Talos

I recently visited Constitution for the first time, and it made me really want to pick up the pen and draw more. Revisiting a topic that we've spilled much ink over, I think I can push Constitution getting the six-port Gurriere/Java/Potomac stern as far back as her 1833 refit, not her 1850s or 1870s ones. A major part of that refit was bringing her up to the standards of modern frigates at the time, including planking in the waist and head. I was looking over various plans of Constitution I have and I noticed something I hadn't before on the 1849 plans. If one looks closely at the stern in the profile drawing, there are indications of the six-port stern, as you can see the sliver of the port-side ports on the gun and spar deck, and the centerline cutaway goes right through the center ports (marked with Xs). That fully fits the kind of refit she had at the time, which was followed up later when her ports were enlarged to fit the 32-pounders and 8-inch shell guns she was refitted with. I also noticed an illustration of the ship in France in 1878 carrying exhibits for the Exhibition there, where she is depicted with the full Gurriere arch instead of the "flarch" she had a few years later as a receiving ship and still has today. I would like to draw these out properly, compare them with other depictions of the ship, reconstruct them, etc, but I wanted to at least point out what I had noticed in the meantime.

I'm really sorry to hear that, man. Also, sorry for not being around much myself. I went back to school, got my master's, then COVID hit, then I got a new job and also got distracted with my 3D printer, writing (I've published a few short stories!), and other stuff, so I haven't been around much recently. I feel the same way, though; I need to dig myself out and get back to all this, too.

I'm in the middle of reading Desolation Island, so this is great timing. Thanks for linking it!

Those tracks came out really well! I agree with Gary, I don't think any difference in width is noticeable. I like the contrast with the deck and how they capture the look of tracks laid on top (like the real ones) without standing out too much.

Unfortunately, Fusion 360 recently had some major licensing changes that make it much less appealing to use.

Those new guns look amazing. Great work!

I don't often poke around in this part of the forum, but I was getting caught up and enjoying the build. You're doing a great job on it. As far as the converted Dahlgrens, fortunately we have a front view of a bunch of the ones from Trenton after she was sunk in the Apia, Samoa Typhoon of 1889. This provides a good view of the muzzle and also the iron carriages. Between Trenton, Vandalia, and Nipsic, there were a dozen of these converted rifles, both in pivot and broadside carriages. This is a Rodman, but it has the same kind of conversion as the navy guns, with the rifled sleeve inserted and you can match the muzzle changes compared to a normal smoothbore. If you look at the Dahlgrens above, they match.

This question made me curious so I poked around a little. I hope these pictures help. http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/450.htm

Excellent! That's how my experience with the National Gallery print was as well.

Mine isn't massive, fitting in an 11 x 14 frame with some matting. I had eyed prints online for years but never got one because of dodgy colors. I was pleased with the color on this one straight from the National Gallery though.

Rik, I have one of the National Gallery prints and it looks great. Yeah, the painting is beautiful and relaxing to look at. The colors are gorgeous, as is the sense of motion that draws you into it. It is sad too, in a nostalgic way that really encapsulates the Japanese ideal of "mono no aware", which you can define as "the pathos of things" or "an awareness of impermanence."

I love the painting and my family has heard me wax on about it before. As a result, when a few of them were in London early this year right before the travel lock-downs, they surprised me with a print from the museum the original is in. Got it framed, but have yet to hang it up. I also enjoyed Sam Willis' book on the ship and painting as well.

I actually restarted it a few months ago from scratch because I switched art programs. I wasn't going to say anything until I posted the redo. Heh.

The plans for Ohio's construction show the stern structure. The balcony was added when the ship was planked over, it was not there when the ship was built, nor were they fashionable for 74s since, what, 1810 or so? It's just scabbed onto the outside of the stern without other modifications, not even to the decoration. Throwing in a photo of Ohio at the breakers that shows some interesting detail. Edit: And a painting of a couple North Carolina-class ships to illustrate how the new generation of American 74s generally looked in the time period you asked about.

She is a snow-brig with a spencer mast behind the mainmast, but it is not truly a separate mast in terms of categorizing by the number of masts (eg. a two-master or a three-master). It is a small mast scabbed onto the back of the mainmast, it does not reach down to the deck and is attached to the mainmast at the maintop. They were a feature of the later Antebellum US Navy warships, which had them on one, two, or even all three masts. Constellation used to have two in the past on her main and mizzen, but still has the one on her mizzen today.

Portsmouth Dockyard had several drydocks in the 18th century, including a double-length one that could handle two ships. The current dock Victory is in was rebuilt around 1800 by Samuel Bentham. Here is a map from 1773 that shows several of the docks (the dockyard is at the top of the map).

