Der Alte Rentner

I found another hour or two of Shipyard time today. (Trying to keep up with Mustafa..) The experimentation continues. Nothing is glued together permanently yet, except for the head and two portions of the grating. What I have discovered through this process is that the plans for the supports seem to be off as well. I had to shave quite a bit of material off the top of posts four and three. If I continue with this methodology, I will copy those shapes to boxwood before gluing anything permanently on the starboard side. This way I can come close to the right shapes as a starting point for the port side. One difficulty for me will be that I've got to stain the supports before I glue them into place. So I'll have to be darned sure I'm happy with the configuration first.

It would seem that you and I are taking different approaches. I'm coming at it from the support-first methodology. I'm keeping my options open though, and will watch closely from the sidelines to see how your plan shapes up. So far, I haven't glued anything into place, while I experiment. Good luck. P.S. Man! that copper plating looks good.

Okay, I did manage to sneak away for an hour. Here is the result of my latest round of head scratching.. I can't imagine that the "poop deck" 😁 would have been severely angled, so I'm assuming a more horizontal aspect, at least for the first two sections of the grating. Shall I work the supports around the only solidly accurate portion of the plan? The grating? Jon, in your enormous library of photographs, do you have any that show the comfort station from let's say the bowsprit toward the head access in the hull? I want to know if the grating is more or less parallel to the water line. Or if everything is tilted slightly upward from the hull toward the bowsprit. This is all I could find on the subject.. This is where I'm at.

So much for the easy way out. Again, thank you Mustafa.

Well, That! should be a little easier for these aging grey cells to remember. Thank you, Mustafa.

I picked up the spelling (bumpkins) from the plans that came with the MS plans for Conny. Even in the photos you supplied above, there doesn't appear to be any necessary rigging associated with them, so, I remain on the "I'll pass" side of the argument. I'll leave it to you and Unegawahya to settle this hash.. By the way, I wonder if it's going to take me as long to memorize the spelling of Unegawahya's name as it will to finish this model.. 🤔

I don't know if you're still using the MSW site, but if so, can you let me know if you shaped the supports per the plan, and made the rails to fit? or if you made the rails first and shaped the supports to fit them? Thanks Der Alte Rentner?

Here I thought the galleries were the most difficult part of this build to date. I've been back and forth between the shipyard and my PC to try to formulate a plan. I really would like to install the timbers/supports first so that shaping the rails is easier. I'm still going over build logs. I think the fifth support, the stern-most one (Hunt numbered them 1 to 5 from the stem), is angled slightly to the stern. My goal will be to try for even spacing along the upper ends where they meet rail 2. I did fabricate a rail 2, out of 1/8" square stock, and using my trusty plank bending iron, managed that compound bend. Unfortunately, it appears to sit too far inboard and doesn't leave enough room for the grating. Back to the drawing board to see what's what. It'll have to wait until Monday though, as family obligations will occupy most of the rest of today and tomorrow. Six years? 🤔 The more I look at the photos of your build, the more convinced I am that you nailed it in terms of the supports. And this one helps me tremendously to visualize where the grating placement needs to be. On the bumpkins: I just checked page 7 of the plans, which shows the bulk of the rigging. I see the bumpkins, but don't think anything is rigged to them. That it didn't occur to me to look for them in the actual photos of the Constitution, is a clear sign I need to worry about early onset Alzheimer's. 😁 And for what it's worth, I have a blowup of this view pinned up near my work bench a reference. That's where I got the notion the spacing should be even between the supports. I wish Conny wasn't painted black. It would be so much easier to pick out details in photographs. Oh well. Thanks again, Unegawahya

Turns out I have to agree with Hunt. The plans are wrong. Using the top view as my reference, I found where the timbers need to align with the grates. Those Timbers need to be forward of where the plan suggests they are in the broadside view. I'll figure out where Timber five goes later. Got to go see an eye doctor, so this is all I've got for today..

