CharlieZardoz

Then I redrew all the lines. So aside from some minor shaping I plan on doing by the transom, the hull shaping is essentially done for the 31 pounder anyways. Note the lovely curve at the edge of the hull which curves slightly upwards at the bow and stern and note the pencil line on the bowsprit where the deck is supposed to line up. Next up is going to be the beginnings of adding planking lines in preparation for the planking. Crew added for dramatic effect, that guy in the front though... "metaaaaahhllll!!"

Thanks Mark! And here we have the same approach to the bow. Took a small piece, sanded it down and glued it on removing the excess then sanding and filling. You can see the areas where lighter wood filler was used before I used the finishing filler in natural color. Everything was then polished with a fine sandpaper.

Quick update on this post I came to realize that the 1797 unidentified schooner in Chapelle's book has actually been likened to be the Dilligence II class revenue cutter with Eagle a member and most likely was a plan for the class. Also a nice looking reconstruction of Eagle exists. While this doesn't help much with the mystery that is Enterprize, it does help me with the mystery of what ship that draught represents as well as gives a nice image of what a similar and slightly smaller contemporary to Enterprize might have looked like.

Ah wow yes and scratch done as well. If I can work with these etched ones with the bolts already applied and they look correct then yeah thatll do however I may go this route as well. Would also like them weathered a bit so they look as they would in use. Was their a historical size for plates or did it vary?

Ah and I see these photo etched ones for Amati that come in 5x17 mm and 6x19mm look very nice!

Then Caldercraft has these which are supposedly 1/72 but at 6.5 by 17mm so sort of the same size as the other ones? But edge detail looks more to scale.

I'm looking at them now seems 1/64 plates for amati are 8 by 18 mm. There are also these Caldercraft ones at 5.5 by 18 which look nice however some I see have rivets all the way through while others only around the edges. What's up with that?

Hi all. Since my current model will require copper plates I am curious if there is a particular brand or company which is considered -er best or best quality maybe? These will be 1/64 scale were all copper plates relatively the same size or did it vary? I did look around the site but didnt see anything regarding preffered brand.

Also you should pick up the Anatomy of the ship book for Beagle and that has very accurate detailing. You may also want to research Cherokee class brig sloops there were tons of them and a few of them might have had images of them recorded. Like for example this is the figurehead of the HMS Forrester while not a beagle shows the size and placement of the bust

I suppose it was to help the ships appear more like menacing warships since the US fleet was so much smaller than the British or French the idea of making our small fleet look more imposing must have been a factor. I mean the Continental navy was comprised largely of sloops and galleys, then we upgraded to schooners then brigs then sloops, building what was essentially affordable with a few superships scattered about. Regarding Enterprize I imagine she must have looked something like Prince De Neufchatel by the time of 1815-1820 after all her rebuilds. Could be wrong on that but with so many possible changes I could imagine the two might have looked similar.

I typically see some sort of Beagle-esque design on models that people have built. You can also inquire with those who are building the replica in Chile and see what they plan on doing. This goes for coloring as well most of these images are taken from google, There is no specific answer so you may as well get creative while also working with what was fashionable for the time.

And that's about it. I added enough to make the joint perfectly smooth no way of telling there was a piece added. I will do the same for the bow piece shortly. Once you think of wood as clay sculpting, you can add and subtract as much as you want. And fingers of course always work best!

For the record I've been using two types of wood filler, the left one is a white powder and dries very hard, good for providing strength when adding to the wood. The second is a soft filler using wood fibers and good for shaping and sanding. Regarding glue I've come to prefer the instacure for the thin pieces. Water based glues will take a thin strip and warp it the same way one does when plank bending. Which in the case of this process is not desirable. That said, watch out the stuff dries fast with little time for resetting!

Basic approach was to take a thin veneer sheet of basswood and then sand to create a flat wedge. Glue it on then shape it to become part of the hull.

Ok guys so here's what I've been up to. Having to make minor corrections to the hull before the planking arrives. So this was my approach, cut out two side profiles one with the keel and one without to fit the hull in. The deck is the dotted line so I made sure to cut the top following that shape exactly. As you can see the bow and stern both need to be built up a bit plus there is a small bulge towards the bow that needs sanding. Easy fixes!

Ah yes there it is! I understand now the schooner rig isn't immediately apparent of course but that makes sense now seeing this list. I guess in the same way the brig waned in usefulness after the 1830s the schooner was even less utilized as the sloop of war and steam ships became the backbone of the navy. So did this Boxer class remain schooners their entire career? Also Grampus is such a lovely looking schooner and some of these others I'm reading about right now never noticed them before. Cool stuff.

Hmm, I'm not sure but the ship draught I am inquiring about is this one, the Boxer 1831 Enterprise and Experiment which doesn't look like the 16 gun brig to my eyes. Actually I think it is similar to the "brigantine based on Dolphin" but can't be that one since it's from 1835, but like an improved version or some sort yes?

Talos has there been any progress on the plan for John Adams after sloop of war conversion? And wow look at those sloops! Were some of those conjectural brigs used? I don't see Boxer among those listed.

