The Bitter End

Hello everyone I have decided to attempt to make the cannon for this build myself(emphasis on attempt, this is very much theoretical at this point. I wanted to go with the configuration mentioned in "close up" by Tyrone G. Martin which was kindly pointed out to me by @Marcus.K.. The cannon found on the gun deck of the Constitution in 1797 appear to have been 30 x 24 pounders with a barrel length of 8ft. Apparently these were 1ft shorter than the standard length for this calibre. The cannon were made by Hope forge and an original pair can be seen outside the buildings of Savannah college of art and design Below is the basic drawing I used as reference along with excellent measurements provided by Marcus, I will not publish his drawing here until I get his permission but it was a real help in making this first version. I began by cutting square stock of 10mm x 10mm from a leftover stump and turned it down to 8mm on the lathe. I then marked out the relevant lines dividing the sections and cut the tapers first and then refined by hand. This process was by no means perfect. I am using a unimat that a friend recently gave me, i have no experience on a lathe and my lathe belt broke. In the process I broke off the cascabel and had to remake it separately. I also had a fair amount of trouble creating a finish that was acceptable but I can live with this as it will be cast in resin anyway. This cannon still needs its cross braces, eagle emblem and fuse protrusion but if anyone has any views on how it can be improved before I take those steps please let me know. this is my first attempt so I can imagine I will get away without a remake. I do feel the reinforcement protrusions may be a little to pronounced but I cant decide if this will be a pro or a con once painted black. Haiko

Thank you to everyone for your kind comments. It really helps with motivation to keep struggling along. T.B.E.

Hello again everyone Finally, some time to do a post, it is silly season for me, so the Constitution has taken a back seat. If there is anyone I havent responded to on private message, this thread or any other, please accept my apologies, I will get to it once things calm down and the harvest is over. During the last few weeks I have gradually chipped away at the planking a strake or two at a time. This deck will largely be hidden by the bulwark and the deck above so I can live with the issues. I am however glad that I went through this laborious process as I learned a lot from it. Knowledge which I hope to transfer to the building of the far more visible spar deck. On plank width I settled on a maximum width of about 10 inches at full scale(3.1mm)I decided to taper the deck planking as this appears to be the most historically accurate method of planking for 1797(i think, but please correct me if I am wrong). I tried to avoid tapering any plank to less than half its original thickness and staggered the planking as per the following drawing which came off another post on the site, I will find it and reference it shortly. This was actually slightly confusing due to the varying distance between deck beams and having to work around the thick strakes. but I got an acceptable result. Lessons Learned 1. It is almost certainly better to work from the center outward instead of laying the thick strakes first and then laying the standard planking between them. It became very difficult to get a perfect fit of planks between the thick strakes. 2. The planking must be totally dry before laying. This wood was cut from pear trees which were lying on my firewood pile, and they appear to not have been totally dry, this means that once the deck was assembled it began to curve severely. I could address this by heating the whole deck with steam, but that resulted in opening of seams when the deck was pressed flat. 3. The caulking between decks created using glue and wood stain produced unimpressive results, I believe I can live with this as the planking is quite varied already, but it is worth consideration. The process. Once I had rough ripped the planks and then thicknessed them back to 3.1mm x1.5mm(roughly) I began the process of getting the planks fitted and tapered. 1. I numbered every beam on the carrier deck so as to have a reference number to return to when logging the spacing in deck sections 2. I then measured the width of the section that needed planking at every beam using a vernier 3. I then transferred these values into Excel 4. Next I calculated how many planks would fit into that section at the widest part of that section 5. divided each measurement at each beam by that number(this gave me a value of around 3.1mm to 1.6mm depending on which beam) 6. wrote the value onto the carrier at its beam.(here is a terrible photo of how the values were transcribed onto the carrier deck) If you look very closely you can see the values written on the planking, these are the widths that the planks need to be at that point. 7. placed the plank I was working with at its position and cut to length to establish which thickness corrections were relevant 8. used a vernier to score the width of the first and last beam that the plank would land on onto the plank(for example the forward aft end of the plank would have a line scored onto it at 2.7mm and the forward end would have a line scored into it at 1.6mm.) 9. I then did 1 of three things. 9.1 for very slight tapering I have a offcut piece of square aluminium tube with 180 grit sandpaper glued to it, I would use this to just sand away until I get to where I need to be. 9.2 I would just hold a flat metal ruler onto the 2 marks and then take a very shark surgical scalpel and gradually cut through the plank in several passes by gently dragging the blade along the straight edge over and over until it cut through the plank(low pressure is the key) I purchased a pack of 200 number 11 surgical scalpels and a blade holder for something like 5 euro 9.3 A method that I sometimes used is to take 2 strong clamps and clamp the ruler onto the plank that I am cutting before cutting. this would be stronger and more consistent than my hands but takes some effort to align and clamp. This can be further improved(but again it is more fiddly to align) by first placing a ruler flat on your cutting mat, then you put your plank against that ruler so that you know it is not warped or bent in any way and then camping a second metal ruler on top of the plank you want to cut in position on top of the marks you made before cutting. 10. When this is done I pass the plank over the sanding block or scrape it with a blade a few times to square off any edges that are not as straight as they should be. A final tip is to spray the plank with alcohol based hand sanitiser. This softens the wood and may help. I have had mixed results depending on the application but it is worth a shot. 11. I then took this tapered plank, applied the stained glue and held it in place until it set. I found the tite bond and wood stain combo had very good holding properties and 30 seconds was generally enough to keep the planks in place. I did initially use little spacers to jam the plank into position but it was not needed. When planking I did the outside planking first and then worked toward the middle finally leaving a single strake out down the center of the deck to allow me to cut and fit the carrier in its position on the gun deck. I did roughly mark the positions of the masts and hatches so that the planks did not have joints between deck penetrations. This deck was then sanded back to remove all glue and unevenness and split down the center to allow fitment. Once the deck was cut it was shaped and adjusted to fit and then before final fitment I marked out the final locations for all the hatches and masts as per the Waldo deck plans available on the USS constitution museum website and cut them into the deck. based on all the evidence available i beleive these plans to be accurate. Note the center strake is not yet installed and the deck curving as mentioned before. This was finally then steamed to flatten, installed and clamped into place. The final center strake was then added and the worst of the imperfections patched. The deck was then sanded a final time producing the following result. Wolf cub for scale... It can clearly be see how the seams opened when the deck was flattened producing uneven caulking...a lesson learned The deck does however look a lot better when it is wet(i sprayed it down with surgical spirits to pick up the fibres before final sanding.) So i hope then when I get to the varnishing stage the appearance will be similarly improved and not look like a dull grey situation with poor caulking...anyway, live and learn. Next up I need to figure out how to make cannon so that I can align the gun ports. This is my chosen next step so that I have a clearer idea of which details to include and exclude from the gun deck based on what is visible through the gun ports. Any tips on how to improve the next deck..or anything else for that matter would be swell! Also, any views on how to improve the appearance of this deck would be great, I dont know if a slight stain would add or detract from the appearance but I do kind of like how this very varied pear wood hi lights the individual planks. One final word of warning, if one is very interested in historical accuracy I think that the level of the gun deck beams on the model shipways kid is too flat. The gun deck should not quite run parallel to the curve of the spar deck but there should be a slight curve to the bow and stern. Hogging, sagging, errors and time makes it very difficult to truly say how it should look but I feel comfortable with a slight curve on the gun deck which is not entirely parallel to the spar deck. Cheers TBE

