Modeler12

Here is a fun little side project. I am making a number of these cartridge pouches. You see them hanging from the knees above the cannons on the gun deck. They are used to carry the cloth bags filled with gun powder from the fill room to the gun and spar deck.

I used some 0.08 inch dowel, grooved it and cut it to 1/4 inch length. Then I glued on some thread and painted it brown to simulate the leather. The plastic cannon balls are 0.060 inch in diameter.

My plan is to have some of these hanging on the gun deck as well as on the wall next to the hatch on the orlop deck. Perhaps it would draw attention to the fill room below.

Just to come back to my favorite mystery ship. 

When I saw the pictures taken by Google of the various places, I was intrigued about this funny 'porthole' in the orlop deck. It is between the entrance to the magazine and the hold. No reason!!!???

Henry has told me that there are two similar ones towards the bow inside the brass boxes you can see in the floor that are used for the 'light boxes' (aka 'light rooms').

Then the following scenario occurred to me:

This whole area would be totally dark unless you bring a lantern with you. But you are not allowed to open the hatch to the magazine with an open flame (big bang problem). So, before the hatch is opened to allow the boys to go down, you place the lantern on a special shelf around the corner in the hold. The light goes through the porthole and leads the way for those poor souls (hoping that someone puts lights inside the brass boxes up front).

Ignore the light switched and other modern stuff shown, but I will have portholes in this wall.

You know, this whole thing would make a great movie for Halloween. Can you imagine little boys going down those stairs with 'the master' carrying a lantern while he is telling them that the whole ship might blow up if they did not do this right and that they have to open the hole to hell after he goes around the corner with that light, and . . . . 

Where are those pictures of the gun powder kegs?

Coming along really nicely Jay. Have fun placing the decks between the frames. Looks like a fun job.

It should be, Carl, and it probably will be a fun job. What I hate, though, is to have to do repair work.

Just like now I don't work on my cars any more. Too complicated.

I remember the cars when there were two buttons on the floor. One was the starter and the other to dim the head lights.

Now the big question is 'will all that stuff in the front fit inside all that stuff in the back?'

I am sure it will, but after installing each deck I will be cutting away a lot of the beams along the starboard side. I want to be able to see something inside.

It is about time to start working on the frames again.

You know, I don't think my idea of the solid stairs was all that good. I even had the hatch and stairs going in the wrong direction. It should be like shown below. This would be going from the berth deck down to the orlop deck, and the bottom of the stairs would be right at the edge of the main hold.

Notice my repair work. The longer hatch meant that the carling you see had to be moved inwards. The new one has to be sanded flush and notched for the missing joist.

Perhaps the admiral was not all that off base when she referred to my efforts as 'Jay's Mystery Ship'.

Ah.... not the devil but the "ghosts made him do it" then? 

 

Those are solid stairs, aren't they?

Common, Mark, you don't see how hollow I am?

Anytime Jay. Anytime

Count me in, Henry. I have your number (I think).

Here is another question (and I am full of them). Sand was used on the gun and top deck before a battle to aid in traction (I believe). The drawing provided by Dan shows 'sand lockers' on both sides of the hold. Great; close to the main hatch, and easy to haul up.

But, was the sand loose or in gurney sacks, and how big? Interesting to add to the hold in front of my model eventually.

I alluded to the alignment of the stairs and that I thought I may have a way to help that. Here are a couple pictures of how. 

They are a mock-up for the stairs going from the berth deck down to the orlop. Instead of the flimsy stairs, I thought it might be good to have something more solid to start with. I will do the same with the other deck stairs.
  
Note I will have to add part of a plank here and there.

Are any of you familiar with the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, CA??

Thanks Mark. That is a real interesting thread by Force 9 and I will have to read it in more details.
I have not yet found the powder magazine part, but I am almost sure that the whole thing below the rolop deck was an 'after-thought' and not used during any war battles. But I have been wrong on many other subjects.
 

I am still interested in seeing the room and bulkheads below . . .keep it coming folks . . .

Henry, can I come and visit???

That's a fine bit of detective and engineering work you're doing Jay.  It's all coming together! 

Again, George, it is all because of the help I get from you guys out there. A bit of logic also helps.

I keep asking myself, though, if this whole thing will come together in the end.

