Avi

Before painting, I’m going to drill out the airports and scuppers on each side. They get painted along with the planking, so might as well. I’ve got both the model shipways and the bluejacket plans and instructions. Both sets of plans show 17 airports in roughly the same locations. However, the MS plans also show 6 scuppers, which do not appear at all on the BJ plan. The pic from @ERS Rich above shows the scuppers with covers, as well as fittings for the airports. I’ll look in the instructions for both, and hope there’s info in the BJ plans along with parts. If not, I’ll have to improvise. Open to suggestions of course. After another check of the parts list, I don't see anything that looks like the airport fittings or the scupper fittings and covers, nor anything about either in the BJ instructions. Are they in the kit @MrBlueJacket? Or do I need to construct them out of something? EDIT: Aha, I found the airports. They were in the brass list. F0126, here. I’ll measure the diameters and get drilling. My calipers show 7/64” for the long part that is embedded, and 3/16” for the broad part that is on the outside of the hull. I still will need a solution for the scuppers.

This is much better. I did a combination of what @ERS Rich suggested and a suggestion from @MrBlueJacket much earlier in this log. No sealer, two coats of 50/50 thinned primer (Vallejo grey), lightly sanded with 1000 grit after each, then two coats of black, lightly sanded between first and second with the same 1000 grit. EDIT: I uploaded a higher resolution picture here so it’s clearer. and another after it fully dried overnight. @ERS Rich why is the paint so smooth and consistent looking in your picture? I’ve heard of people using high grit sandpaper on the final coat, but when I try that, even with 1000 grit, it just takes it off.

Yeah @ERS Rich that’s what I’m looking for. I also found that the planks almost distorted upwards in shape after sealing. I needed to sand them pretty strongly afterwards. So you’re suggesting the sealer followed by light steel wool and then paint? Is that different than what I did on the right? Any ideas why it looks off, like the paint isn’t smooth?

I sanded the sample after sealing, then painted both. First coat a few minutes drying, then second coat. to be honest, I’m not excited about either. The stained one is nicer… except where it didn’t take. My guess is that that is where the CA seeped into the pores from the bottom enough to prevent the paint from getting through from the top. the sealer just doesn’t look great. I might just need to prime and then paint, but I really was hoping not to.

I forgot that sealer raises the grain. If I seal before painting, am I going to need to sand again?

I cut out the excess from the gunports, sanded them somewhat. Then on to sanding the bulwarks and the planking outside the ship. The whole thing. I used 120, then 220, then 400. A picture of it is below. It’s amazing to feel what it is like when smooth! In some places I left a little texture around the gunports. I didn’t want the planking to disappear entirely. Next steps are marking the waterline, and painting the planks. Topsides will be black with the white gunport stripe (or maybe ochre; TBD). Below the waterline will be copper colour. In terms of topside, I’m still undecided between painting (sealer on the planks followed by paint), or staining (paint directly on the planks). I suspect the staining will bring out the wood better, but am unsure. So I ran an experiment. I took a piece of cardboard, glued (with CA, same as on the ship) five pieces of planking on left and five on right. I then sealed one set but not the other. When the sealer is dry, I’ll paint both black, and then I can compare and see.

Leak of glue from under the plate to outside.

Will the glue itself react with the wax to discolour? does the concern with the leak lead to a preference for one kind or another?

Thank you all for the detailed feedback and suggestions. Based on the above, I am going to trim the ports, but try to leave at least a little in place, filling in with filler where necessary and sanding down. That should give it a smooth look. I will put together a quick long gun, just to see how each port works out. In terms of coppering, based on @KHauptfuehrer's report (and the difficulty in getting Weldbond here, not to mention getting copperleaf anywhere), I am going to avoid Weldbond. Contact cement is a bit of a challenge, as ventilation is fine where I work (great when I work outside in the summer). I think CA may be my best bet, especially as I have lots of it: thin, medium and thick. @MrBlueJacket what did you mean by letting it wick in? I would have imagine a single drop at the edge would stay there? Or is it so thin that it just travels along? My mainstay has been medium, although I have used thick when needed to good effect. For example, at the very tops of the bulwarks, there were a few places where I would have had to made the planks too thin for my taste to have them flush with the top of the carved hull. Instead, I let them extend above - the bond from medium CA below was quite weak - and then filled in the gap with thick CA and a spray of accelerator. Once it hardened, it was perfect. Also, in terms of accelerator, the stuff I have comes in a spray bottle. Do you apply it differently? Finally, does CA glue have the same problem with blackening that @KHauptfuehrer raised with Weldbond? For my plans, rather than poly on top of the copper, I have Renaissance Wax, which is supposed to do a great job preventing oxidizing and the copper turning green. I do want to be sure it doesn't react with whatever glue I use.

