The Bitter End

This is all a bit delayed, so I will endeavour to recall what was done when. I took some photos as I went, but it's all a little murky. If anyone has any questions or needs more photos, please let me know. Stern filler blocks and counter. I began with the stern counter. I did this by making a copy of the plans and sticking it to the provided timber of the appropriate size and then sanding back to the cutout, then making the location of the rudder hole and drilling it out. It is mentioned in the build log of @Der Alte Rentner that the plans dimensions for the stern counter create a counter that is slightly thicker than it should be. In my case, this was something like 3.2mm(excuse my French) too thick. I considered slimming down the stern counter to account for this but decided against it as I felt it would have moved the relative orientation of the hole for the rudder in an awkward manner, so I decided to keep the counter the original thickness. This actually worked out fairly well for reasons I will explain later. When fitting the counter, I ensured that the rudder had decent clearance through the hole before final glueing. Next up was to shape and install the stern filler blocks. This was again a process of copying the plans and then glueing the relevant portions onto the correctly sized blocks, then slowly working back to the cutout line with my belt sander. I then used the provided template strips to bring back the shape until it matched the contour lines suggested. Once this had been installed with the help of some elastic bands and a couple of clamps, there was more sanding required to get everything to flow correctly. Unfortunately, I did not take the amount of photos I should have, but I think it's all pretty straight forward. TBE

Hello all A bit of information for those that are interested. I contacted the USS constitution Museum on the advice of JSGerson to enquire about the appearance of the Constitution figure head after the damage she sustained damage during a collision with the President in 1804 and before she had the soon to be headless jackson figurehead installed...This was their response. "After the Hercules figurehead was destroyed, a simple billethead was put in place. This is detailed on pages 116 and 117 of A Most Fortunate Ship by Tyrone G. Martin (Naval Institute Press) and also on his website The Captain's Clerk at this link: https://thecaptainsclerk.com/speaks/book06.html " The above url leads to a great little website full of additional information.... https://thecaptainsclerk.com/ I hope this was of some value to someone out there. TBE

Thank you! I will be doing my best to order a suitable blade. All the blades I have significant offset, so they create a very ugly cut. That almost looks like a meat blade, so I may be a bit of a cowboy and see if I have one which will fit on my Rockwell and try that before ordering. TBE

Hi Jon My apologies for barging in here, please delete this post if its a bother... Do you have any information on what the rail situation would have been around 1812? While you are rummaging around your vast reserve of knowledge could you please also comment on the open waist represented in the Hull model of 1812? I have been doing some reading and looking at images and now im in a pickle about the subject. Is the vessel meant to have an open waist at this point in its history and if so what does that mean for the waterway and planksheer. If you haven't seen this already you should take a look and this very interesting document. https://books.google.de/books?id=XYUWBpxFZN8C&pg=PR5&dq=uss+constitution+all+sails+up+and+flying&hl=de&ei=hi7NTZDUB4_6sgaqy9m6Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=uss constitution all sails up and flying&f=false TBE

This box is honestly incredible. I think I really need to brush up on my work. May I ask what kind of blade you are using for this? I don't want to be that workman that blames his tools but my delta rockwell bandsaw is somewhat long in the tooth, it might be time to get a new saw too or at the very least take a close look at the bearings and setup. On the waterways I think I will do them first as you have done and just be very cautious about the planking. I also took a closer look at the carrier method used by Xken and I see he begins with a cardboard template, That approach will definitely give me more confidence to create an accurate result. Regards TBE

Hi Jon Thanks as always for the response. I know this is beside the point, but that is actually quite an attractive drawing. After having taken a look at this and considered the fact that the vessel was in fact built this way as well as the input from Der Alte Rentner I think I will install the waterway first and do my best to get a nice neat join. Does one of your drawings perhaps indicate how the waterway was jointed? I intend to leave the waterway unpainted, so I would like to show that detail if possible. Cheers! TBE

Hello all I am still doing some It's and pieces, but the season has begun and finding time to get work on Conny done has been a challenge. I have mostly just been doing research when I have the time. This has led me to the following question… Is there any good reason to do the waterway before the decking? The way I see it, It's going to be a challenge to get all those plank ends and edges to line up flawlessly (even with the carrier I am planning on using.) Why not just deck first and then do the waterway and the gunnel planking after that? Am I missing something, or is there some other bit of structure that will conceal this potentially shoddy edge? Looking at the build log of @Der Alte Rentner and his excellent summary of the decking approaches on the various build logs, I saw that only unegawaya seems to have done his waterways after decking, but I cannot find his log. Please help! TBE