I'm glad those were helpful in the past! Yes, those ports are right in the middle of the Great Cabin. The guns are normally not mounted there and only moved there when needed. During battle, the entire cabin is disassembled anyway, so it's all clear deck there. If you look at this photo of the inside of Constellation's great cabin, you can see her four main deck stern ports (currently open and with windows installed). As Roger commented, note how the inside is white-washed. The covers on the bottom ports aren't opened fully, so you're seeing the black paint on the outside of the port reflecting light. I'm also attaching a plan for the sailing sloop USS Plymouth's great cabin. Also a smaller ship and a different configuration (no quarter galleries for the latrines), but a round stern too so you can see how it affected the cabin..

First off, welcome back, I'm glad to hear about your recovery and see you back here. As for the picture, do you mean the white rectangle right next to the eagle? That's the inside of the lower half of the port spardeck stern gunport. The darker ones below are the black outsides of the two main deck stern ports, which are reflecting light because they are openly partially opened. In your lightened one you can just barely see the lower half of the portside port almost on edge with the camera. Tennessee had a round stern, where the timbers of the sides wrapped around the back continuously. This meant that instead of the open light structure and the array of windows like the stern of the frigate Constitution and other older ships, which were a major weak point (raking), it was as robust as the sides of the ship. It also meant that they could fit ports in the stern to cover the large blind spots on the quarters of the ships (roughly forty-five degrees back on either side of the ship). The sloop Constellation in Baltimore has a similar, but earlier form of this stern. Though the ship is smaller and lacks the quarter galleries, you can see two similar gunports on either side of the sloop Hartford's stern eagle here.

In lieu of what I was originally going to say, I am just going to sum it all up in one word if it is true. WOAH!

I've always liked the design for Boston. Cute little frigate. The plans were probably still in the possession of the original builders at the time since it was a subscription ship.

So I finally found the booklet William James commented on in his Naval Occurrences book. Unfortunately, it was up for auction last year. http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/lot.76.html/2017/books-manuscripts-americana-n09657 (6) Manuscript booklet “Dimensions American Ships,” including the Chesapeake, President, Constitution, New York, Adams, and Enterprise, approx. 55 pages with very detailed description of dimensions of hulls, masts, sails, etc., annotated “found in Chesapeake” in pencil on front cover, paper wrappers (4 x 6 3/8 in.; 102 x 163 mm). One of the preview images in the auction is a page of Constitution's spar dimensions.

Thanks, Charlie. Some of these get posted on my naval thread on Baen's Bar, others get posted in the naval subforum on Civil War Talk (where frolick also posts) like the Plymouth ironclad. This is the first place I've posted the Burrows pics, however. The major reason Plymouth never ended up converted is they ran out of time and she was too deep to make it up the James River when the North recaptured Gosport. https://civilwartalk.com/threads/uss-plymouth.144001/

I have not posted in this thread in a while, I started my master's degree program in the spring, and it has been eating up a lot of my free time. I have mentioned the brig Burrows several times before, and it still stands out to me. A beautiful, never-built brig of larger than average size and armed with around 14 guns, either 32-pounder carronades or 27 hundredweight 32-pounder cannons. It was designed by Richard Powell, assistant to John Lenthall. I was struck by the resemblance to Lenthall’s ship-sloop Germantown, so I stuck the two together, and it is very apparent. Above the waterline, the two ships are very similar. Similar bows, stern is the same shape, fore- and mainmasts are in almost the same locations, even the boarding ladder. I know US brigs normally didn’t have quarter galleries, but this one was huge, just slightly smaller than the Boston-class ship-sloops. I copied Germantown’s onto Burrows, and they fit perfectly like they meant to be there. All I had to do to tweak it was shorten the top part of the quarter gallery a bit to fit Burrows’ smaller hammock rails. I also included a drawing with her rig. I have a comparison of lines too, but I need to go back and work on it more so I will post it another time. Burrows LBP: 126'0" Beam (Molded): 30'0" Depth in Hold: 14'0" Germantown LBP: 150'0" Beam (Molded): 36'0" Depth in Hold: 16'8" This is another drawing I did for a prompt over on Civil War Talk. The sloop Plymouth was captured at Gosport Naval Yard by advancing Confederate forces (along with Germantown). There was a proposal to convert her into an ironclad, which fell through. I combined a proposed Confederate ironclad casemate design with Plymouth’s hull. I also included the armament, two 7-inch Brooke Rifles, two 6.4-inch Brooke Rifles, four IX-inch Dahlgren smoothbores, and a pair of boat howitzers. I did up several gun drawings as well, including the top view of Plymouth’s 7-inch rifles on pivot carriages, a new Marsilly carriage for the old IX-inch Dahlgren I drew. I also drew a British 64-pounder MLR of 64cwt and a British truck carriage for it. I did a drawing of Plymouth’s gundeck based on a combination of a plan In Canney’s Sailing Warships book, and a Library of Congress plan of Plymouth’s great cabin. I plan to use this on another forum to illustrate some armament and layout concepts, but right now it is armed with a mix of 32-pounders and 8” shell guns. I’m also including a larger copy of the two guns and their truck carriages.

Thanks, that's more than enough to work with.

Charlie, do you have a higher-res scan of Salvini A like you did with B? I think I'd like to fiddle with it some.