Jump to content
MSW Spring Donation Drive

CharlieZardoz

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    964

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by CharlieZardoz

  1. CharlieZardoz
    So next up is experimenting with paints, stains, oils and polishes, setting up the electrical wiring, heading back to the lab to make the laser keel and transom out of the good woods and then of course planking! Until then here is the captain hanging out. The brass lamp will get lit up by the led show and then hung up in the cabin area to make the lighting. Stay tuned!
  2. CharlieZardoz
    Oh and the keel was modified as well! Now it comes in pieces more like the historical ship and comes together nicely. This is still a test in basswood but soon it'll be cherry pear or boxwood.
  3. CharlieZardoz
    The cabin area itself was polished up a bit as well. I added a piece of wood to add the incline for the rudder area. I also decided to reattach the sides of the cabin back since the interior area as it will be planked. See how wood can be added and subtracted so easily
  4. CharlieZardoz
    And the hatch hole was finished as well and is the appropriate depth.
  5. CharlieZardoz
    The stern needed some reconstruction so I added some wood putty and now it looks much more as it should. It looks so much nicer now
  6. CharlieZardoz
    Aside from that all the lines for where the planks will be set are done including the steelers and drop planks. These are suggestive and I expect them to change a bit in actual practice. To help understand the flow of the wood I used these two pre-bent strips.
  7. CharlieZardoz
    The hull itself needed much more refining and was sanded up some more and now it fits perfectly in all the acrylic templates. These are laser cut templates so they don't have margin for error like the cardboard ones. This included sanding the keelson. The wood with lines is a 4mm piece that came with the kit and represents the thickness of the finished keel, the two lines represent the thickness of the veneer planks so when the ship is planked it will flow smoothly towards the keel with no bulge.
  8. CharlieZardoz
    Hi Philly well there is a local shop down the street that sells basswood sheets of the appropriate 1/32" sheets however I am using Boxwood not Basswood for most of the hull including the transom so that I got from Jason at Crown Timberyard. I have a whole assortment of sheets now of different woods and different sizes 1/8" 1/16" 1/32nd" 3/128" etc. I would suggest you look up Chuck's practicum as it is a great resource for Sultana. For now here is the abridged version of what I've been up to. First the transom template was modified to make sure the windows matched the size of the quarterbadges. They will all eventually get their own frames and windowpane using microscope slides with the transom made of boxwood which is cut using the laser I rent. The two pieces overlap. In order to get the transom the right size for the laser I simply scanned the plans into my computer and kept them in jpeg (so the size stays the same). I modified the transom to Chuck's recommendations and then uploaded it to inkscape (I think that was mentioned before in this log). If you don't plan to laser then simply cut it with the knife the old fashion way
  9. CharlieZardoz
    Ha! Perhaps you mean this? 2 bananas 1 pear 3 romaine lettuce leaves a handful of spinach 2 celery stalks and flax seed powder everybday for breakfast. Really gets ya going
  10. CharlieZardoz
    Yes will update soon. Just been tinkering with stains oils for planking and also starting a revenue cutter among other projects just havent had time to add to the log
  11. CharlieZardoz
    Lots of fascinating info. The post 1812 sloops/brigs in general are a strange sort as there doesnt quite seem to be a direct evolutionary lineage simply throw it to the wall and see if it sticks approach. If it sticks work off of that. The Lawrence is crazy far more than Somers. I know bluejacket had an old model of the Perry which is how I know of her. Interesting design what makes you call it crazy? Also curious what made cyane such a successful design vs boston being mediocre. Perhaps just a matter of balancing? It seems like the navy tried balancing cheap with effective to cut corners where they could yet ensure a useful ship and part of that was arming them and rigging them as much as possible which made whatever attributes they did have moot. If they kept them as auxillary warships as I imagine they were meant to be some may have been more effective but those extreme designs sheesh.
  12. CharlieZardoz
    I do love these charts you do Talos. Keep em coming they give a unique perspective like look at those top 3 erie and grice very wide at the stern while eckford seems wider at the bow. And look how tiny Dale is. Nice to see one Boston class got imaged. So did all 3 designs get used or do we not know which of the 3 became the class?
  13. CharlieZardoz
    So I have a question what led to the change in ship colors from the 1840s to the 1860s and 70s namely the removal of the typical white stripe in exchange for all black sides or with narrow white lines like saratoga. Then some ships like Tennessee who never had a white strip got one added during the 1870s when it seems the navy was going for a more traditinal appearance. But curious if there was a navywide change or did some ships still keep the stripe alongside those who didn't. Was there a system or was it random.
  14. CharlieZardoz
    What about Ericsson's Princeton and the incident of the Canon explosion which ultimately led to Monitor having its powder reduced. How did those guns compare with Dahlgrens?
  15. CharlieZardoz
    Wonder why Congress only had 32s. Shouldnt the navy armaments been more regimented by then? Was there a benefit to 32s quicker firing perhaps? That dahlgren is pretty sweet looking.
  16. CharlieZardoz
    So one of these then? Was there an actual threat by these guns to the Virginia? From what I see the Minnesota also had them and fired tons of shot at the ironclad. The Cumberland seemed to do the most knocking out 2 guns and causing some internal damage but can't tell if that was from the gunfire or from the ram getting lodged into the hull and ripped off.
  17. CharlieZardoz
    What do you mean by "weak" shell guns on Cumberland? I seem to recall the CSS Virginia attacked her first since they feared the shell pivots could do the most damage and wanted to quickly incapacitate her via ram.
  18. CharlieZardoz
    That makes sense. It seems much of the sailing navy's technological narrative was in the perfecting of the sloop of war. They tend to be overlooked by the big frigates but both the frigates and line of battleships seemed like they hit a niche and that was about it. But much of the US navy was comprised of smaller ships with only one gun deck and a lot of that over rigging seemed like ego compensation by commanders that wanted their ships to be bigger than they were which started all the way back with the brigs like Enterprize and Syren. And so began the quest of finding a design which was a decent fighter but also sturdy fast and useful considering much of the American coast is comprised of rivers and shallow waters. The sloop was really the ideal type of ship for civil war blockade duty, they were much cheaper and well suited for the new type of weaponry and seems that sloops kept on evolving and being useful long after most of the larger ships were no longer a priority for the navy.
  19. CharlieZardoz
    It's a good book yeah very informative and explains a lot about what the state of the navy was during that transitional time. That chart is also quite nice. I can see how much bigger Jamestown, Constellation, and the razed sloops were vs the other ships, also understanding why these sloops kept getting bigger since the small ones like Albany seemed to get lost at sea. I wonder if St Mary's design was related to her serving in the Pacific... hmmm
  20. CharlieZardoz
    It's a bit sad to see these powerful and quite sleek ships not really fulfill their intended purpose. I mean yeah by the civil war large broadsides were effectively useless against shell cannons and maintaining such ships were costly but can't help but feel bummed seeing them as floating barges or worse solt at the stocks like the New Orleans (see pic) or New York. On another note I did want to bring up this odd/interesting ship design from that weird era the USS Congress of 1868 which replaced the ill-fated 1841 ship. Originally named Pushmataha one of several Contoocook class steam sloops many of which were never launched and all of them built with unseasoned timber due to the war expending stock. She looks like a fairly attractive ship but had a fairly short life due to the oak being rotted after only a few years. Pity.
  21. CharlieZardoz
    My guess is also New Hampshire. I dont believe Vermont ever received proper masts which I see in that image (actually I was wrong).
  22. CharlieZardoz
    Well from what Ive read the 1870s was a weird time for the navy. Almost like a bunch of old timers who wanted to bury their heads in the sand and forget that iron and steel ships had made wooden sailing ships obsolete. Quite alot of funds were allocated (wasted?) on refurbishing the old ships and put them back in service despite being functionally useless. Ships like Tennessee and Florida (I think those were the ones) were modified to look more like merrimac class steam frigates but that said this weird period of stagnation is essentially why constitution and constellation still exist today as they were extensively rebuilt and had Hartford been maintained she would have possibly survived to present day as well.
  23. CharlieZardoz
    While I've seen many of these before, I've not seen them in this hi quality so definitely some nice finds
  24. CharlieZardoz
    I've been considering renaming this topic "American warship research and information gathering" since it seems that is much of what we are doing. It's a joy bringing all of these bits of history together on one source for those to seek out if need be. Here is a few more images from the figureheads book, one shows sketches of the bust for the John Adams along with Macedonian, Independence, Philadelphia and Syren, the other images busts from many of the 74 gun ships. Enjoy!
  25. CharlieZardoz
    Hi Wayne! Yes you are correct. Standard wasn't really a term at that time but I was thinking more in terms of standard function since those parts by the bow would have been what most frigates required at the time before the bulwarks and railings became solid in later designs. Also though the railings from Philadelphia and New York were reconstructed by Chapelle (after the erroneous reconstructions by Henry Allen) so it's likely he took the railing idea from Constitution (and Boston's plans) as a reference? The bow does look a lot like Constituition I must say. And Talos those are some wonderful looking images there. Is it wrong to say I have a thing for boat butts!