Hello Marcus Thanks for your input. I am on the fence about this, it is frustrating! I measured each section to be filled, I then checked the maximum number of complete planks that would fill that section and then divided the width of each section at each beam by that number. I then transferred that measurement to the plank and cut each taper individually using a steel ruler and a surgical scalpel. I can't wait to see these results either! I really hope they are ok. What I can tell you is that many lessons were learned for the spar deck planking/ Cheers Haiko

Good Day to you all I have a question which I know for sure I am going to struggle to articulate, but I am hoping one of you patient geniuses will be able to help. I am planking the gun deck of the USS constitution. This involved first running 2 sets of 2 thick joggled strakes onto my carrier(I think this was probably a stupid approach to the planking order but the point of planking this hidden deck was to learn a thing or two about a thing or two). Please excuse the state of this planking. It is made from very rough cut planks and I used glue mixed with wood stain for the caulking so it looks like a train wreck but does clean up nicely once scraped and sanded back. I then planked between the strakes using tapered planks which followed a standard planking pattern. and left the very center strip of planking for last. My problem is this. The planking in the center section is interrupted by the hatches Am I meant to continue to use tapered planks as if the planking was run in one continuous tapered strake or must I treat each new section independently and therefore end up with a different number of planks per section as the space between the thick strakes narrows. To try and clarify...if I plank the area between the 2 center hatches this can be done with 7 standard planks. I could either continue this right to the bow and stern and have 7 tapered planks between the thick strakes a lot the whole length of the deck, or I can get away with using as little as 5 planks in the narrowest sections. I hope this makes some sort of sense. I will post the results once I have tidied up this mess so that I can sleep at night Cheers Haiko

