Der Alte Rentner

where did you get the lion head carving? I searched online and drew a blank. I don't see one in the kit either. Thanks for providing those pictures. I have a much better idea of what to do with the cathead now, which is basically - wait until I need to deal with the rigging, because I can get mine in and out of the opening in the bulwarks fairly easily. For now, I will drill the holes and mill the channels between them, then move on to the lower gunport framing. thanks again Peter

Sorry Unegawahya, I don't know how the dialog between me and JS Gerson ended up in your build log. This site can at times be confusing (at least for me).

Thanks Jon. I was at the shop (excuse me, shipyard) yesterday installing the outer plank sheer. Since I had already planked the upper gun ports and needed to perform minor surgery to fit the catheads, I think I'm good. They can be installed later. I did reshape the catheads a bit so the inner ends end closer to the waterway, so they look closer to the way they do now on the original. Your decision to add the hardware, fittings and rigging seems like the right way to go. So, my next task will be exactly that, starting with setting up my little mill so I can carve out the troughs between the holes for the "simulated sheaves". Thanks again,

Holy cow! Talk about service!! I followed the link to that part of your build. Ironically, the question was seeking an answer for may have been answered in the last photo of your sequence, where you mounted the inboard end of it directly onto the waterway- not onto the deck. The photos of the catheads you fabricated look to have the same configuration as the laser-cut pieces that came with the kit, so I assume you left those alone and carved into the waterway to fit the cathead. Yes? Thank you kind sir. I guess my post will be anticlimactic now. I was tweaking the photos and will indeed post, but since nothing is glued in place yet, I may revisit the topic before I go much further. I'll have to buy the lion's heads. Thanks for that lead also! Best Der Alte Rentner (aka Peter)

2025 Update from my future self! I've mentioned this on page 1 of my build log, but will reiterate here. Watch the waterways! Following Hunt's instructions in their construction will cause problems for you down the line, if you want your carronades to poke through the gunports. See my posts from early March of 2025. (beginning with post 522). I note again below that the shape of the waterways as constructed by Hunt are incorrect. Heed the shape in the plans! If anything, make them even narrower. I'm struggling a little with the catheads. Would someone who's gotten to that part of the build please show how you went about getting them in? 1. Did you shape the catheads to fit the waterway and plank sheer? or 2. Did you shape the waterway and plank sheer to fit the catheads? 3. Did your version of the kit come with the lion's head cap that is supposed to sit on the outer end of the cathead? I reacquainted myself with the use of my drafting table and made a scale drawing of the waterway, plank sheer, bulkhead and bulwark planking. To this I tried to see how the plan's version of the cathead should fit. Frankly, it doesn't. The Hunt Practicum and the plans say to make the waterway out of 5/32" x 5/16" stock. Well and good, but missing from the Practicum is a note saying to trim the inner edge (the part to which the deck planking will abut) to a width closer to the plan's drawings. I thought that perhaps the excess material not having been pruned from the waterway may have led to Mr. Hunt's approach in shaping the cathead in Chapter 3. My scale drawing disproves this theory (slightly). I need to get the photos off of my phone to post them here, which will happen later today or tomorrow, but I can tell you that it seems that the drawing of the cathead, and therefore the laser-cut components in the kit, are off the mark. In my case, shaping the cathead to fit the plank sheer and waterway resulted in disaster. I did however become quite adept at making replacement parts from the same stock but, no matter what I tried, these did not fit properly. I suppose I could have left gaps between the components and filled them with putty later, but I opted to make a cardboard template that fit the space and fabricate new parts from that template. The results were much better, though I had to make three parts because the original broke while cutting out slots. In the end, I ditched all chisel types of tools (Xacto etc.) and used other means - saws and files. To scale drawing - left. Copy of plan drawing - right. I cut out copies of the cathead itself and one of the drawing from the plans showing the installed cathead against the outer bulwark. These were placed on top of the drawing to see how things fit. If the butt end of the cathead sits on the deck, there's still a gap between the waterway and the plank sheer, as well as between the plank sheer and the inner bulwark. To eliminate any gaps, I'd have to reshape the cathead or carve slots into the plank sheer and waterway. Today's fabrications follow: Note the difference in angle of the waterway and how much more vertical the butt end of the cathead appears in the photo below. This may explain why JSGerson, affixed his to the waterway and not the deck. After looking at Jonathon's work, I may be revisiting this

You don't have to think too hard, I was only kidding. However…

Had to look at your build log when I spied the name. Welcome aboard! Also, your build takes me back about 60 years when I build one while in the 8th grade.

Outstanding! Now, can you be hired to make another? I can pick it up on my way to Las Vegas in early October..

While I continue to write my personal build log in Word, I think I'll save myself the hassle of the three step process to post here. I'll be cutting and pasting the text from Word and following that up with pictures like everyone else... 2023 Sep 13 Missed a detail in “Finishing the Plank Shear” I didn’t read carefully enough the instructions on page 6 in chapter 3 of Bob Hunt's Practicum. It clearly stated, "Finish the filler pieces by adding them from bulkhead F to B..“. Clearly, as evidenced by the photos below, I did not stop at bulkhead B. So, now I’ll have to do a little surgery on the bulwarks between bulkhead A and B to make room to install the catheads. Oh well. That doesn’t seem like a biggie. Apart from that, I did finish the spar deck and stern gun port framing and planking. Also found techniques to assure the heights of the openings were consistent and roughly parallel to the deck. I cut some plywood strips 3/8” wide and positioned these in the port openings on bridging the width of the hull. I also finally added the transom extensions. A lot of sanding, and testing with wood strips to make sure the bulwark tops would easily be covered by the main rail. Time for a photo op to appreciate the work done so far. Then on to the cathead and lower gun ports. Taking a break for a few days to catch up on other stuff.

good idea. a little late for me, but that would be a good way to confirm the height of the gunport.

