uss frolick

Blue-Jacket already has an attractive, precut POF kit - the two-gun, schooner-rigged Revenue Cutter "Jefferson Davis", based on Chapelle's plan of her class.

Blue-Jacket already has an attractive, precut POF kit - the two-gun, schooner-rigged Revenue Cutter "Jefferson Davis", based on Chapelle's plan of her class.

Blue-Jacket already has an attractive, precut POF kit - the two-gun, schooner-rigged Revenue Cutter "Jefferson Davis", based on Chapelle's plan of her class.

As always: WHAT a treat!
 
XXXDAn

Thanks for the kind words and positive comments,  and also for the LIKES.
 
The next equipment parts of the French corvette is a cover for spare masts and spare spars. The weatherproof cover is a canvas, which was painted with tar. This canvas is mounted on fork-shaped iron and been completed front and back by a board.
 
The following pictures speak for themselves and I hope you like them.

Source: La Créole in Musée de la Marine Paris
 
The image of Morel Fatio shows an example of an open storage of the reserve timber:

 
Likewise, an image of the model of La Belle Poule:

Source: Musée de la Marine Paris
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holly Ship, Bob!
 
That deck looks nice!

Holly Ship, Bob!
 
That deck looks nice!

Holly Ship, Bob!
 
That deck looks nice!

Holly Ship, Bob!
 
That deck looks nice!

Stunning!

In general, if Chapelle didn't find it, it doesn't exist. The rare exception being the Frigate John Adams.
 
Your's Truly discovered them. {"Thank You! Thank You!" - Frolick bows to thunderous applause}.
 
#1 and #4 above are in the National Archives, not the Smithsonian, and you have get them directly from that source, if they can find them. #2 and #3 are part of the Josiah Fox Papers, in The Peabody & Essex Museum of Salem, in Salem Massachusetts. Good luck getting anything from them in timely manner ... :lol Maryland Silver has only a few of the many NA plans, and as you can see, he's a Civil war guy mainly. Coker's book is a really good illustrated history, but don't expect it to be a ship plan source, other than for the JA's body line plan.

Three John Adams 1799 plans do survive, enough for a complete reconstruction. Chapelle missed them.
 
1. Original body lines, pre 1829: National Archives, presumably (published in Charleston's Maritime Heritage, Coker.)
 
2. Out board profile, which includes partial inboard profile, partial waterlines (or are they diagonal projections?), as designed, 1/4" scale
Peabody Museum, Fox Papers. Note twenty-four broadside ports, but with no bridle port. The latter was added, along with a five feet extension of keel in Charleston. Not labeled as JA in Fox Papers.
 
3. Half-breadth of Decks, all, with stowage, 1/8th scale, as converted to a corvette, circa 1807, Fox papers. Position of projected stern chase ports indicate an original six window design, with ports in the two and five windows, with the others planked over. All they did was remove the spar deck in 1807-08. Shows length, mast and gunport position as built. (Labeled as "Decks Chesapeake" in Fox Papers, by some long dead, blind, crack-smoking staff volunteer!!)
 
I forgot one!
 
4. There is an inboard profile plan from the 1850s showing her final configuration. I've seen it, but I don't have a copy, from the NA, that shows ten ports aside - down from the 1829 rebuild's twelve - a full projecting stem-post, and a sketch of her bust figurehead.

You shock me!!! What a ship!!! Well done!

Oh my...that´s beautiful, my compliments to the Unknown Artist™
I hope I can do the drawings justice in 3D.

And then, following the paradigm of reconstruction, the artist did a cove carving that was too perfect for words.
 
The ‘original’ Cornélie had a note of a busy cove carving that may not have been done in actual practice, but looked good in dockyard records. Since this ship is not of the ‘original’ Cornélie , it seemed good and right to let the artist have the freedom to play.
 
This was the result: Cornelia and Vesta offering, together, to la flamme sacrée. It is  right in line with the figurehead. Oh, gosh, an artist that “knows” ships as well as “knows” his Greek and Roman. Life doesn’t get any better.
 

 
Ciao John
 
 

Have a sneak peak of the carvings. The only known reference to the carvings of the “real” Cornélie is a few sentences in dockyard records. Not much to go on, but her figurehead was described as Cornélie, “hair bound in roman fashion and holding a vessel of the sacred flame”.
 
Cornelia Scipionis Africana, mother of the Gracchi, was the touchstone of motherhood virtue (home and hearth) in Rome; the only woman who ever got a statue in the forum. She refused the marriage proposal of Ptolemy Physcon, who offered the crown and treasures of Egypt, by bringing out her sons and saying “These are my treasures.” Who would not love a ship named for such an incredible woman.
 
The Roman goddess of motherhood (and virtue, and other stuff) was Vesta (the Greek Hestia) who was keeper of the sacred flame of home and hearth and virtue. Her statues and images show her holding a ‘vessel’ of the sacred flame. Some of these are brass cups having the flame, but most are of the ice cream-cone shaped bundle of rods with la flamme sacrée issuing from the top.
 

