David Lester

Hi Techsan, I'm no expert, but judging by your pictures I would say that you have done a beautiful job so far. I think your model is well worth continuing with. I'm not sure how many of the remaining parts you feel you need to replace, but if you still have the plans, it shouldn't be too difficult to determine what you need and then source them from one or more suppliers, or buy the wood and fashion some of the replacement parts. Another option, although it would be expensive, is to try to obtain a whole second kit and work from it. I know the Mamoli company is not longer in business. Some of their kits are currently available from Dusek, but I don't believe the Constitution is one of them at this point. However, I'll bet you could still find one either through one of the major retailers or on ebay. I guess a third option would be to finish it off in admiralty style, it's almost there now. However you choose to approach it, I would encourage you to continue with this model. This model is crying out to be finished. David

Thanks for that link Bill; I hadn't actually come across it yet. Although I am no where near the rigging stage, I have pored over the rigging plans at great length and have figured out their system. It appears arcane at first, but is really quite logical and well delineated. I also highlighted every part/line number with two different colours - one colour for lines and another for parts (blocks, deadeyes etc) which should speed up the process of cross referencing the number on the plan to the number on the list. David

I think you're right Bill. There's a certain integrity in its imperfection that would be lost if I re-did it. My grandfather was a Toronto firefighter and after he retired, my dad got possession of his leather fireman's hat. Its condition was a bit beaten up and my dad thought it was a good idea to freshen it up with a coat of shiny black paint! My brother has the hat now and while it's still a wonderful keepsake, to a large extent its beauty, meaning and value have been largely compromised by its shiny black surface. I think maybe I'll leave well enough alone. David

Thanks mog for your comments. I really do appreciate the beauty of a natural finish like the one you're currently doing, but until I can consistently cut every plank off within at least 1/4" of the stem or stern post, I'm afraid it will be paint for me. David

Thank you all for the input. I'm debating right now whether or not to repaint and re-rig it. David

So here's the model I was referring to. I don't know who the manufacturer of the kit was and I don't know what ship it is or if it's an actual ship at all. As I mentioned I built it in 1975. Somewhere deep in my reptilian brain the name Black Swan is lurking, but that could be a false memory where I'm confusing the name Black Pearl with the fact that there is a swan on this model. I don't recall much about building it, but I do remember that the spars all came as square stock, and as a complete novice I was upset that they expected me to do something as outrageous as round square stock. At the time I was still going to school and we lived in a tiny walk-up apartment in Toronto. I built it on a folding TV table and with almost no tools. If anyone is able to shed any light on this model, I would be really interested in hearing your thoughts. Thanks!. David

I have a question for the moderators. In 1975 when I was 23 years old, someone gave me a model ship kit which I built and still have. I did a pretty lousy job of building it, as I had no idea of what I was doing and it's currently in poor condition. I have scoured the internet trying to discover what model it is. I cannot find anything that appears even similar. My question is this, can I post a picture of it on this forum to see if anyone recognizes it? My concern is that I don't know whether it's a Chinese knock-off or not and I don't want to cause any trouble by posting it if it turns out it is. But now that I'm seriously interested in this hobby, my curiosity about this old model is growing. Many thanks, David

Hi Bill, That's a great idea for the instructions. However, I had already photocopied the instructions and enlarged them on 81/2 x 11 which is working quite well. With careful reading, the instructions are actually good and the plans seem to be very clear. I'm not finding too many problems in this area. The Mastini book has the best Italian-English nautical dictionary I've come across; certainly better than anything I've found on-line. Thanks to the generosity of Doug (Heronguy) I now have my own copy. David

Thanks for that link Dave. I took a look and it seems like a good approach. His results were quite nice. I'll give it a go next time. David

Hello Everyone, A little progress to report. Last time, I had made a failed attempt at painting the decorative molding for the transom. I think my second attempt has worked well enough. I read about the technique in a Blue Jacket newsletter; it was a new idea to me, but probably old hat to most of you. I first soaked the piece in vinegar, which was a good thing as it removed the cheesy looking gold finish on the cast metal, which might have interfered with a decent paint finish. I then primed the piece with white primer and then applied several coats of a bronze colour. As as rule I seldom like using metalic paints, but I have to admit that this Model Master bronze worked really well. Then I painted it with polyurethane to seal it - (one which requires mineral spirits to clean up, not water.) Then lastly two coats of the blue, not worrying too much about getting it on the bronze, and just wiping it off the high spots with a dampened rag. I'm sorry the pictures aren't better, but my camera doesn't focus well at such short distances. I have also finished the second layer of planking and I guess now it's time to paint the hull. I know that sounds like sacrilege to some but I tend to like painted hulls. This year we are having the rainiest spring I can remember, so more time in my basement than I expected. David