Hello to you all! I thought this might be an interesting example of the challenges we face when doing research on naval subjects with even the best possible sources. Below is an excerpt from the naval chronicle XIV written in 1805, A series of publications covering various aspects of naval activity in the British navy at the time. About as good a source as one can hope for(although I'm sure some will disagree). This source shows Nelson being shot from the Spanish ship Trinidada and not the French Redoubtable. I am no expert on the battle and I have no reason to dispute the fact that he was in fact shot from the mast of the redoubtable. My point however is that it is worth noting that whatever information we are working with there is rarely such a thing as being 100% sure. I am definitely guilty of over-confidence in what I read especially when it comes from contemporary sources(especially when it agrees with me) but I think there is a lesson here for everyone A side note is that there are 2 other references to the redoubtable in the document which state that she sunk while being towed after the battle. If anyone is interested in accessing these documents and you have not seen them already the link can be found below. It is a great little window into life at sea at the time. https://www.historicnavalfiction.com/general-hnf-info/naval-facts/the-naval-chronicle I hope you enjoyed this morsel of food for thought. TBE(Haiko) EDIT: This error was then corrected in the subsequent edition of the chronicle from 1806:

Just a quick one before I have to start work. It seems crazy to me that in a world where sailors were sent out onto yards in the middle of a storm without any securing devices they would suddenly decide to put a handrail at the fighting top and then put netting over that handrail for security reasons. To e it makes sense that this handrail(with netting covering it) was a form of hammock-stanchion that had a relatively low profile which hammocks could be stacked against and tied to while not being a major obstruction during non combat operations. That being said I just looked through " Instructions in relation to the preparation of vessels of war for Battle, the duties of officers and others when at Quarters ; and to Ordnance and Ordnance Store" - 1852 This is a 286 page document outlining in great detail what must and must not be done in preparation for battle. There are a number of references to what should be done with hammocks...none of which mention bringing them into the fighting tops. This is however a very interesting read in general and worth a gander if anyone has some time to kill. I am fairly sure the copyright has long expired so if anyone would like a copy let me know and I can send it your way. Cheers Haiko

Another little bit of information from Mr. O'Brian. I don't think he would have made this little feature up. I wish I knew his original source but I guess we can take it for what it is... A paragraph from a novel. TBE

Well said Marcus! I think we can be glad that they built this way or all the adventure of the build would be lost. I am quite happy with that amount of deviation, I think it shows we are quite close to what was intended. Thanks for the input as always Haiko

Hi Marcus Thank you very much for your encouragement. I just took my vernier to the gun deck and this tells me that the distance between the outer strake and the outer edge of the deck is an acceptable 6ft and 3 inches. I am pretty happy with this as I didn't even consider the white Oak decking when I laid out the thick strakes but rather followed the other parts of Humphrey criteria. There are 3 possible explanations for the extra 3 inches...1. My measurements were slightly out (the most likely, three inches are only 1mm at scale). 2, I made the thick strakes 30 inches too narrow (only 12 inches at the widest point instead of 15inches...maybe there is a clue there if we look at the exact measurements). 3. when Humphrey said 6ft it wasn't an exact measurement (the least likely option) Regardless, another interesting little piece of information. Cheers Haiko

Hi Vossie! You are totally right, they are ring clamps. I wrote that response before my first cup of coffee, Im blaming that.😂

It might be worth buying( or making) a jewelers clamp. It's essentially a cylinder of wood which has bee split down the middle with a wing nut through it and leather gripping faces. It may help. Beautiful work so far by the way. Haiko

Thank you good sir! I am leaning in a similar direction now that I have cleaned the planking a little more. I will post the completed deck before I make a final decision. Cheers Haiko

Hi Jon This very thought is occupying a vast amount of mental real estate for me, and you are totally right!(It's basically an act of madness). I am torn between the balance between accuracy and effort. I am coming to accept that I will certainly have to put a lot of the deck furniture in for this gun deck, a lot of which will also never really be seen. I can't really argue with you as you make a very good point but I sort of justify it in the following ways. 1. Firstly (and most importantly) I am really enjoying the process of historical research to get an accurate idea of what she really looked like. In a small way the process of actually building these features has lessons about construction woven into it. I am not sure how far I would go with this but for now I'm quite liking aiming for as close to perfection as I can manage. 2. This deck has been a learning curve for me. this is only my second build and my last deck is but a distant memory. It has been a good opportunity to figure out what works and what doesn't without anyone actually seeing the results too plainly (the stained glue for example was an experiment which needed testing). It has also provided some much-needed practice in planking. 3. I try to view each step in the model as something worth doing in and of itself. I am not in a rush to build this model and when it's done I will just build another. A big part of this hobby is an opportunity to do things simply for the joy of it and not for the result. I have a job which is very much goal driven and this is a form of meditation. there is something about making a great effort for something which will never be seen which adds to this. 4. I do intend to leave at least some of the hatches open (possibly like the Antczak model) this means that the most curious of observers MIGHT notice the ludicrous decisions I made on the deck below. 5. I think it might provide a bit of information or help for someone who is building a more open decked model, and it is nice to share this process with the good people of this forum. Even your question has made me think a little more about why I am doing this, and it has added something of value. I can't guarantee I will be able to continue this way, but I hope that I can. Please keep the comments coming. They are always welcome Cheers Haiko

