CharlieZardoz

The yellow or light wood whatever you want to call it strikes me as something similar to clipper ships and pilot boats of the time. I think it was too early for the white strip that Corel's Ranger suggests, however I'm taking it off a model of Dallas from shipmodel.net also images of Dapper Tom model that I've seen. But I'm uncertain so any sources others may be aware of could be helpful in my understanding. I know the bulwarks were white and the bottom likely coppered so it's what's in between which I'm considering my options and also I'd like each boat to be a bit different. Maybe Dallas will have a green strip, Active a red strip and Eagle a yellow strip or somesuch

So a little more investigation on this matter via a discussion with Dave at Lumberyard the general consensus is that the ships were painted using black, white and green with copper bottoms. The builders contract gives at least that, as for the breakdown of colors well it'd have to be some combination of that, though I'm leaning against the idea now that there was any exposed wood, though I may still do so for aesthetic effect at least. Note the color patterns in Lively (which I think is a model based off the 30 ton 1829 ship from Chapelle's book) and a beautiful model of Alabama a 51 ton ship.

Hi Wayne! The source is Dave S from Lumbreyard. As far as contemporary models I know of none. All I really have is this image from Chapelle's book (see below) which shows dark hull with a light stripe. These ships served such a limited function I am unaware of their likeness being recorded anywhere except the plans. What Canney and Chapelle state is that the plans were ultimately modified subsequent to these ships going into service, while Dallas, Surprise, Alabama and Louisiana were 51 tonners, the Search and Detector were a variation of some sort for northern waters. Also the Alert which is quite possibly based off the largest of the plans had cannon ports and probably looked like this model I posted below (the middle image).
 
Chapelle called Dallas and Surprise 79 ton ships, which seems to have been disproved by Canney who is certain they were 51 ton ships, but I have no idea what research was done to come to any sort of conclusion. I'd honestly like it more if Dallas was the largest but the history seems conclusive. They both state that Crawford and Eagle was probably of the bigger tonnages, Monroe, Wasp as well. Gallatin has no info except that she might have been South Carolina renamed. Chapelle does state that while Active (which he calls Alert) in History of American sailing ships page 194 was called a purchase there is no reason to believe the ship wasn't of the smaller type and it did have one pivot gun. Obviously Mamoli and Artesania Latina used Chapelle as a source when naming their models since that was the only info available at the time and while Alert was now proven to be something different entirely, I could make an argument that Active was a 31 ton Doughty cutter. At the very least when it comes to modeling it's the most logical name with which to choose since it's not like any plan of Active exists to prove otherwise and the ship actually led a reasonably busy career fighting pirates so I can live with that lol. Both Active and Dallas actually had busy careers so there is some personal interest in building models of them. Regarding the larger ships Eagle is the only one which has a confirmed tonnage on record and while yes that could be the work of Canney it's all I really have to work with plus someone built a model of Eagle which looks nice and I can use that as a guide of some sorts. There was one Eagle which was famous but that was the prior ship a beautiful looking brig and I think the Captain Frederick Lee commanded both ships, must have felt like a bit of a downgrade hehehe  

Tracking down these Doughty Cutters has been an on again off again project for me over the past few years.  Have you looked into what you can learn about the following in the Coll. 52, Daniel S. Gregory Ships Plans Library, Mystic Seaport Museum, Inc.  http://research.mysticseaport.org/coll/spcoll052/
 
52.33  UNIDENTIFIED; 60 ft. U. S. revenue cutter  Designer, Willliam Doughty; Builder unknown; 1825
52.34  UNIDENTIFIED; U. S. revenue cutter  Designer, Willliam Doughty; Builder unknown; 1815
52.36  UNIDENTIFIED; U. S. revenue cutter  Designer, Willliam Doughty; Builder unknown; 1815
 
The photo below is from Prologue | Fall 2014, available at https://www.archives.gov/files/publications/prologue/2014/fall/cutters.pdf
 
(NOTE - this would be the follow-on to the 1815 Gallatin - somewhat larger at about 80' and 112 tons). The apparent color scheme may aid in your estimation of what was the common practice in the early to mid 19th century.
 

Very nice work, sir. Are the models you show contemporary (1820-ish) or modern? Contemporary models are excellent historical references. Modern are at best interpretive, some based on research, others on artistic vision.