Happy Thursday Everyone, I have a bit of progress to report. All three decks are planked, the bulwarks are finished and the base for the forecastle railing is installed. I am now started the second layer of planking which is going along well enough. You'll notice several different colours in the wood, none of which is intentional; it's just the different woods that the kit supplies. At the same time, I'm painting the cast metal "carving" that goes on the transom. I read what sounded like a fool-proof method to apply two or more different colours with very crisp differentiation. As a result of my skillful application of that method, the piece is currently soaking a a shallow tray of paint stripper. I'm taking pictures at various stages of the process which I will upload once I have an acceptable result. David

Hi Dave, Your model is looking beautiful! David

That keel doesn't appear to be too hard to fix. You haven't broken the rudder off yet? Breaking rudders off is my specialty (and I have quite a few sidelines too.) On my Constitution, reattaching the rudder for the second time was the very last thing I did. In any case, you're moving right along quite nicely. David

Thanks Scott, I too spent a bit of time earning the Italian terms for the parts. On-line translation was only partially successful because some of the terms are as unexpected in Italian as others are in English. For example, a 'caviglia' is literally an ankle, which turns out to be a belaying pin (I'm glad I figured this out before I started the rigging!) and 'bigotta' means bigoted, but in context is a deadeye. 'Bozzello' was easy - it translates directly to block. So it was a combination of inference and on-line reference. Not too hard to learn, but more difficult to retain! David

Good Evening Everyone, It was a rainy day all day today, so perfect opportunity to work in the shop. A little progress to report. Thanks for the vote of confidence Dave, but I think I'm going to paint this model nevertheless, probably similar to the MS version. I've finished planking the bulwarks and they're in the process of being painted. (I planked the main deck earlier and have put down some tape over it to protect it from paint, glue and coffee while I'm working on the rest of the model. I installed the bulkhead and I've planked the upper hull with the finish layer, have it sanded and the gunports cut out. We'll see what the weatherman brings tomorrow - if it's sunny I'll be edging gardens. I hate to hope for rain, but sometimes it's hard not to. David

Breaking things as you go is par for the course for me. I snapped two of the masts off my Constitution after they were rigged on two separate occasions! I had to strip off the upper rigging in each case, repair the mast and re-rig it. The culprit was my swing arm light, which I swung across my workspace at too low an altitude. Have you ever watched the show Veep? The language on that show couldn't hold a candle to what I came up with, especially the second time. But you're right, almost everything is repairable, so no real harm done. Your Bluenose is coming along beautifully. David

I couldn't agree more that it's better to stand rather than sit for much of your model building. When I built my workbench many years ago, I built it very high, so it's really comfortable for working when standing. I also have a stool, rather than a chair, so I can sit at it comfortably as well. I would say that I spend my time about 50-50 standing vs sitting when I'm working. The only problem I discovered when it came to rigging my Constitution was that the workbench was too high for some of the upper rigging. I had to move the model to a card table. An adjustable table for your bench sounds like a great idea to me. David

Good Morning All, I've been doing some deck work as you can see in the pictures below. Choosing paint colours for this model has been harder than I expected. I know many have built this ship leaving it for the most part natural, with only minor painting and this is the way it's shown on the Mamoli box cover. However, I do not yet have the woodworking skills to produce a natural model that I will be happy with and I'm afraid I will again be resorting to paint (and lots of it!) But discovering the "right" colours is easier said than done. The MS version shows a black hull, off white below the waterline and with a pale yellow strip along the gun ports, which looks quite pleasing to me, but does that shade of yellow seem right? In the MS instructions they talk about yellow ochre, but that certainly isn't yellow ochre in their photo. They also suggest gray for the bulwarks. I don't recall having seen that colour used before. Does that sound right? It's moot in any case anyway, as I've settled on red for the bulwarks and gun carriages. I also recall seeing photographs of a reproduction of the Rattlesnake with a largely yellow ochre hull (as opposed to a black hull) with some black and lots of blue accents. Is this one of those cases where nobody really knows what colours it might have been, so it doesn't matter too much what I choose, or are there indicators out there somewhere that I am missing that would strongly suggest one scheme over another, or am I overthinking it altogether? Any thoughts would be most welcome. David

Hi Dave, Thanks very much. Yes, I just started a build log for the Rattlesnake. And I'll try to be a little more diligent about keeping it up to date than I was for this one! David

Have you seen this google maps "tour" of the Constitution. I know it represents a different configuration than the version you're building, but you still might find it helpful. I referred to it all the time. https://www.google.ca/maps/@42.3725618,-71.0567171,3a,75y,29.78h,66.99t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sF1i4AxBGxW4AAAQZLBJ9WQ!2e0!3e2!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en&hl=en For my gun carriages, I just bought paint at the hardware store in a sample sized container. I know that's not good modeling practice, but I figured for only the gun carriages how big a problem could it be. This way, the colour selection was endless and if I didn't like the first one I tried, I could easily try another, (without another 40 mile drive to our nearest hobby store, or wait for an on-line order) and the price is about the same as for model paints. My black and white paints are Model Master and I found a Tamiya colour - Desert Yellow - which worked well when I needed to simulate a natural wood finish. David

