JSGerson

Most builders who documented their builds, created their trail boards from two pieces of wood using the profile in the plans. I couldn’t quite wrap my head what the final shape was supposed to look like or how to insure I had the proper dimensions. The rails bend in all three spatial dimensions. Also, I didn’t trust that my model truly matched the plans, so I used my as-built model and the photographs of the actual ship as my guides. The result was that instead of two pieces, I ended up with three (not counting fudge factor pieces): The rail on the stem, the hull, and the transitional curve between the two, which for me was the key piece.
 
The angle where the trailboard meets the hull was measured using a profile gauge which was original transferred onto a piece of card stock to make a preliminary template which you can see in the first image below. Once I assured myself this would work, the process was repeated on 1/8” thick piece of stock basswood. A parallel line was drawn to it as well a parallel line to the basswood edge which would eventually represent the hull’ A curve was drawn representing the outer edge of the rail as it transitions from the stem to the hull. Satisfied, the process was repeated an additional three times so that a total of four transitions pieces were created: the upper and lower rails for each side of the hull. Based on the photographs, the upper transitional curves were a bit smaller than the bottom ones. Additionally, the hawser opens were constructed using the precast white metal parts from the kit. The back side (shown on the right accounts for the wale being proud of the hull. You’ll notice, my openings as seen from the front butt up against each other per the image from the actual ship and not the plans. In the image, the hawser assemblies have not been trimmed to their final dimensions at this point. Once installed, the hawser holes will be extended into the hull so that the anchor lines will be able to pass through them. The hull trailboard rails have not been constructed yet at this point.

After numerous false starts, restarts, hesitations, and wasting time, I got the pieces partially glued together all the while measuring, remeasuring, checking and rechecking and still I had to do a bit of fudging to get it to this stage.
 
I discovered from photos of the underside of the trailboard taken during the 2015-17 restoration, there was a “support shelf” (my term) that is not shown on the kit plans or installed by anyone else that I could find sufficient details on. I did not find a US Navy plan of the trailboard rail construction. The last image shows two pieces of 3/64” x 3/16” basswood stock per side that will be used to create the “support shelf.”

Glad to be of help.

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.

As I feared, applying the transfers to the decal paper was a bitch. I had to use my headband magnifier just to see the digits, the guide marks almost disappeared when trying to find them looking through the transfer sheet, and of course I’m applying white numbers on white decal paper. To add a little more apprehensiveness, I could not afford too many mistakes because I had a limited number of transfers and mistakes were made.
Once the port and starboard decals were made, the bonding spray was applied and set aside to dry thoroughly. These were then dipped in water and applied to the hull. The process worked, but my alignments were not as perfect as I would have liked due to the difficulties I mentioned above. Micro-Coat Flat was then applied to remove the sheen and blend the decal into the background. From about a foot away, the numbers are almost too small to be read, so the imperfections are not too noticeable.

As I feared, applying the transfers to the decal paper was a bitch. I had to use my headband magnifier just to see the digits, the guide marks almost disappeared when trying to find them looking through the transfer sheet, and of course I’m applying white numbers on white decal paper. To add a little more apprehensiveness, I could not afford too many mistakes because I had a limited number of transfers and mistakes were made.
Once the port and starboard decals were made, the bonding spray was applied and set aside to dry thoroughly. These were then dipped in water and applied to the hull. The process worked, but my alignments were not as perfect as I would have liked due to the difficulties I mentioned above. Micro-Coat Flat was then applied to remove the sheen and blend the decal into the background. From about a foot away, the numbers are almost too small to be read, so the imperfections are not too noticeable.

As I feared, applying the transfers to the decal paper was a bitch. I had to use my headband magnifier just to see the digits, the guide marks almost disappeared when trying to find them looking through the transfer sheet, and of course I’m applying white numbers on white decal paper. To add a little more apprehensiveness, I could not afford too many mistakes because I had a limited number of transfers and mistakes were made.
Once the port and starboard decals were made, the bonding spray was applied and set aside to dry thoroughly. These were then dipped in water and applied to the hull. The process worked, but my alignments were not as perfect as I would have liked due to the difficulties I mentioned above. Micro-Coat Flat was then applied to remove the sheen and blend the decal into the background. From about a foot away, the numbers are almost too small to be read, so the imperfections are not too noticeable.