I wouldn't be quite so dismissive of Chapelle. More recent publications on USCG vessels rely heavily on his early to mid 1900's work (as I recall, he died around 1975).

I like the contract resource - always a good authority. Where did you find that one?

The attachment is removable. It's supposed to be for keeping the plank in place but really not necessary. Aeropiccola is long gone but from what I can tell their version is still the fav of those who use electric benders.
 
And thanks for that Feldman link Doc! Definitely future subjects of interest to me. I'd like them both 1/64 but that just means downscaling by exactly half, ezpz

Regarding the aeropiccola plank bender (the company which designed it), that's the one I and those in the Brooklyn group (including Dan Pariser) use. It's nice in that you have variation in how you extreme you can bend the planks however we don't bother with the attachment piece, it isn't necessary. Not sure why other plank benders don't have the same shape head it's extremely useful.

Thanks Mark! It came from the kit. I'm debating whether putting it through the laser was even necessary since as you saw the keel
s via the plans came out just fine (and the bow part was shaped funny). That deck also came from the kit as an etched veneer you can just slap on. The deck lines are worth saving though I plan to do the deck planking with strips but will use the resized image as a guide.
 
Again I've debated on whether to put this log in the kit or scratch section. Sultana honestly is 90% scratch this one is like 99.9% lol

And that's pretty much where we are now. For this project my next step will be to start sanding down the 51 ton hull using the dremel and then cut out bread and butter slices for the 31 ton ship. The slices will be 15/16" in length to keep with the scale so my plan is to take my two inch by 3 inch block and cut it with a table saw the blade should sheer off the needed 1/8" in between then cut out the slices using the templates and a scroll saw then glue them together and shape them. Rough example below. So that's building a very similar ship in 2 different ways which should be quite educational. Stay tuned!

So I returned from the lab with a bag o parts! And while much of it was for Sultana I did the two keels and some of the acrylic templates (ran out of material darn it)
 
Note the pic with the two keels alongside each other ain't that just fascinating how there is a slightly straighter "sheer" on the 51 ton ship.

MDF? You mean my mousepad? That's for the band KMFDM

The last step is to move or rotate the pieces to fit since the keel is stronger when going with the wood grain also it saves space. Rotating is just a double left click and last step is to change the px to .001 which is what my laser uses for cutting. Cutting is done in red and etching in black though different lasers use other settings. That's all there is to laser cutting!

I did the same for the templates.

After tracing bitmap is done, go to stroke paint and use the hollow box. This traces the image and then go to fill and x it out. Now you have an inner and outer line with white in the middle. Delete the inner line, the outer line will allow for some extra meat to the piece you want to laser burn since lasers will burn away a tiny portion of material at the edge and will make anything you burn too thin unless you compensate. After that you have to correct the image. Scanned images will be very rough and go to the upper left where it says edit nodes and simple delete or move the nodes which don't belong. The end result if done correctly will make a smooth line or curve.

I then prepared laser parts by scanning everything into inkscape/adobe. The keel was cut into 3 parts which increases strength by going with the flow of the wood. The templates will be scanned and cut in acrylic which like I did with Sultana help shaping in the final stages since they aren't flexible like cardboard can be. The process of creating laser parts is as follows. first add the image into inkscape, then trace to bitmap which makes a rendered copy of the image. After delete the image and keep the render.

I also took the opportunity to resize some of the parts/plans from the kit itself.  I literally just put the wood sheets into the scanner and then pushed the contrast waay up making the image black and white. I can then recut the parts using the laser at my workshop to the 1/64th size needed. In the future if I ever decide to resize another kit this will pretty much be the method to use, That said just a note regarding the kit templates, they weren't too bad but as you can see needed a bit of adjustment?

The keel and hull lines are all separated same as I did with Sultana and templates cut out with carboard. I did this for both models. NOte my Sigmund Frued action figure to the left. he assures me that I am perfectly sane!

So step 1 for me anyways is to take apart the plans into the pieces necessary for shaping and constructing the hull. Note that I superimposed the deck hatches etc. over the lines using bitmap so that way I can justge placement and size of everything that will have to be built on the deck. Also shows mast placement which on the wood block will be moved appropriately. Here are the top and side profile templates of both ships and both keels alongside.
 