Going to ping a few folks here, hoping they have suggestions. Would appreciate input from @KHauptfuehrer @jfinan @MrBlueJacket My two open questions are: 1. How to adjust the planking per the above. 2. I’m close to ready to copper. What glue should I use? I see all of the warnings about CA causing it to oxidize quickly, which I want to avoid over the months I apply the sheets.

There are some good ideas in there @VTHokiEE It does have lids, but I planned to leave them open with the guns run out. I particularly like mocking up a cannon or two to place them and see. Maybe I’ll do that and see where I can afford to cut or fill in a bit more.

Happy New Year to everyone! I’ve spent a few days on this, and I’m stumped. How do I reconcile all of the above? Even if I’m willing to cut a little of the planks above the gundeck gunports, so they’re flush with the bottom of the spardeck waterways, that would leave nowhere on the bulkhead for the lodging knees to attach. There are issues both exterior and interior, both top and bottom, both gundeck gunports and spardeck gunports. I imagine if I spent many years building ships, I’d know how to do this right the first time around, but I need to figure out my ship for now. I’m very open to suggestions.

Planking basically is done, interior and exterior. I cut out all of the gunports on gundeck and spardeck, then shaved the sides of each one with a fresh sharp #11 xacto blade to get them right (changed blades multiple times). Some miscalculations on my part led to an interesting challenge. If you don’t get it exactly right (and I didn’t), you have a hard time reconciling all of the following: - four strakes per gunport on both decks - two strakes between top of waterway and bottom of gunports on gundeck - one strake between top of gunports on gundeck and bottom of spardeck waterway - one strake between top of waterway and bottom of gunports on spardeck the miscalculation led to some ports where I’ve got an extra plank hanging down from the top of the gunport on one side, and/or an extra one sneaking up from the bottom of the port on the other side. The pictures below show some examples. if I trim the hanging one, the gunport looks better but then the top is flush with the waterway above; if I trim the bottom one, it is missing a strake between it and the waterway below. If I do neither, I have a strange hanging plank. I probably could fill it with wood filler and then sand it on an angle, which is another option. Fortunately, only some of the ports have the issue. This leaves me with some possibilities: A. Trim and ignore the plank count between ports and waterways B. Fill in with wood filler and sand on an angle, ignoring plank count for ports for some C. Some combination of the above

As I slowly make my way up the interior bulwarks planking, I’ve come to several realizations. First, it’s hard to get the interior and exterior exactly aligned. I imagine this is more natural for those building plank of bulkhead, like MSW, as opposed to on a solid hull, but even slight variances in carving the hull can lead to big planking differences. I’m sanding down planks to shape it as best I can, but I can just hope that it is not overly visible. Second, where the planks from port and starboard meet at the bows need not be perfect. That all will be covered over anyways. I’m trying to get them just right anyways, and where there are gaps, I add small pieces of plank and sand them in, but it doesn’t matter too much. Third, getting the top of the gundeck interior bulwarks planks to finish just right below the spardeck waterway is nearly impossible. Instead, I’m pausing the gundeck bulwark planking, somewhere around the tops of the gunports, and going to do the spardeck waterways. It will be much easier to shape the thin planks to align just below the waterways than the other way around. According to Anatomy (pages 74-76), the spardeck waterways basically are flush with the long midships opening on both sides (what is that opening called?), with a “gunwale” laid over both, while being 2 strakes below the spardeck gunports. I’m not sure my spardeck opening and gunports are aligned quite that precisely, but should be close. My own pictures of the ship from visiting her in May show 1 strake below gunports, and 1 strake below the opening for the bowsprit. Either way, laying the waterways flush with the opening and 1 or 2 strakes below the gunports should be fine.