As I feared, applying the transfers to the decal paper was a bitch. I had to use my headband magnifier just to see the digits, the guide marks almost disappeared when trying to find them looking through the transfer sheet, and of course I’m applying white numbers on white decal paper. To add a little more apprehensiveness, I could not afford too many mistakes because I had a limited number of transfers and mistakes were made.
Once the port and starboard decals were made, the bonding spray was applied and set aside to dry thoroughly. These were then dipped in water and applied to the hull. The process worked, but my alignments were not as perfect as I would have liked due to the difficulties I mentioned above. Micro-Coat Flat was then applied to remove the sheen and blend the decal into the background. From about a foot away, the numbers are almost too small to be read, so the imperfections are not too noticeable.

The carvings were trimmed to fit the ends of the catheads and glued on. The catheads were finally installed into position on the model.

The carvings were trimmed to fit the ends of the catheads and glued on. The catheads were finally installed into position on the model.

The carvings were trimmed to fit the ends of the catheads and glued on. The catheads were finally installed into position on the model.

Cathead Assembly
The only parts left were the cathead sculptures. I know my limitations, and sculpture is not one of my talents. Taking a shot in the dark, I Googled “model Cathead carving” and found just what needed at AliExpress.com. It’s not an exact match, but it’s a whole lot better that I could have fabricated. It’s close enough for this scale. It takes a while to ship it from China but to be fair, I did this last year in anticipation of this, so I had the parts in hand waiting for my use.

Cathead Double Blocks
I got lucky on the double blocks. A friend of mine, a model train buff, was given a bunch of old ship fittings way back when. Because he knew I made wooden model boats, he gave them to me. Among the gems were vintage A.J. Fisher pre-stropped blocks which were the perfect size for the catheads. For all I know they may be 50yrs. - 60yrs. old. All I had to do was attach them to the eyebolts.

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.

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”.

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.

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.

The carvings were trimmed to fit the ends of the catheads and glued on. The catheads were finally installed into position on the model.

My first attempt to create the rudder top box also failed. I had tried using a block of basswood with a hole drilled into it As I tried to increase the hole size to accommodate the rudder shaft, it obviously got closer and closer to the edge of the block till it structurally failed. The green strip (1/32” basswood) reflects the internal counter bending toward as seen in the actual photo above.
 
Because the rudder top box will not be seen clearly, it did not require much detail other than its overall shape. That meant it didn’t even have to be made from wood. My second attempt, I tried cardstock. Using a single piece of cardstock, I fashioned a pattern with glue tabs which was then folded into shape. It worked. I gave it a splash of stain and you would swear it was made from wood.

After reading another build log, it was brought to my attention, that I should check the fit of the bowsprit. It was a good thing that I did. The dowel that will be use for the bowsprit did not fit. With the help of my rotary tool and a drum sander, that was quickly resolved. It is a lot easier to adjust that now, rather that latter.

At this point, the templates were removed, and new ones for the notches were put on the top surface. These were for the gunports and head access frames. These were delicately cut out with an X-axto knife with a fresh blade. Even then, I managed to crack one of the blocks near the big edge notch. PVC glue was used for the repair and I waited 24-hours for it to set to ensure a strong bond. These were then glued into place.

The top surface is slightly rounded, dropping down at the sides. I used a sandpaper block to create the curve.
 
The aft edge has a slight rounded profile in the plan view which was create by carefully following the lines on the template.
 
The aft edge is also angled in at about 50 degrees which as it turns out is the maximum my disk sander will handle. By keeping the wood flush to the plate and slowly feeding it into the spinning sanding disk using lines I drew on the sides as guides, a nice edge was obtained.
 
Finally, the aft edge has a rounded bottom corner but an angled top corner. This was created with the sandpaper block.
 
At this point, I got a very pleasant surprise, when I placed the completed transom filler block and dry fitted it on the stern post, it fit like a glove on the very first try. That doesn’t happen very often.

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.

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.