My thoughts exactly! The plan is 1:1 scale to the model. That's why I'm confused by the gunport measurements on the plan vs. the text on the plan, that I interpret to mean, use 3/64" planking. Am I misreading the plan and the 3/64" means something else?

I really would like to know why jpg files generated by Adobe Acrobat from my personal build log render so poorly at this site. I'm setting Adobe Acrobat up to export to 600 dpi. You'd think I'd get better results here. The first photo below was uploaded directly, and you can zoom in quite a bit for better detail. I don't want to give up the format I use for my own build log, but the hassle involved in going from Word to PDF to JPG is a PITA! Going forward, I may skip the conversions and just cut and paste the text from Word to here. That would be followed up with uploads of uncropped photos. My regular post follows that first photo.

Having experienced several, 'gee, what do I do now'? moments myself, even this early in the build, I fully understand the need for breaks - long or short. Researching and problem solving are consuming way more time than I anticipated. As a consequence my posts will be fewer and further between as I wrestle with issues and decisions going forward. Right now, I'm debating whether or not to dismantle the transom elements because the topgallant rail will not adequately cover the overly thick transom assembly (planking/shims/frames/planking). I suppose I could simply make a wider rail, and just move on. But I'm obsessing over this little detail. The topgallant rail has quite the arc in it, yet the transom itself is fairly flat. I'm looking for photos of these details before I take saw and chisel to the stern. But I digress. Welcome back.

Okay, now I'm feeling like a slacker. Not only did you create wheel from scratch, you turned the spokes on a lathe, and somehow managed to drill straight holes for them in the wheel. I don't yet see the nave yet, but I'm sure you have a plan for that as well. I hunted down Jonathon's suggested wheel kit from Syrene Model Ship Company. That doesn't seem like much less work. I have a long way to go before I get to that part of the build, but I'll put my thinking cap on and see if I can't come up with an elegant solution to using the cast metal wheel that came with the kit. (While at the Syrene site, I saw the plans for the cannon carriage kit. Having seen the fine finish on the cannon itself, I'll be on the lookout for techniques - or sources, for alternatives there too. Thanks for being in the vanguard gentlemen..

Exactly what I noticed. That's why, like you, I look ahead as much as possible to try to spare myself the agony of the same mistakes, and why I peruse this website constantly in search of tips, techniques, and pitfalls to be avoided.

Excellent work. And thanks for sharing the information about the 3D tour. I'm definitely going to hunt this down. P.S. I'm still working on the gunports, and noticed an oversight in Bob Hunt's Practicum. There's no mention of the two just aft of bulkhead K. Since he had us install outer plank sheer elements there, I figured something was up. My first point of reference was the 3D Constitution exhibit at the museum's website you guided me to. Though there were no canons there, I did see the openings and netting with holes for the barrels. I went one step further and perused your build log for confirmation. Thanks for all the great pictures. I will draw inspiration from your sterling example.

Hello Unegawahya Bob Hunt's Practicum suggests applying acrylic polyurethane as you go. This then gets covered with acrylic paint later. I have jumped ahead quite a bit in the Practicum and have seen that Bob glues stuff on top of the painted surfaces. I assume you're doing the same. How well does the glue hold on a painted surface compared to the raw wood? Do you sand away the finish before gluing new parts to these surfaces? Also, I notice that your main rails look different from what the Bob Hunt Practicum shows (see below). Is there a reason you have no planking above the main rail? again, welcome back. Happy to have another build log to explore and exploit for tips and techniques. Best Der Alte (aka Peter)

Hi Jonathan, I'm new to the site, and relatively new to model ship building in general. Before starting the USS Constitution, I pored over Model Ship World looking for as much information as possible before committing to the project. Had I not learned of Bob Hunt's Practicum, I would not have attempted this at all. So, thanks for steering me to a resource that's helping me work through the build. I will look for Ken Forman's build to see if I can glean more useful information there. (Example: I'm hunting down pictures of the main rail today, trying to figure out if my gun port bulwarks are not too fat (plank+bulkhead extension+plank) to accommodate the main rail later. I just learned that Mr. Hunt had me cut off the tops of those extensions a tad early, opting to use toothpicks and a drill later to deal with the planking ABOVE the main rail. He certainly has some novel approaches to things..) As for the pdf's. I plan to print the entire build log when this project is finished. I started in Word, but soon learned that I could only post text and jpg files here at MSW. So, painful as it is, I maintain the log in Word, export it to PDF, and from there convert to jpg files to accommodate MSW. Believe me, I'd be happy to find a simpler method of posting the build log here. I am not familiar with ModelShipBuilder. If that site offers the possibility to make my life easier, that would be great. One reason I continue to work in Word is that I crop and edit the photos I use in the log. I don't want to photoshop every picture before posting, so the crop feature of Word is a time-saver and helps me put together a nicer looking log - again, because at some point I will print the whole thing and give it to my son along with the model. Thanks for your interest, and the great leads. Best Der Alte (aka Peter)

Since you have the Practicum, the instructions for the channel and chainplates are in Chapter 10.

You're working on the pull-out table on your desk? Holy Mackerel! By the way, Welcome back...

The Practicum confirms your observation of the "pics", 3/32"x 1/2". See below:

I'm doing exactly that. I've been out of the shop for a while dealing with family issues. As these are wrapping up, I'm getting back to work...

May I ask? How did you shape the bowsprit?