not yet taken the plunge and committed myself yet. Jon

Obviously, my color scheme will be based on a dry deck. On a working ship, however, I would assume the deck would look different because the sailors would periodically swab the deck and scrub with holystones, saltwater and sand. Also, because of the cut away areas coincides within the high traffic areas, a lot of the brownish gray areas won’t be shown on the model. There is one last area that still needs to be planked, the small area around the spar deck capstan. I left that open till I at least fabricate the capstan base. I don’t know yet if I need to plank around the base or if I can plank under it. So, in keeping true with one of Murphy’s Laws, “No matter what you have to do, you must do something else first,” before I can install the captain’s skylight, I must at least sand the planks, prepare for the capstan, and stain the deck.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the reason I had to plank the spar deck at this point was so I could install the captain’s skylight. Well, that will have to wait a bit more as I must sand and stain the spar deck first. And this brings up the question: What color is the spar deck? Well, it depends on several factors like whether the deck is dry or wet, was it sunny or cloudy when the photo was taken, is it a high foot traffic area (think tourists) or not. The main thing I noticed is there are two distinct color zones Low traffic orange tint - The area of the guns from the waterway to the end of the gun carriage and some spots along the centerline of the deck High traffic brown/gray - The public area for tourists. They tend to deposit dirt from their footwear, soiling up the walked area of the deck.

Unlike the stern, the 3/32” x 1/32” planks are not tapered as they approach the bow. The planks remain straight and those bordering the waterways were customed fitted into the curving bow. I planked the bow in the same manner as I did the stern, from the waterways inward and from the center outward. It did not surprise me, as the planking approached each other and as open space narrowed, I had to taper the widths a bit of some of the planks to ensure a proper fit when they merged.

That was beautifully done! Jon

The wheels look like a fun little project, so I'm saving them as my incentive and "reward" to complete the spar decking and the carronades first. I've also got to fabricate the spar capstan too. Jon

As you may know from reading my blog, I purchased two Syren ship's wheels a number of years ago in anticipation to replacing the kit's. Those kit metal wheels you painted look really good. What technique and color did you use? It's nice to know that if I screw up, I have a fall back option. I still have a ways to go before I can start assembling them, so it looks like I'll be following your lead. Jon

Out of curiosity, why did you cut the filler block such you had to mill out the notches in the top half blocks? If you had made the top half blocks thinner and the bottom half blocks thicker, you could have used your scroll saw to cut out the notches. The end product would have been identical, just simpler. In any case, you did a nice job. Jon

Beautiful!! Jon

Looking good. Gregg Jon

That's one handsome looking hull Jon

Good choices Jon

Here are a few images of the eyebrows. I have not seen anywhere what they are made of, but they look either like painted canvas or copper plate for water proofing. That being said, the flat wrinkly part looks very thin while the lip bordering it is just an inch or two. Jon

Let’s go back to the basics. You are building a model of a real ship albeit stylized with your choice of color palette. The real ship is black with a white gun stripe. It also has “eyebrows” and gun port hinges. Your model is stained dark where the actual ship is black, light-colored wood, where it is white and has brass for all the metal parts. the The "eyebrows" on the real ship are black and the hinges are painted white. Therefore, following that color palette, the color for the “eyebrows should be included on the model and match the dark stained wood, and the hinges should be brass. Granted, there will not be any contrast between the “eyebrows” and the hull, but neither is there any on the real ship. If you are not consistent, I fear the model will lose some of its handsome character. Just my personal thoughts. Jon

Where did I state 10 days? I'll correct the error if I can. It was 10 months. Jon

Knowing how you like to say "oooh shiny!"😲 I figure you'll pick the brass. Whatever your choice, either one works well. Jon

It's frustrating, I know. All I can tell you is to review as many other builds out there and try to follow one that you like best. I don't think anyone has done the rails and trailboards the same way twice. Just a forewarning, you are going to have just as must "fun" or more with the quarter galley windows. The laser cut window frames supplied with the kit are useless as they are the foreshortened shape shown in the plan elevation view and don't reflect their actual shapes. And no, neither the kit nor any other sources I checked, shows their actual shapes. But if were easy, it would be so much fun!😆 Jon

Peter, raggedness of the planks is deliberate. If I made clean cuts, it may look like the clean cut openings were part of the design of the ship to an ignorant (read "lack of knowledge," not "intelligence") layman. By making them ragged, I wanted to give the illusion that the deck was broken open to see inside. You may also seen that I did the same thing with the cut beams on the starboard side waist. Gregg, the jury is still out as to whether or not I fabricate the carriages. My heart says make the wooden carriages, but the practical side of me just paint the carronade and maybe get a better effect. I think I have one or two extra carronade to experiment with. In either case I still have to rig them. Maybe one or the other is easier to do, I don't know yet. Jon

I started planking the center of the spar deck, starting from the capstan opening and working my way back to the stern until it filled in to the width of the hatchways. Then I applied the planks against the waterways, starting from the stern and working forward. The stern was fully planked to just forward of the captain’s dining area, then the plank voids will allow the gun deck to be visible. The forward areas are yet to be planked.

The MS plans show the planks tapering towards the stern on the spar deck, with the planks from 3/32” wide to the transom at 1/16” wide. The model’s far aft area of the stern is to be fully planked. I started the taper of the planks per the practicum, from the most aft hatchway. Unlike the gun deck, the spar deck does not have a plywood sub-surface for planks to rest and adhered to. If I had not opted to create the gun deck, it would have. Still, the planking is relatively easy to do although I had to make minor adjustments as the support beams were not always at the proper height as I thought they should be. Also, in order to provide as much viewing space to the gun deck below as possible, I wanted to plank the minimum number of strakes to support the carronades. To determine that, I finally took out one set of 3-D printed 1812 styled USS Constitution carronades I bought from Model Monkey a number of years ago to use as a measuring stick. These are the vertical angle, screw adjustment, type. Just to reiterate, because the 1927 restoration version (with the wedge adjustment) on the actual ship are known to be historically incorrect, all the carronades on my model are to be of the more accurate 1812 style. After I removed the excess spruce from the raw 3-D printed carronade, something didn’t look right. Looking at the available US Navy plans for the 1812 carronade and carriage which matched the few 1812 style carronades on the actual ship, there were some glaring differences to the Model Monkey versions. The sled (the part that slides back and forth on the skid) was perfect. The skid, however, was much narrower. Also, the pivot base on the nose of the skid was fastened to the bottom of the skid. According to Karl Heinz Marquardt’s book “The 44-Gun Frigate USS Constitution ‘Old Ironsides,” their diagram matched the Model Monkey’s version with one exception. The pivot plate was fastened to the top of the skid, to rest on the sill of the gun port (which the actual ship’s carronades do). No way was this lower pivot plate going to work on my model. So, there are three separate versions of what is supposed to be the 1812 carronade: 1812 version carronades installed on the actual ship now Marquardt’s, diagram Model Monkey 3-D printed version and this doesn’t include the carronades installed during the 1927 restoration. Is everything clear as mud!!?? So, the conclusion is: NOBODY knows for certain what the carronades looked like in 1812! Therefore, as Captain of this might ship, I’m going to make the Command Decision to use the carronades I purchased from Model Monkey and modified the pivoting base…unless I change my mind. Now back to planking.