Meanwhile I have put the framework for the spar deck together. But now I think I will wait before I start the planking. This time I want to make sure I get the plank next to the water-ways correct along with the 'spalding' or whatever it is called when planks are fitted with no sharp ends. All of that has to wait.

One other thing is that the light room (per Henry's input about the brass covered holes in the orlop deck) now needs two LEDs. 

Boy, I wished that I could take a look down in that dungeon. But I guess I am too old to work down there.

The relocation of the oven and riding bits has caused some major changes in the rest of this model. Some for the better, as it turns out.

The extended hatches on the gun and berth deck now will have stairs so that it will be possible to go from the top (spar) deck down to the orlop deck and hold. 

The picture below shows the large hatch on top (along with the hatch for the stove pipe) then there is the gun deck hatch with still a high cowling because of the wet deck, and then the berth deck with a lower cowling. Counting the two hatches in the orlop deck that go down into the magazine (covered with the solid board and hole), this thing will have six hatches.

I still have to make the three long gratings that are missing below. The filler piece and hatch for the orlop deck are still loose and I have to add more planking towards the bow, but I am holding off until I get a better fix on the light and powder rooms. I should add that there will be walls along the port side indicating the 'carpenter's walk' and the storage room. The height has to be determined during assembly, just like those in the magazine/powder room. But I do have a door waiting for that.

The alignment of the hatches on the gun and berth deck will be critical because of the stairs, but I have an idea how to help that situation and will show that later.

Wayne, officially the use was outlawed in the 1970's, but here is part of an article published by the National Institute of Health in the US.

'Lead pipes for carrying drinking water were well recognized as a cause of lead poisoning by the late 1800s in the United States. By the 1920s, many cities and towns were prohibiting or restricting their use.'

Dan indicated that the drawings might have been dated to 1931. However, that seems very late when you consider that lead pipes were mostly outlawed by then.

The use of lead pipe for drinking water was a very controversial subject and in the late 1800s its use was curtailed in many municipalities. Although the lead manufacturing industry made a significant come back in the early 1920s to combat the bad publicity, it would seem to me that to use it by the Navy aboard this ship in 1931 would be questionable . Hence the date you provide (ca 1870) would seem to be more reasonable.

I wonder if there are any markings on the pump that could lead to some further research (make, model, manufacturer, etc). When were the lead pipes removed?

Tom, this is really neat work. The details are perfect and I will be watching more to come. 

Considering that this is a 'kit bashing' type, I cannot think of any one doing a better job. In fact, you could have done the whole ship from scratch.    

As always, I love the gun deck details. But be sure to keep the oven in the right place.

Elder Scrolls

Now I remember where I have seen that face before. Wicked, mean, nasty and ugly. 

But he swings a mean club.

And probably holds his beer, whiskey, rum and gin pretty well.

Ok, here is some more about that remodeling back in the 1920s. Sanitation piping.

The picture below shows the corner of the 'sail' or 'storage' room towards the bow orlop deck. Notice the 'carpenter's walk' with the fire hose going through it. The plumbing you see there must have been of the 'sanitation' system. I don't think it has anything to do with the sprinkler system above. In fact, on the port side there is a cabinet with probably the rest of the system including a 2.375 inch od 'lead' pipe going at an angle forward to the berth deck. Another pipe goes through that carpenter's walk aft. I am curious if the cabinet has another pump for salt water.

The drawing also shows connections that are marked as 'mag. emptying cock xxx' and two more inside the 'handling rooms'.

Now, I am not really interested in how that worked (sanitation wise), but it does point to some extra plumbing that I did not know about.

BTW the fire hose has nothing to do with this. The same hose can be seen coming through the forward hatch on all decks and the hold. It must have been for a system drill or test.

After all of that, thank you again Dan for letting us in on a little secret

The first drawing shows the orlop deck exactly as it is right now. The hold does no longer have the tanks nor the 'sand lockers'. I will take another look to see if I can find anything that resembles the sanitation piping.

I do recall having read about a pump in the past and that it was connected to water barrels in the hold. But that was probably on another ship.

Wowwww, Dan, that is interesting. I'll take a closer look at the plumbing, but it seems that my original thought was correct. It is a fresh water pump. Also I am not surprised that it is about 100 years old (or less). Electric lights and motors were probably not yet aboard at that time, hence the hand pump.