 

Of course! And feel free to offer thoughts as we are all learning together

The 51 ton ship at 1/64th scale produces a model at around 10.25" (between perpendiculars) or 10.5" (deck length) and a width of 3 3/16". Not sure what the overall length will be as I have no basis to go off but I imagine it will be somewhere between 18-19" This one will be built using the hull block provided by the kit. The main adjustments will be to account for less drag in the larger ship and about an inch size between the 1/48 31 ton and 1/64 51 ton which will be shaped via a dremel. I am also using some plans from the modelshipwright site which had the Doughty plans in 1/72 scale which I simply blew up to the appropriate scale.  I don't plan on building the 80 ton at this time but someday perhaps
 
 
Again this attachment is to scale with the model I am making for anyone wishing to do the same!  The accuracy of the scale is within 1/16" of an inch (that's me doing it by hand not at a print shop), but close enough that no one would notice

So first the basics. The revenue cutter designed by William Doughty came in 3 sizes described in Chappelle's American Sailing Ship's book as 31, 51 and 80 ton. These ships were in service directly after the war of 1812 (1815 to 1825?) and were intended to replace those ships lost in the war. The 31 ton was about 46.3' long, the 51 ton 52.6' and the 80 ton 67'. There have been many models of these ships on the market and most have various levels of inaccuracies leading to quite a few unfinished logs on this site. From what I can see the Bluejacket kit did a reasonably good job of creating a kit from the 31 ton plans at 1/48 scale. At this scale the hull length is roughly 11.5" and 19" in total. Resizing the ship to 1/64th scale the hull length becomes about 8.65" and the overall length 14.25". This model will be built from scratch (using the block of wood done in a bread and butter fashion) however certain parts and plans from the kit have been scanned and then resized accordingly as were the Doughty plans from the book. The process took me little more than an afternoon to calculate and convert at home and the plans below are to 1/64th scale.
 
No ship names have been recorded from this tonnage however many names could be applicable as it seems the coast guard at the time would resure names repeatedly once a ship would go out of service a new one would promptly take it's place. Plausible names could be Active, South Carolina, Gallatin and Lookout.

Hey there fellow builders! So I finally had a chance to start cataloging all the work I have been doing on my revenue cutters alongside Sultana. Sultana is proceeding slowly but surely as will soon be updated, however as some of you may know at the last ship model convention in Connecticut I won a kit of Bluejacket's 31 ton revenue cutter. From the moment I got it I couldn't help but start tinkering with it. The reason why I put this in the scratch section is because I plan on building all my ship models (at least for the moment) in 1/64th scale since I like to be able to make size comparisons. Therefore this log will be an exercise in how to properly resize a kit to a preferred scale. So what of the kit itself? Fortunately the ship comes in 3 sizes and at 1/64th scale the 51 ton falls in a similar size to the 31 ton at 1/48 scale. So in addition to a smaller 31 ton I am going to scratch build, I will also use the wood hull and some of the kit materials to also build the 51 ton ship. The wood block and plans must be modified but let's go over the details and I will show you how I have been proceeding
 
Also if for whatever reason this log should be moved to the kit section then by all means as I wasn't sure which section to put it.

So a little more investigation on this matter via a discussion with Dave at Lumberyard the general consensus is that the ships were painted using black, white and green with copper bottoms. The builders contract gives at least that, as for the breakdown of colors well it'd have to be some combination of that, though I'm leaning against the idea now that there was any exposed wood, though I may still do so for aesthetic effect at least. Note the color patterns in Lively (which I think is a model based off the 30 ton 1829 ship from Chapelle's book) and a beautiful model of Alabama a 51 ton ship.

The yellow or light wood whatever you want to call it strikes me as something similar to clipper ships and pilot boats of the time. I think it was too early for the white strip that Corel's Ranger suggests, however I'm taking it off a model of Dallas from shipmodel.net also images of Dapper Tom model that I've seen. But I'm uncertain so any sources others may be aware of could be helpful in my understanding. I know the bulwarks were white and the bottom likely coppered so it's what's in between which I'm considering my options and also I'd like each boat to be a bit different. Maybe Dallas will have a green strip, Active a red strip and Eagle a yellow strip or somesuch

Well they mainly hunted pirates and were small but you make a good point. It was after the war so there was less need to be covert so for me im leaning towards the last few images similar to lively which also gives the best of both worlds as far as color scheme and planking skills/painting