Thank you for the suggestion. I am definitely going to look at this as an option. I am really struggling to get decent planking using my methods and your suggestion might just be the answer. Kind regards Haiko

Music to my ears Johnny. You made a very good point. I'll leave those frames as is and maybe just be a little more energetic with my char removal. Thank! TBE

Hi Everyone I am busy building the Model Shipways USS constitution. The hull planking material provided is basswood and the plans are for single planking with the provided timber. As I would like to leave my hull unplated and unpainted I plan to double plank the hull. I want to do the first planking with the provided timber to get a bit of hull planking practice in and then plank over this with pear wood planks of 1.5mm thickness. I have already adjusted the rabbet and bearding line making them 1.5mm thicker. What I am wondering is if i have to make any changes to the suggested faring indicated on the drawings? does it make sense to take an additional 1.5mm off each of the frames or can I get away without doing that. If there are any other things i should be thinking about when adding this additional layer of planking which the kit is not designed for. Thanks! TBE

As I am about to move onto the faring, can anyone perhaps tell me if I need to remove additional material to account for the fact that I am adding an extra layer of 1.5mm planking. I can't quite decide if it makes sense to add another 1,5mm of faring on the bulkheads or if the additional width on the bearding like and rabbet will be sufficient

Again, not a huge amount to share.. I transferred the reference line from the drawings provided to the bulkheads. I did this by extending the reference line with pencil, placing the bulkhead over the drawing and parking the edges of the line onto the part, and then joining those 2 marks. The plans and the parts match up pretty poorly, so I elected to use the cavities above the gun deck as my alignment reference. I then sanded out the slot in each bulkhead with a small sanding tool made by gluing sand paper to a piece of aluminium that as floating around my workshop. Next I inserted the bulkheads into the false keel, I found a certain amount of additional sanding was required to get the parts to fit and to get the reference marks to align between the bulkheads and the false keel. The photo below shows what the bulkheads looked like with only the reference lines matched up and no additional work done on the bulkheads. It is not hugely obvious, but the alignment is pretty poor. Casting a careful eye over the "deck beams" shows that they are not all level at all. I corrected this with the following 5 different approaches, depending on the specific bulkhead in question. By looking down the length of the vessel and eyeballing the heights of the beams I adjusted as follows until they were reasonably ell aligned(I did not go for complete perfection as I am using a plywood carrier for the deck, but I did get it fairly close) 1. rotated the bulkhead, changing which side faced forward or aft, this actually helped a lot 2. removed material from the bulkhead with a combination of a sharp knife and sandpaper 3. added some material to the top of the bulkhead in the form of a strip cut from a sheet of 0.5mm plywood. 4. tapped some of the bulkheads so that they came up slightly from their original alignment with the reference lines to align better at the deck level. 5. Some bulkheads were fine as is and required no adjustment. The slight but pretty essential correction can be seen below. I will now move onto removing char and rough faring the bulkheads before gluing them in place TBE

I'll add this to the list. If you look at my constitution build one of my most recent posts is of a carving knife I banged together froma ball bearing and some of this pear wood with linseed oil, this did make me think that adding some more natural oils to the tests would be a good idea.

Good Evening Thukydides Thank you for your interest and input. I got the drawings from @JSGerson who tells me that the plans come from the US Naval archives. I believe he purchased a CD which was originally available from the same website which you reference above. Apparently it contains significantly more drawings than what one sees listed now. If one looks in the bottom right-hand corner of the uncropped image (can be seen in post #42 of this log) the number "14705" is listed if you go to the link you shared you can see a drawing of the fore mast step with the reference number 14704 written in the same format as on the drawing I worked from, this makes me feel that the plan is probably as reliable as one can hope for such things. I really appreciate your work and interest. I hope that you jump in if you ever see me doing something stupid. I am very inexperienced, and I am always in search of help. Haiko

Thank you Wawona I must say i do quite like it. The steel is rock hard and shaving sharp. I am looking forward to learning how to use it.