 
Since I can’t draw, one of our members and contributors offered to come and play. He did the perfect figurehead. Can’t begin to say how well this works.

That is a rather nice phrase, isn’t it? I have learned so much from Howard Chapelle’s and Merritt Edson’s  notes and journals about the techniques of ‘reconstruction’. To name the process for Chapelle seemed the fair thing to do (pun intended).
 
Better lines plans coming very soon. They will be accompanied by some Excel files that have the table of offsets, separately, for the underwater waterlines and the additional topsides horizontals. Excel data points are in ‘decimal’ French pieds with a next column in metric. It’s ‘decimal’ pieds because TCAD works in decimal and it’s not all that hard to go between ‘decimal’ pieds and pieds/pouces/lignes. I used some of Chapelle’s  technique suggestions and math and I will be dipped if the topsides didn’t simply drop into the Chaumont Draught paradigm.
 
Not too many changes, but I’m afraid Mademoiselle  l’estain got tweaked (I have as much trouble with that as you, Bava, but I think I have her worried).
 
Ciao John

"... I would have to do a Chapelle ..." 
 
Love that phrase!

"... I would have to do a Chapelle ..." 
 
Love that phrase!

"... I would have to do a Chapelle ..." 
 
Love that phrase!

Here's how I did the 1854 Constellation pivots but she had Parrotts fore and aft.  The below deck guns were on a "standard" carriage (definition subject to argument).  
 

 

 

 

 

 
If the pivot guns were mounted midships, there are pics of those about.

Mark, I think you are on the right track. Druxey likely found the same stuff I have.
 
Even some bottle-style quarter galleries had a cup-like bin at the tippy top, judging from drawing shadows and perspective. After Caffiere, there was radical change in gallery design and by 1780 you saw all kinds of stuff for the gallery upper-finish; flat closed roofs, angled roofs with or without carving, and roofs with ‘rails’, forming a bin for MOB gear or a cistern, or whatever. The 1787 Vial du Clairbois shows a ‘roof bin’ finish with respect to 74s. Frigates would not have been substantially different.
 

 
The 1785 Calypso had ‘rails’, Proserpine did not (just finish roof carving). Admittedly, the photos are of models of 1800 and 1804 ships, but show the idea of how the ‘rails’ extend outside the side of the hull, so you can see how it goes. Boudriot notes there was even a canvas shelter top that deployed over the top of the bin and notes the doorway (small) cut into the bulwark, way aft, for access (at least in La Flore).
 
Your NMM plans show a feature that I would consider dispositive, although there is lots of room for disagreement. The top line of Licorne’s quarter gallery finish is a curve.  This curve is displaced from the line of wale and line of rail, and has a curvature that cannot be reconciled with some older sheer line of the vessel. Other ships that had a simple, ‘railless’, roof finished by being faired to and flowing into the corresponding sheer or main rail. . Licorne’s is clearly something that curves outwardly from the hull surface in this area, as shown by other ‘bin-top’ vessels.
 
The rail slopes inward and can be an open rail (not usual), or lined with lead or canvas (typical).  The underlying physical roof structure will be a skoosh flatter – wood, lead covered. Hard to know the actual roof angle, but Vial gives the proportion of 2/3 the overall rise for a 74. Licorne is also unusual in that the after edge of the finish does not connect with the cove (horseshoe). This suggests a “dome-like” roof which was very common for the period and might well be an artifact of the bottle roof. For a rebuild, a yard dog would very likely take the path of “save what you can, and use what you save”, but this is pure speculation.
 
Enough of my blithering. I hope this helps somewhat.
 
Ciao. John

After making the decision, I leapt into the fray once more.     I've drawn and cut the rails out of Euro Boxwood (they still need some more cleaning up after seeing the macro photo...  In real life at wide open Ferrari speed, they look pretty good.
 
The plan is to finish shaping the roof where the rail goes, hollow it out to the "bathtub" look on the rail side and bottom.  I'm unsure if I can get a bit in there to leave the back against the hull...  I'll then probably dye it black.  The rails will be soaked, heated (or steamed if the Admiral gives permission) and bent to the "tub".    I hope to have this done in a couple of days as I'm really anxious to start working on the stern carvings.
 
Sorry about the photo.. 
 

It shouldn't be a concern with small pieces. For larger pieces, like small logs a few inches thick, make sure you remove the bark, and then dip the ends in parafin wax, so that the wood dries evenly, and doesn't check or crack.

Apple-wood has a small grain and makes a clean cut. Apple is great for carving too. The heart-wood is darker and good for framing, while the lighter sapwood bends easily and is perfect for planking. It is plentiful and cheap in Rhode Island, and it makes a sweet smell when cut. Google August Crabtree's classic ship models made fifty years ago: They were made solely of apple-wood.