I noticed that the 5th support didn't appear until after the rails were in place. Also that 4th one was affixed to the stem, not in the corner, which seems to be the consensus view but contradictory to the plans, where 4 would be on the stem but touch the bow. I've been trying to keep the spacing at the tops of those supports relatively even, hence my attempt to angle #4 at the bow. I'll get continue to experiment with placement to find a solution that satisfies my aesthetic. Thanks for the pictures, especially this one: (Hmm, comparing yours again to mine, I think mine are too thick, perhaps adding to my difficulty). Hey, where are the fore tack bumpkins? I checked your build log, and don't see it anywhere. I checked the Practicum to see when Hunt installs them. They supposedly go between supports 3 and 4, but there's no evidence that Hunt installed them. And these are noticeably absent in this photo, which, by the way, really shows off the supports! This one is helpful in that it shows the relationship between the timbers (supports) and the grating. And then I found these, in the Practicum! (You know, I've got the hard copy of the Practicum at the shop and refer to it constantly, yet I don't seem to be able to find stuff until I'm sitting at home in front of my PC with its 42" monitor.) Timber 4: Timber 5: For what it's worth, even Hunt acknowledges difficulty making and placing these timbers. "The last timber (number 5) is the most difficult one. It sits at the outer edge of the cheek and is on an angle but still touches the third rail. Frankly, this timber was the most difficult of them all and I could not achieve the same look from the bow with this timber as the historic photo shows. I'm a bit disappointed in the structure but don't see anyway to improve or fix it. I'm not sure what the problem may be that is causing the overall look but will live with it as I fear I will seriously damage the model if I try to find a fix. Photo P8.1.5-11, P8.1.5-12 and P8.1.5-13 show the timber before being applied to the model." Back to the shipyard for me for more experimentation, and Thank you Unegawahya for your thoughtful response! Best

Still struggling to find the correct course, but I may be getting close to a support-first approach. Support 3 needs to be a little taller, so the mating face for rail 2 is in the right place. I think the key will be to get the slots for rail 3 correctly aligned. From there it should be downhill, in theory.. 🤔

That's pretty much how I started, but as mentioned, I've flipped the process on its head. I just copied everything I posted here over the last couple of months into Word, cleaning and editing as I went. The printed log, as a result, will be less busy than these posts, making for easier reading. Sticking with "Just the facts, maam". (How old do you have to be to get that reference? (don't answer that Gregg!))

Okay guys, you can look now.. *and you know who "you" are.. As long as I'm adding P.S.s, On the subject of gathering pdfs directly from this site, that would really help my new work flow. I actually post here first, then cut and past into a Word Document at home for my personal log, which I am printing in annual editions. Volume one was printed last June. Volume two is due to hit the presses in June this year. Cover Page of vol. 1:

I'm beginning to see why people deal with the rails before they deal with the supports. First a recap of construction efforts to date: 1. Begin construction of the end of rail 3 that fits below the cathead. 2. First try at the forward portion of the rail. (I'm hoping I can bend this to fit after tapering later). 3. Construct support 5 and see how it fits. First problem encountered. Where do I trim to this support? Outboard to match the knee and keep the distance from the hull of the notch (not yet cut out, just marked)? Or on the inboard side, moving the mating areas for the rail inboard as well? 4. Construct support 4 and see how this fits into the grand scheme of things. More problems encountered. If placed where the plans suggest, the angle is atrocious in proximity with support 5. Or farther forward as done by several builders? The latter doesn't really solve the odd angle problem. 5. Bevel the end so that it fits at a 45 degree angle where the stem meets the hull? As done by yet others? 6. Scratch my head and stare at the plan a little while longer hoping for inspiration? Pour myself a double and call it a day? 😁 Yep!

Hmmm, I thought you threw the question out to the public at large, and dove. I was going to comment that the benefit of doing an open hull version is that there would be much less hull planking. But that wouldn't be enough incentive for me to launch into such an ambitious build. Leaving it to you to lead the way.. And as you rightly point out, I'll be deep into my seventies by the time I start that. Arthritis and deteriorating eyesight will also be contributing factors. As for getting my current build done before I'm 77, see my new post below..