Yeah I imagine it's matter of knowing builders inclinations, taking known dimensions and then knowing what was the fashion of the time and putting it all together. Canney also suggests the plan might also be of Merrimack or at the very least a very similar example which with a bit of imagination could come together as a nice model. Talos I'd love to see the brings lined up, specifically a lot of the ones from 1830 onwards when brigs became less of a staple in the fleet, so Boxer, Perry and Lawrence for examples. I've been looking at those old Bluejacket kits that exist of Boxer and Perry one day I'd like to build those so finding those ships of particular interest at the moment. So that said I suppose I should ask what were the identifiable traits to a Fox plan or a Humphrey's plan? Or Hackett or Griece? I imagine there is a design evolution that each follow on their own way (of course some of them were specific to the time they lived) but that'd actually be pretty cool to see how the plans from each builder evolved over the years and what each builder brought to style and structure (sleek or bulky lines, more/less traditional). Interesting stuff!

Ill be updating soon and thank you for the kind words same to you and yours as well. For the moment Im doing minor hull corrections for the 30 ton ship as the bow and stern need to be built up a bit (sagging a bit at the ends) then finalizing the shape very minor stuff until the planking arrives. Crown Timbreyard offers offwhite holly strips which I think look more natural as decking material so excited to do my first plank work and learn from it

Yeah Talos great help with the explanations and diagrams thank you. Seeing them lined up adds so much perspective. That's what Im thinking though some of the ships (as long as the dimensions and ornamentations have been recorded) could be recreated as reasonably accurate models if one chose to do so since they followed that shrunken 44 design for the most part. Id say replicating Merrimack, Maryland or Patapsco is possible (I forget what info exists for which) (paging sir frolick), but then you have other ships like General Washington or Montezuma where replication is probably impossible unless you are John Millar and have that gift lol. But also if you wanted to lets say use these two plans to build two ship models and give them names according to the aforementioned ships which would work best and why in your opinions?

Thanks Mark! So far so good he's out of ICU but he has a lot of recovering to do. It's been quite a crazy year for sure.

Greetings everyone! Will make a ship model update soon. Basically last few weeks have been difficult ones as our 4 cats got ill suddenly all started vomiting stopped eating an drinking. Antibiotics cured them however my oldest boy of 19 was too frail and weak to recover and passed shortly in his kitty bed. Then after that one of my closest friends was hit by a car and has sustained significant injuries. Keeping positive and will be getting back to work (waiting on my Crown Timbreyard wood anyhow) and just trying to make it through the holiday season... :/

Hello everyone! I would like to take a quick moment to discuss the unidentified 20 gun ship referenced in Chapelle's book. It is used as an example of what some of the subscription and Contracted sloops of 1798 may have looked like. That said it gets a little confusing to me so would like to defer to the great collective wisdoms of this site for clarity. So first off we have the 3 ships Merrimack, Maryland and Chesapeake (which was renamed to Patapsco). All were around 24 guns and all seemed to have quarterdecks. Donald Canney and Chapelle seem to point to the plans below as being a similar example to these ships but can't be them because the plans are dated 1799. We then have ships built by private contractors Connecticut, Portsmouth, Warren and Trumbull. The first seem to be 24 gun sloops while the latter are 20 gun. There was also a brig named Richmond. Descriptions of their carvings have been recorded to varying levels of completeness but no plans however we can assume they were of similar ilk. That's the easy part, next we have a bunch of ships which appear to be purchases. These ships are the General Washington, Montezuma, Ganges, Adriana renamed Baltimore, another renamed Delaware, Herald and two brigs named Norfolk and Augusta. Of these ships it seems that the General Washington was the largest and most impressive. Also many of the others share commonalities to merchant ships and were likely conversions. Chapelle offers a second plan of a through deck sloop with merchant-like qualities of 18 guns which based on dimensions and design I am assuming could represent what some of these ships looked like. All these ships were essentially replaced in 1801 when the superior(?) Federal and subscription frigates were put into service. This period is fascinating since so little is known about it (much less than even the subscription era that came afterwards). So let's say one wanted to build a model based off these two plans or of some of these aforementioned sloop (mini-frigates?) how would one go about it? By this I mean lets say I wanted to build Merrimack, Patapsco or Maryland one day using the figure 22 plans as a guide is there enough info to do so? Same with figure 23 could any of the merchant ships look most like that one if any? Could the Warren or Trumbull which had no quarterdeck be examples of such a ship. This is of course all conjectural I'm trying to determine what ships have a decent amount of information preserved vs those which have none. So lets discuss

I'm inclined to disagree about shipways the detailing is the best especially vs the old euopean kits (which are very meh) but you are also going by images of the models and how they should look when built then look on this site for that as some ms Constitutions build logs on here look great. Don't look at the images advertised for the kit since they always built quickly for advertising purposes not a work of love. Remember a kit is only about a third complete ever if you want a model to be as detailed as possible you have to bash it and scratch parts.