The 'lead pipes' were probably removed because of being made of lead, but the connections to the boiling pots on the stove are still visible. So, my guess is that the hand pump on the berth deck did supply fresh water from the hold to the oven. This is an interesting side line.

Can you tell from the first drawing you found if the plumbing on both sides had something to do with fire control or 'sanitation'? I don't think those had anything to do with fresh water. Just curious, what was your source?

There is a whole discussion about this on

http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/1240-another-type-of-blackening-agent-and-some-experiments/?hl=novacan#entry23428

That's the one, Dan. You can see the hose going up but it is not clear where that ends.

Thanks.

I agree with you Jud. I also spent some time on an old farm where the only source of fresh water were two hand pumps. They were about two times the diameter of the one we are talking about and provided water into a bucket (in spurts). Each up and down stroke yielded less than a gallon of water. The pressure was nill.

Indeed this pump does not look like it was much older than 100 years or so and surely was not original equipment. If this pump was used for fire fighting, it must have been a 'bucket brigade'. The faucet on the side of the pump does not look like it was to be attached to a hose. And like I indicated before, the inlet, or bottom of the pump, came from the hold, not the outside. I don't think salt water was used here.

There are pumps towards mid-ship that were much bigger, and if I am not mistaken, those used sea water.

I recall reading somewhere that a pump to 'hoist' water from the hold was a later addition. It was a lot easier than bringing barrels of water up to the gun deck (or where ever). I would not be surprised if a similar pump was aft for the captain and officers use.

Correction about the pumps mid-ship. Those are the bilge pumps.

Could all of that been used as a vent for the pump and provide for a head, so air is not spitting out at the hose bib. Might also been used to prime the pump? Real frustration to find the priming water gone, when needing  drink.

jud

Good point, Jud. If water were to be pumped higher, such as near the oven on the deck above, they would have had a pump at that level rather than using this one and try to get pressure up to deliver water ten or more feet higher. So this one is just for drinking water on the berth deck???

Jay, I am both glad to have been of help but also I feel bad for stirring up so much trouble for you. Crack on though using the current ship as reference and you will have a great cross section. Your redos will be well worth it. BTW, I just passed along the link that I received from someone else on this site. That is one of the things that is great about MSW, knowledge like this just keeps getting passed along as needed.

Tom, don't feel bad. I am very glad you gave me the start of something good. I mind having to repair past work, but then again I would feel really bad if I had continued on the wrong course.

BTW the Google map sources are great but hard to find on the regular map site. When you enter USS C in the search box it brings up the harbor where the ship is (Boston). You then zoom in on the spot and use the little man to go to one of the orange dots. That means that the pictures are taken inside. You can do the same with the museum. Rather than the van that drives around, these pictures were made using a tripod with probably a remote trigger (there are no people in any of the shots).

I will be using this resource more than the book now, even if it means that the past may have been different.

One more add on to my last post above about the pump. I mentioned that the white hose goes up to the gun deck and that there is no hose coming through the floor up there. That is not exactly true because there is a white 'column' up there that is really a hollow box. The hose could have come up inside but then I lost track. It also appears that inside that white box are sprinkler pipes.

Dan, I remember this also and followed his work for some time. His finished series of cross sections is a piece of real dedicated art and is now in the USS Constitution museum on display. I also recall that many critics as well as Gene had several issues with details in the book.

Nevertheless, I still think that a lot of pictures of the rigging and small items are interesting and useful. I have decided, though, that for the rest of my build, I am going to rely more on what I see on the ship as it is now or after its current refurbishing. There are some exceptions such as the large riding bits (instead of the steel drums now in place to handle chains for the anchors). The photos published by Googe are terrific and you can pan and see more details than I ever thought possible.

Here is an example and I would like to ask Henry for some help  

Against the post on the berth deck just aft of the hatch and stairs is a pump. My guess is that it was used to pump fresh water from barrels in the hold and deliver that to the gun deck area for the oven etc. When I look up and follow the white hose it seems to go through the gun decking. However, a view up there does not show any trace of the white hose.

I don't think it was a fire hose because you can also see a faucet on the berth deck, probably used by the men while berthing. The black rod is the pump handle.

Going down into the hold and looking up I can see two holes where the plumbing could have come through, but all of that was removed.

The reason I am interested is that the pump would be right in the front of my model and would make an interesting subject in itself. I could even place a water barrel down below.