uss frolick

Sadly, I no longer have the original that I transcribed six years ago. It was difficult to read from, that I remember, due to bad handwriting, fading and ink bleed-through from the opposite side. I do have the logbook entry of the Endymion from those dates. It mentions one man brought back wounded, who died from his wounds a few days later. He was Law. [Lawrence?] Roberts. Tell us about your ancestor!

So the Chesapeake project morphed into the US Sloop or War Frolick of 1813. Here are her guns, twenty 32-pounder carronades plus two long 18-pounders, the latter possibly taken off the blockaded and laid-up prize Frigate Macedonian. These big guns would go on to sink a large 'pirate' schooner (actually a Colombian privateer), during the course of a 45-minute running fight, but were later tossed overboard to try to prevent capture, and lie somewhere off the northern coast of Cuba to this day : 0 by Stephen Duffy, on Flickr Six extra carronades (I wish I had gotten more) for a possible, additional Frolickie cross-section ... 0-1 by Stephen Duffy, on Flickr Frolick was taken into the RN as HMS Florida, and here is an 1816 drawing of her replacement battery: 0 by Stephen Duffy, on Flickr Pirates! Beware the Frolick! 0-9 by St 0-4 by Stephen Duffy, on Flickr Frolick! Beware the Orpheus! 0-13 by Stephen Duffy, on Flickr

He charged me for a bulk order, if I remember correctly, $4 per barrel, which was a good deal considering the quality of his castings. Pewter doesn't oxidize like white metal (neither does Bluejacket Brittania castings). As far as safety goes, well they did used to make plates and tankards out of it ... The fumes might be dangerous when casting, but I wasn't around for that.

About a dozen years ago, there used to be in my town, a local artist who specialized in custom art and figurines made of traditional pewter. A really cool old hippie dude, I asked him if he could make custom pewter casting s of a some cannon barrels that I had much earlier lathed out of brass. There were two types, a long 18-pounder - British pattern - 'hung by thirds', of course - and a 32-pounder carronade barrel. His results were astonishingly good, as seen below. These were not finished in any way or cleaned up . The seams are barely noticeable, and the barrel cross sections are round, not squished, as I am told is often the case. The pewter finish is lovely by itself, before any chemical darkening or painting is applied. Here are the long guns. the master above in brass and a cast gun below: 0-2 by Stephen Duffy, on Flickr Here are the carronades. Note I had the trunnion and the fighting bolt cast into it as one piece: 0 by Stephen Duffy, on Flickr Together with a scale: 0-3 by Stephen Duffy, on Flickr For comparative purposes, I have shown the long gun with Bluejacket's two large 1/4" scale cannon, what I believe to be a medium US Navy 32-pounder and an 8" shell gun, and carriage, from the antebellum period. Bluejacket's guns are cast from their own pewter-like metal with they call "Britannia", and have obviously not been cleaned up, and show a bit of flash: 0-5 by Stephen Duffy, on Flickr My two barrels sitting on top of Bluejacket's carriages: 0-1 by Stephen Duffy, on Flickr And I cast a lot of these barrels too. I had initially wanted to build an 18-pounder USN frigate, the Chesapeake, which sailed in 1811-12, when under Captain Evans, no fewer than thirty 18-pounders, and twenty-four 32-pounder carronades, 54 guns total. These were soon reduced under Captain Lawrence in 1813 to 49 guns. 0-4 by Stephen Duffy, on Flickr My barrels compared to Bluejacket's large carronade, certainly a 32 or a 42 pounder and carriage slide: 0-7 by Stephen Duffy, on Flickr A pile of guns ... 0-6 by Stephen Duffy, on Flickr

Thanks Kerry! What is the spacing between the frames, what they used to call "room and space", or what is the width of the space between each 1/4 inch pair?

An amazing kit, to be sure! They sure built a lot of ships to this plan. One quick question. What is the thickness of your frames? Do they follow the scantlings and dimensions of the framing plan, or are they thinner, simplified frame pairs like Harold Hahn's?

Sadly, in this current PC, Woke culture we find ourselves in, few lawyers or companies are going to want anything to do with the Confederacy on open display.

Cottage Industry Models offers a 1/8th scale upgrade in resin of the guns of Alabama and Kearsarge for the respective Revell Kits. The site hasn't been updated in years, so I don't know if they are still taking orders, but the site is still there: http://cottageindustrymodels.com/?page_id=289 You might want to try to contact them.

Blue jackets metal is an alloy they call “Britannia “, of which they are rather proud, since it will not oxidize or “cauliflower “, like other lead based metal fittings do over time. It is much like pewter, hence the expense. Wooden blocks can look kind of clunky in 1/8 scale, especially those supplied in foreign kits. (Not Chuck’s of course)

This modern painting is fun!