Hi Doug, Just getting caught up on this build log (although I'm familiar with your PdeN.) It's coming along nicely. Fun to see the differences between the AL and Billing kits. David

Thanks for the likes and comments; much appreciated. I don't know about a case for it. I don't even know where it's going to go at this point. It's currently sitting on the mantelpiece, but it is tending to overwhelm the room. It might go to my daughter's office, we'll have to see, then dusting will be her problem. David

Thanks Doug and thanks for the tips on the Rattlesnake instructions Doug. I did something similar. I didn't transcribe them, but I made enlarged photocopies of the English part of the instructions, the parts lists and rigging sections and am working from them along with the plans. I agree, as printed, they are very difficult to read. David

So, spurred on by my return to the forum with my Constitution, I'm starting a build lot for my Mamoli Rattlesnake. I bought this kit through Cast Your Anchor in Toronto who were able to track one down for me. At this stage, I have the first layer of planking on the hull, the false decks in place and some of the planing on the bulwarks done. This is my first non-Model Shipways kit and so far it seems to be ok and so far so good. I needed to shim a number of the bulkheads, but that doesn't seem to be out of the ordinary. I had a bit of trouble getting the transom set correctly. The tabs in the rear deck didn't seem to want to line up with the slots in the transom. If I forced it, things didn't look quite right, so I cut them off and measured carefully against the plan and I think things are ok. I have the Bob Hunt practicum for this kit, but have to admit I'm not actually using it. For this particular kit, his practicum involves much kit-bashing. I chose not to go that route, because it involved ordering Hahn plans, changing their scale, ordering special wood etc. all of which I didn't want to get into. While the practicum claims to be helpful if just building the kit out of the box, it really isn't as all of the pictures only show the kit-bashed version. The kit instructions (which appear to have been translated out of the Italian by machinery) are actually quite good, once decoded as are the plans and I think I'll do just fine with them alone. Despite essentially building the kit out of the box, I am making a few minor "kit-bashing" choices nevertheless. There are cast metal parts representing the windows in the transom, the doors under the quarter deck, the head rails and the crosstrees, all of which are pretty crumby. I'll be making all of these from scratch. I have started the doors in the picture below, but they are not completed yet. I think I'll use the cast metal part for the curving scroll work around the transom, as it will look ok once painted and for sure a whole lot better than any carving attempt I might make. I read about a painting technique in a Blue Jacket newsletter that looks like it might work well. One picture below shows the cast metal windows which I'm discarding and the start of my alternative windows in the transom. I'll try to do better than with my Constitution build log and post another update before a year has passed. David

Hello Everyone, I've been feeling a bit embarrassed about my build log for some time now which I've allowed to become virtually non-existant. I became very lazy about taking photographs and making updates, and then the more time that passed the less inclined I become to update. Nevertheless, I finished my Constitution in April, so if I upload photos of it now, I hope you'll forgive me for the huge gap in the middle. I pretty much had the hull and its details finished when I last checked in, so it's primarily the masts and rigging that I haven't reported on. The rigging end of things went quite well generally. Making the masts and yards was very enjoyable and not particularly difficult. I didn't find the rigging too difficult either, but at times the shear volume of it and its finicky nature were a bit daunting. It was very frustrating to stop for lunch (and a quick fix of CNN) only to return to my shop and discover that I had tied a whole set of lines on the wrong side of something. I'm sorry to report that this happened to me more than a few times. However, every time it did happen, I tore it out and redid it. I am certain that there are many errors in my rigging, but at least I can say that none that were apparent to me went unaddressed. This was my second build and I couldn't have enjoyed it more. It was the model I wanted to do from the outset, but I chose to build the AVS first as a practice piece and I'm glad I did. I didn't find the Constitution to be especially difficult (although it had plenty of challenges), it's really more a matter of the volume of the work it requires that might be overwhelming as a first kit. I used Bob Hunt's practicums for both the AVS and the Constitution. The one for the AVS is excellent and as a complete novice, I don't believe I could have worked my way through the model without it. For the Constitution, the first half of the practicum is also excellent and I found it an invaluable resource. However, when it came to the rigging, it was quite a different matter. This part of the course is so full of errors and omissions and with a confusing approach that in many ways it hindered rather than helped. I did buy the Lennarth Petersen Rigging Period Ship Models and it was a very helpful resource. I know for a fact that my family is glad this project is done. They seem to take great delight in teasing me about how much I tend to talk about it and at what great length. At Christmas, my sister-in-law innocently asked "how's the model coming along?" at which point my son jumped in with "Oh my god, whatever you do, don't ask - do not engage - do not make eye contact - do not show fear!" But their respite is to be short lived as I have now started on the Rattlesnake. Here are some pictures of my completed Constitution.