Before I move on to the finer work on the bulwarks and then coppering, I decided to check the mast holes. If they are off on angle, I always could drill a wider hole and then settle them in with some putty when I steep the masts. I took the wood, planted them in the holes… and it was perfect. Nothing here comes out right the first time, so I’m really surprised. I had my artistically inclined and talented daughter verify. Attached. on to planking the bulwarks.

Sanded the joints, they look and feel much better. Used wood filler inside the chiseled out hatchways to smooth the bottoms, let them dry, then scraped and sanded them down. Finally put on a layer of sealer, which, when dry, will have a layer of black paint on them. i also drilled the holes for the masts. Getting the angle correct turned out to be brutally difficult. The foremast is 91°, mainmast 92°, mizzenmast 94°. Beyond the issue with that kind of precision using a drill, even a hand drill, and getting it centered port to starboard, getting the angle vs the keel is quite hard. I used a protractor, but you cannot set it down on the deck, as the deck is not perfectly parallel with the keel. In the end, I used a level, put pieces under each end until it was perfectly level, then attached the protractor to the level so that its bottom is level and midpoint aligned with the hole location, and then drilled. Hard but it looks like it succeeded. next steps will be painting the hatchways, and planking up the interior bulwarks.

With the new chisels and a bit more time, I got the gundeck waterways installed. Despite lots of shaping of them with water and drying in place (multiple runs), they still weren’t 100%, so CA glue accelerator was a great help. I didn’t trust my carving skills, so I sanded each piece down to get the 45° angle. I need to sand the joints to make them smoother, then complete carving the hatchways, and then on to planking the interior bulwarks.

Happy USS Constitution Day! She was launched 21 Oct 1797, which is 225 years ago today.

I get it. I go weeks sometimes without touching it, but then return with zest. I do miss building plastic models, though, but no more time in life.

I will miss your update @ERS Rich. But I’m looking forward to following the Maine build.

And it occurs to me that I will be stuck again soon. I cannot complete the shaping of the bulwarks-meet-deck shape without… gouges! Well, hopefully they will be here soon.

Cut the waterways stock into two pieces, one will be long with a slight bend, the other short with a very large curve. Soaked the first long piece in boiling water, then dried the excess, shaped into position and placed clamps. To protect the outside, I placed extra cardboard stick between the clamps and planking. You can see the incomplete hatchways on the open gundeck; they will stay that way until the new chisels and gouges show up.

And 2 gouges broke, in addition to the 1 from last week. Oops. I was using the excel inserts into the xacto handle. It worked but no longer. The irony is that I’m almost done chiseling or gouging on the ship. Everything else going forward is cutting or shaping or such. oh well. I ordered a small replacement set on Amazon, but it does take time to get here. I might try to do the waterways in the meantime. will soaking allow me to bend a nice curve into the thicker stock used for the waterways? I’d have to let it dry completely before I could carve it, of course.

That’s really smart. I was going to just dig it and fill with putty. This is even better. Thanks Jerry.

I used a very small drill bit to drill pilot holes a little inside each corner of a hatch, as well as the centre. Then I used a bit larger ones, big enough to get the keyhole saw in. I roughly estimated the 7/8" depth, knowing I always could dig deeper or fill in with wood putty. In the centre, I used a much larger bit, since I wanted to remove as much as I could with a power tool before having to work by hand. In the largest hatch, I used the keyhole saw to cut from corner to corner, which entailed far more physical effort (and sweat) than I expected. Eventually I did get through. I then used the larger 90° chisel to dig in each corner, and then dig out from the depth. I also used various sanding heads on my Dremel, but that was less successful (and I was not careful enough taking the head off and burned my finger, oops). I found that using the 90° chisel after drilling holes worked the best. With the smaller hatches, it actually wasn't all that hard to just place the chisel on the corner and push down. Repeat for 4 corners, a chunk of wood comes out, do it again. Now all of the hatches are dug out. I need to use files to expand the edges a bit and sharpen the corners, as well as dig a bit, and one of them is a bit too deep, so I will fill with putty. After that, sand them all. I will edit to add a picture to this post when I get a chance.