Hi Marcus Thanks again for your information. I totally agree with you on the early years of the constitution, I would like to get as close to that as possible. I have emailed the constitution museum to ask them for a description of how the cutwater looked in 1804, hopefully they have an answer for me. I tried to follow the link to your German website, but it says that I don't have permission to view these images. Must I sign up for the website to access them? Please share as much as you can, I really hope to be as true as possible to the original design as possible. Maybe you will approve Haiko

Little side project. I needed a carving knife that I could comfortably drag toward me for rough shaping parts. I forged this from the outer race of a ball bearing and a chunk of pear stump offcut coated in linseed oil

This is a great idea! I just emailed them. I will report back on what they say. Apparently it takes up to 8 weeks for an answer, but hopefully that Is not the case. I am very much realising that you are right about now being the time for modifications. I think this model will be decidedly unforgiving in the future. Thanks Haiko

Last Keel post for now. After making copies of the plan and transferring the closest possible layout onto the plans, I made copies, scanned and mirrored the image and reprinted the set at the right size. I then cut out the layout and glued the template onto the stem using rubber glue as suggested by JSGerson. I then Cut along the relevant lines with a scalpel, removed the paper and deepened the grooves with a micro chisel. After this I filled in the lines with a lead pencil, cleaned the wood up with an eraser then sanded and cleaned the grooves. The final step was to cut away the portions of the stem indicated in my previous post and replace this area with a new cutout of wood to match the plans I have access to. I am not totally happy with the outcome, but a fair section of the stem will end up being painted black with the design I am going for, so hopefully it will hide the defects I don't like. I also etched and applied pencil to the other joints in the keel, which somewhat improved their appearance, too.

This is a good point. I hadn't even thought about the figurehead. I really hope that I don't have to undo what I have done to accommodate the figurehead. I also don't know here I will even get a figurehead at this scale. I don't think carving one is in my skill set. I asked Copilot AI and you are absolutely right. I am alarmed by how often AI is completely wrong about even basic things. But it can sometimes be a fun tool, not to be taken very seriously at all.

I love these discussions, thank you for the photos, It really is interesting. This has also made me feel slightly better about the layout I am using I think you make an excellent point on the size of the timber relative to the workers. The sheer size of this cut water would create a need for an awkwardly large number of pieces, which look to our eye almost incorrect. I quickly checked the length of the cut water as per the model shipways kit, and it would be almost 18 meters long, an exceptionally large chunk of timber. I don't know if it was a consideration at the time, but maybe repairs were a consideration, to have to replace this single giant piece of timber every time it gets damaged is maybe not very practical? I asked AI what the explanation may be, and here are some interesting suggestions. 18th-century frigate cut waters were made from many pieces of wood for several reasons: 1. **Strength and Durability**: Using multiple pieces of wood allowed shipbuilders to create a stronger and more durable structure. The different pieces could be arranged in a way that distributed stress and impact forces more effectively, which was crucial for withstanding the harsh conditions at sea. 2. **Flexibility**: Multiple pieces of wood provided some flexibility to the cutwater, which helped absorb the shock from waves and collisions with floating debris or other ships. This flexibility reduced the risk of structural damage. 3. **Repairability**: If part of the cutwater was damaged, it was easier to replace or repair individual pieces rather than having to rebuild the entire structure. This was especially important during long voyages, when repairs might need to be made quickly and with limited resources. 4. **Construction Techniques**: The shipbuilding techniques of the time often involved using smaller, more manageable pieces of wood that could be shaped and fitted together precisely. This method allowed for more intricate and robust designs. 5. **Material Availability**: The availability of different types of wood and the need to use locally sourced materials also influenced the construction. Shipbuilders would use the best-suited wood for each part of the cutwater based on its properties, such as strength, resistance to rot, and workability. Thank you for your interest and input. It is a great help

Hi Marcus I am not entirely sure what I don't like about it. Something just doesn't look quite right, the joints don't look that realistic to me, but you may well be correct in saying that the grain of the wood is part of the issue. The plans that I am referring to come from the US naval database of plans. The plan I used has the following footnote and if you look closely then you can see the divisions of the plans in the drawing. I am sure the carpenters of the time had an incredible set of skills, but perhaps it was just easier to work with a series of small sections instead of a few large ones. Regards Haiko

Here is my attempt at etching sections into the stem. I'm not that happy with the result. does anyone have any suggestions on how to make this look a bit better?

OK, Final stem design... I think. I looked at what was apparently the layout of the stem prior to restoration. This original layout appears to have had far more individual pieces than the restored stem, It was incredibly difficult to see where the divisions lay due to the wood grain patter drawn on the plans. Hopefully I can transfer this design to my Stem in an acceptable manner. I have also realized that the only way to get this layout to work is to cut out 2 small sections of the stem, which I have marked with hatched pencil on my drawing.

Thank you to all of you gentlemen, I will do experiments with all of your suggestions and see what behaves the best on this particular wood. Be good! TBE