CharlieZardoz

You also have the problem of finding enough commands for the higher ranking officers too. Can't have a Captain commanding a brig, after all. But certainly a large part of it is small fleet syndrome: they'll never have the numerical advantage, so each hull has to be as useful and powerful in that class as they can be. That's a big part of the reason for the 44s in the first place.

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!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

Fine tuning the shape was done with acrylic templates made at the laser shop which don't bend like the cardstock. Also the deck camber was accomplished using an image from the plans of Lumberyard's Lively which was very generously emailed to me. Making a little curved wood piece I added the camber to the deck. The deck itself was a piece of 1/'8" and 1/16" basswood sheet glued onto the top of the wood sections. It worked out great!

Grampus is a favorite  of mine, I love her lines. Such an elegant schooner. As far as Boxer and her sisters, they were all converted into brigs. Heavily overloaded with guns and boats, they had a large sail area and were considered tender, but good sailors. That was the case of most of the late US brigs, which all were extreme designs. Two even were lost to capsizing.
 
The Navy never really loved the schooner rig. They tended to buy them when needed and get rid of them quickly. There was always a surge of popularity around wartime, like the War of 1812, but they didn't last long after that. Several were converted to brigs, like Enterprise, Vixen, and Boxer, while others were simply gotten rid of, or lost (they had a higher loss rate than the larger ships). While the brig has several advantages over the schooner, including better performance on a wider range of wind directions, much better ability to cope with battle damage, and more maneuverability, I get the feeling that to the USN, the schooner was never a "proper" navy design. The Navy wasn't really much for small ships anyway, instead purchasing many of them for a specific mission, like the Anti-piracy operations in the Carribean, or anti-slavery patrols for the Africa Squadron (this mission was done by the naval construction ones instead). By the time you get to the 1830s-1840s, the sloop (which has grown larger and larger) is the backbone of the US Navy alongside the heavy frigates of the Brandywine class, pushing out schooners and brigs from above.

Correspondence involving the conversion of the 1799 Enterprise from a schooner into a brig following her 1811 repair, states that it was done to make her a "more stable gun platform". This was done on her then commander's initiative (Lt. Johnston Blakeley), and it was approved by Washington Navy Yard's commandant, Capt. Thomas Tingey, and then SecNav Paul Hamilton signed off on it.

Well yes, multiple ships with the same name.
 
In any case, as the 1831 Boxer was built as a schooner, I had her on the schooner sheet (just like Vixen).
 
EDIT: That top plan you have is likely Enterprise. Chapelle notes some differences from Boxer, including the missing molding under the gunports and the lack of curved rail coming from the head to the knightheads.
 
The closer one to Humphreys' design for Boxer (while not being an exact ancestor) is his 88' brigantine (in my sheet it's the one after the Brigantine based on Dolphin), which was one of a number of small sip designs he made, including studies of schooners between 100' down to 88'.  That Brigantine based on Dolphin is just a simple lengthening of the brig, but it features the correct body plan Dolphin was built to, not the original lines visible in the plans.

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?

The 1815 Brig USS Boxer may have been one of the two unnamed brigs shown above. The unnamed 18-gun brig has the unusual feature of having ten broadside ports, plus a bridle port. Makes her look quite powerful! The only other brig so equipped was the 1803 Argus, as rebuilt in 1811, when they added an extra pair of ports and carronades.

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.

I...crap, in my overzealous quest to even the two sheets, I must have missed it. I'll update the sheets later and add it. As far as I know, none of the proposed brigs were built, the USN doing it's normal neglect of small ships.

I've been busy and totally slacked on John Adams. Did other ones recently, completing the Bittern Crane, the original Macedonian, Epervier, a gun brig, revenue cutter Morris, and doing work on the second Macedonian, Brandywine, Sabine/Santee, and a few odds and ends.

EDIT: Oh, wait Boxer (as in the later one) is on one of my schooner sheets.

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.

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

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