Hi Everyone This post comes with a disclaimer....please don't judge too hard. What you are seeing is very much a work in progress. These thicker strakes still need to be sanded back to show only a nice neat caulking line and no saw marks as well as some shaping on the sides of the curve to correct the end and get everything to fit well. this will be done just before and after the remainder of the planking goes in. This should produce a perfectly flat deck with neat even caulking. I have also noticed a lot of colour variation because of the trees I am using for planks, so I am open to suggestions on a staining method which will make a nice even deck without hiding the wood. A final point is that these thicker 2 plank strakes do look very wide. They are however exactly to the original spec mentioned. with a minimum width of 10 inches at full size. I began by cutting a suitable sized board of chipboard counter top from an old project which would produce a flat and sturdy surface to pin the carrier deck and guide pins to without damaging my desk. I then placed and tacked the "inboard" thick stake to the carrier deck while making sure it followed the curve of the line previously marked. This initial plank was secured using normal elmers tite bond original. wherever 2 planks would meet at the edge or ends I would use the same glue but mixed with an ebony wood stain. this produced a thick black paste which offers a pretty nice scale caulking line that is quite subtle. I did this until all the inboard planks were run down the length of the deck with a subtle curve. The next step was to interlock the next set of planks with the first. I achieved this by marking the center of each of the first planks so that the butt joint of the interlocking plank would land in the middle of the plank it locks with. I then just transferred the location of the joggling points and cut to size with a ruler and scalpel. I did make an attempt to soften the wood with surgical spirits but this definitely made things worse. this resulted in planks which were set out in this configuration(a big thank you to @Marcus.K. for the drawing below) This would make for a strong structure that offered support in both compression and tension. Once this had been done I measured halfway between the outside of the first strake of thick planks and the edge of the deck and marked a line at this point as per the Humphrey's instructions. Initially I Used this method to mark the line right up to the very forward edge of the carrier deck, but this produced an unreasonably sharp curve so I ended up making a more gradual curve from the 4th deck beam onward. Below is the rough planking result. Next up will be the remainder of the deck planks. Cheers TBE

Hello All, I haven't achieved a huge amount due to work pressure, but I wanted to give a little update so that I don't fall too far behind again. As said before I decided to put in the gun deck so that I could show the vessel with guns visible and no port lids to try and remain true to her launch configuration. I began by measuring the distances between bulkheads and then again between bulkhead extensions and plotting them in Excel and on paper. The Excel was somewhat impractical because printing at the exact correct scale was almost impossible. I then reverted to the paper plan which I did in 2 pieces and taped together once they had been checked in place on the gun deck. I did do a small amount of faring of the internal bulkhead extensions, but this was pretty basic work as they will not be visible once the spar deck is in place. I then fitted this on the bulkheads to ensure that the plan was close enough to be acceptable under the circumstances. This plan was then taped to a sheet of 0.5mm plywood which was cut to size and checked for fit.. Once this had been checked I started the layout by marking the center line and then checking the location of the kit positions for the masts against the Waldo deck plans from 1819 as shown below. I found them to be close enough that moving them seemed to be unnecessary. It appears that the model shipways plan was perhaps based directly on this Waldo deck plans or rather the deck plan is close enough to the current state that it fits well. I used this layout as the plan for the hatch locations and initially marked only the hatches which I thought would be visible from above, but I think I will ultimately put all the hatches and fittings on the deck in case they can be seen from some strange angle. IN addition, I marked out the beam locations more or less as per the Waldo plans which some minor adjustments. The final marks made were the slightly curved line marking the inner edge of the inner set of joggled thick strakes. As per Joshua Humphrey's document on dimensions and sizes of materials for building a frigate of 44 guns drafted in 1794. This essentially meant that the lines were marked immediately next to the widest of the hatchways and then gradually curved toward the centreline at the bow and stern. It is hard to see the pencil line, but I assure you it is there. The run of the next strakes will be laid out once these are done The matter of the dimensions of these thicker joggled strakes is one that has lead to a huge amount of head scratching. As in the text above the instruction is to use a plank not thinner than 10 inches and that is about all we have for instructions. This in itself causes issues, but I am assuming he means not thinner than 10 inches at the narrowest point. A second issue is how long were these strakes. Tyron G. Martin (mentioned in previous posts) says that the "C" of the strakes was 40ft long in one of his versions of "Close up". Neither MarcusK (who has been a bottomless pit of knowledge) nor myself can figure out where he got this information from. A 40ft "C" would result in a plank 80 foot long. Research into the white oak trees that were used for this piece of timber tells me that it is theoretically possible as the tallest white oak recorded reached some 200ft. That being said I do have some concerns about finding 16 runs of flawless timber of this size and then the additional consideration of both transport and installation as well as future repairs with a spar deck above. The final consideration on these strakes is how many "C"s per plank. Martin's comments make it obvious that only a single "C" per plank is possible and by making use of a single "C" construction would be far easier. I cannot really find much more on the subject, but I can point to a photo of a modern repair in progress which shows multiple notches on this strake (it obviously has limited value but seems worth sharing.) Taking all this into consideration I opted to go with planks with a single "C" that would scale up to a total length of +-40ft. This was mostly because I really struggled to find straight runs of pear trees longer than 32cm as the trees I'm using were grown for fruit so they are heavily branched from very low on the trunk. I also decided to make the narrowest part of the plank scale to 10 inches. this left me with a plank of 158mm in length with a +-79mm "C" notch and +-39mm shoulder. The planks are 4.25mm at their widest point and 3.4mm at their narrowest part. I made a set of 16 of standard dimensions shown below. These will be tidied u and straightened as they are fitted. Please excuse the burn marks, the table saw blade clearly needs a clean. the remaining 16 will be cut to fit into these once they are in place. That's all for now. Be good TBE