About us

Modelshipworld - Advancing Ship Modeling through Research

SSL Secured

Your security is important for us so this Website is SSL-Secured

NRG Mailing Address

Nautical Research Guild
237 South Lincoln Street
Westmont IL, 60559-1917

Model Ship World ® and the MSW logo are Registered Trademarks, and belong to the Nautical Research Guild (United States Patent and Trademark Office: No. 6,929,264 & No. 6,929,274, registered Dec. 20, 2022)

Helpful Links

About the NRG

If you enjoy building ship models that are historically accurate as well as beautiful, then The Nautical Research Guild (NRG) is just right for you.

The Guild is a non-profit educational organization whose mission is to “Advance Ship Modeling Through Research”. We provide support to our members in their efforts to raise the quality of their model ships.

The Nautical Research Guild has published our world-renowned quarterly magazine, The Nautical Research Journal, since 1955. The pages of the Journal are full of articles by accomplished ship modelers who show you how they create those exquisite details on their models, and by maritime historians who show you the correct details to build. The Journal is available in both print and digital editions. Go to the NRG web site (www.thenrg.org) to download a complimentary digital copy of the Journal. The NRG also publishes plan sets, books and compilations of back issues of the Journal and the former Ships in Scale and Model Ship Builder magazines.

Our Emblem ®

Modelshipworld - Advancing Ship Modeling through Research

Nautical Research Guild ® and the NRG logo are Registered Trademarks, and belong to the Nautical Research Guild (United States Patent and Trademark Office: No. 6,999,236 & No. 6,999,237, registered March 14, 2023)

×
×
  • Create New...