Everything that you would want to know about boarding nets, you will find in William Gilkerson's two volumes of "Boarders Away". But they are rare, and as seen here, expensive, but well worth it. This is a good deal, considering: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Gilkerson-BOARDERS-AWAY-Volumes-1-and-2-SIGNED-BY-AUTHOR/114141642314?hash=item1a935f3e4a:g:QxUAAOSwqqJeYom3 The price of just Volume 1 on amazon is insane! https://www.amazon.com/Boarders-Away-Steel-Edged-Weapons-Polearms/dp/0917218507/ref=sr_1_7?dchild=1&keywords=gilkerson+BOARDERS+AWAY&qid=1592879666&sr=8-7

HMS Gannet survives from that period. Her restoration may be of help: https://thedockyard.co.uk/explore/three-historic-warships/hms-gannet/

There are no surviving deck plans of the Chesapeake to compare the model with. The outboard profile is different with respect to the number and position of the spar deck ports. But this could just be put down to not having a plan in prison to work off of, and not remembering exactly how the ports were positioned, so they just placed them between the gun deck ports as was traditional practice. Not a bad reconstruction given that the crew had been together at sea for only six hours when they were taken. I wonder where the the Mrs. Lawrence provenance story came from, and how the model ended up in Germany.

During that period, the smallest class of 'frigate' was a 28-gun ship, displacing a minimum of about 600-700 tons, mounting nothing smaller than nine-pounders on her main deck. Even a merchant ship could be called 'frigate-built', (like Oliver Cromwell, ex-Juno) meaning that her guns are mostly on one covered deck, with the captain's cabin/stern gallery also on that deck. Little Pegasus was also 'frigate-built' by her deck arrangements, but she was only rated as a sloop. I think the 20 gun ships were called "post ships", smaller than a frigate, but large enough so that a captain could still be 'posted' to command her.

One of the least-efficient ways to cool your shed is the totally-awesome Kung Foo Fan Method. But it is a green, planet-friendly, small-carbon-footprint solution, and I know how eco-woke you are. Make sure your pajamas have secure elastic waist bands though ...

This is the very first of her class, HMS Hermes of 1810, shown here ramming a French privateer. HMS Carron was launched in 1813 to essentially her plans, but built of pine instead of oak. Both fought together at the battle off Mobile Bay, Alabama in 1814 against American land fortifications, where Hermes went aground and was destroyed, but Carron survived, albeit badly damaged. Both were flush decked ship rigged sloops of about 115 feet on the gun deck. Both were armed with 20 guns, viz., eighteen 32-pounder carronades and two long nine-pounders. This is best image of the Hermes portrait that I can find: 0 by Stephen Duffy, on Flick Here is the Wiki page on Carron. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Carron_(1813) Here is the lines plan of the revised 1812 sub-class to which HMS Carron was built:

As opposed to a regular man of war built hull, with sharp lines for speed. It refers to a fat-hulled merchantman, with a round midship section and a bluff bow, whose main concern was carrying as much cargo as possible from A to B, and as such, rather slow, usually used for British coastal trade. But they were strong, and they didn't draw as much water as even a regular merchantman, and so they were perfect for exploration, where speed didn't matter, and a shallow draught, in the remoter oceans, might mean the difference between life and death. Patrick O'Brien novel fan will be familiar with their type, by the uncomplimentary phrase, "A fat-arsed dutch-built bugger". Bounty fits the type well.

A single punched-tin, whale-oil lantern, swinging from an overhead beam, would make your ship-model lighting historically more authentic!🕯🤓

Peace love and grooviness

When’s the wine cellar gonna be finished?

Poor dog!

Grasshopper was lost to the Dutch soon after and became the Irene in their service. Hence the popular modeling 📚 book! these are great! Keep them coming! Thanks!

Frequent mention was made, in later US Navy correspondence, of "shot-boxes" being brought up on deck prior to an action. Presumably, these contained the grape shot and canister shot, as they would have had to have been stowed somewhere too, other than the shot garlands. Often they would place capstan bars across the shot boxes to use as benches during Sunday services. One question I have always had was, what secured the shot in the shot racks? Just a minor pitch, heave or roll of the ship would send them all flying! So were they secured in place with a strong weave netting, or an upper wooden batten lashed down in place?

Captain David Milne, would, in 1800, while in command of the Frigate La Seine, capture the French National Frigate La Vengeance, the very same ship that fought the USS Constellation to a bloody nighttime draw a month before.

That news article would be called “sponsored content” today.🤔