Thank you Jon, these are great!

Absolutely! that would be a great help, thank you

I believe you are right on all of the above. I am going to look into a number of options for accurate cannon. Marcus has given me dimensions for some of the cannon, and I am going to try to turn them on my lathe. I don't know how well this is going to go, my lathe options are a tiny, somewhat underpowered unimat3 and a Colchester with a 2-meter bed and a chuck that weighs more than 1000 of these canon will. so Neither is idea.. Thank you very much for the tip on Mustafa friend and syren, I will contact both.

I know 😂 It is crazy. My thinking is that the kit is so bashed so far that it might as well be a scratch build anyway(I actually regret not just cutting the bulkheads and false keel myself, they are the only parts I have made use of from the kit. A little extra bashing shouldnt hurt. Also I did consider doing as you said and showing her with her gun ports closed but I felt it would have taken away from the feeling of her as a fighting ship and taken away from another little piece of information about her(her armament when she was launched). I am sure I will live to regret this as I now have to somehow make or buy her cannon but we will see what happens. Haiko

Thank you to everyone who commented here. Lots to learn as always. It's great to see all this experience and knowledge laid out so eloquently. I think each and very perspective is certainly plausible: 1. The tops were not the tops as we see them but rather the upper part of the bulwark 2. The hammocks were intended to protect the dead eyes 3. The hammocks did in fact go into the tops and were perhaps hidden behind canvass covers or wooden structures 4. The hammocks went into the tops and were just stacked without any sort of additional structure. I will continue to look into this and I look forward to any additional gems that you gentlemen find. Kind regards Haiko

I really hope you can recall the source. To me it really made a decent amount of sense. If I had the option available I would certainly want to make use of it. If it's good enough for the boys on decks it would be good enough for me. Haiko

I noticed the same red structures in many of the paintings I looked at. That in itself is a little unusual, and I would love to know the origin of that colour choice. I really hope you find the painting you were looking for. It also occurs to me that these artists would very rarely, if ever, see ships in actual battle. These paintings would have been based on what would have been seen when the ships were in port or at anchor. That may explain the absence of a feature which is only mentioned in the context of beating to quarters. Haiko

Hi Gaffrig I thought this might be the case too so I looked at a nautical glossary from the period and I could find no other definition besides the standard fighting tops. I also think it would be an unusual turn of phrase because he says in the netting and the tops. I think the netting would be a reference to the netting on the rails? This is all speculation and you might be right that it was infact a reference to the tops of the stern bulwarks and the netting was a reference to the netting in the waist? A mystery indeed! Haiko

Hi Marcus I guess you are right on this. I am familiar with the rails, I had just not seen them covered with canvas before and I assumed that was just the same kind of canvas we would have seen in a deck level hammock crane. I guess I need to do some more digging. Cheers Haiko