JerryTodd

Rings are nothing for someone that's done what you have so far, and I find at scales of 1:48 and up, it's almost easier to actually make netting than a netting like substance, which never looks right anyway. I have a feeling once you nail it down, you'll start building a seine-fisherman just to make the nets.

Looks like a alligator got yur oysta drudge

It rained from the 15th through the 19th, monsoon style, and the museum cancelled all their outdoor activities, so I cancelled the trailer I had reserved. So much for sailing. Sunday was much better, weather wise, but I wasn't planning on sailing at Baltimore, the pond's small and there no access to open water. Since our van was traded in and replaced with a smaller RAV4, which is why I was renting a trailer, I only had the Matrix. Only one model would fit in it, and that required reducing the rig as much as it could be. I couldn't even take another passenger. Baltimore's Port Expo is held on the Savannah's dock. They set up a 30' x 40' x 2' pool for the models. Several modelers showed up with their models, and one model in particular got the undivided attention of one visitor. Constellation sat on a table and a few folks stopped to talk about her. Then is was back into the car... Back in the shop, I reduced the rig, but I didn't down-rig her as I hope to take her out for a sail somewhere local in within a couple of weeks. In the mean-time, I made her capstan from a bit of 3/4" maple dowel, and some mahogany from the restored ship's hatch combings.

Despite the idea that most of what I'm doing to make the boat sail is temporary, or "jury-rigged" there's some real work going in, and some of the temporary stuff is testing ideas that will become permanent. The wythe (flying jib-boom fitting) was remade with too big a hoop. I remade the hoop from sheet brass to the right size. Finally getting a handle on soldering, I started making the strops for the deadeyes which is doubled over rod. Attaching it to the chain-plate has been tricky. I was using round-head brass escutcheon pins, cutting them to length, and peening them, but they aren't peening very well, and bend more often than not. I'm looking for copper pins hoping they'll peen more easily. As mentioned, I ground off the threads on her keel rods for about 1/2". This has made putting her on and off her ballast tube much easier. To facilitate shortening sail if it gets too breezy, I used hooks on the clews and halyards of those sails so they can be removed entirely fairly quickly. The courses can be clewed and bunted, and the trys'ls brailed up taking the ship from 17 sails down to 7. If it's too windy for that, well, then it's too windy to sail her.

This "ring" is on the mizzen top-mast and is pushed up by the mizzen tops'l yard's parrell as the sail is hoisted. The blocks on the lower mizzen mast are attached to eyes on an iron band. This doesn't interfere with the driver as that is hooped to it's own Spencer mast abaft the lower mast. The idea behind the braces being doubled back is obviously to gain mechanical advantage, but also to make the pull against the yard even, so you're not trying to cock the yard as you brace it, AND so the yard can be raised and lowered usually without having to slack the braces. Rigging, especially on warships, usually runs to the same portion of the mast or lower. For instance, topmast running rigging, like braces, go to the other topmasts or lower. You won't typically see tops'l yard braces running to the t'gallant level of another mast, because if you lose or take down the t'gallant mast, you have to reattach anything from the lower rig that was attached there. The main tops'l yard braces I'm accustomed to run from the mizzen topmast stay to the yard, then to the quarter bumkin inboard of the main yard brace. Maybe this didn't allow the top'sl yard to brace around hard enough for the Navy's tastes so they moved it inboard to the lower mizzen mast?

I'm taking to model to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum's Model Boat Expo next month (May 19) where I plan to sail the model in the Miles River instead of the too shallow pool they set up. I want to use the other winch this time, and separately control the main and mizzen as they should be. To refresh my memory. I went to look at images of the ship to see where exactly these braces anchored. I thought the main tops'l brace anchored to the mizzen topmast stay, and it looked like it in images of the ship under sail, but in photos of the ship without sail, it appeared to anchor to the mast right at the mizzen tops'l yard. That was weird, so I went looking at some more pictures (I save every one I find) and it look like to was anchored right to the mizzen tops'l yard, maybe where the halyard attached? but it also looks like there's something on top of the parrell and there's something attached there that I don't see on the other top'sl yards. Maybe a ring that rides on top of the parrell? (BTW: The tops seem to angle forward because during the 1888 refit her masts were re-stepped to reduce the rake. Quite a bit it seems) So, it turns out there is indeed a ring that slides up and down the mast, and as seen here, doesn't always slide down completely. The left image in 1892, the right image in 1888. I don't know what it's made of. A hinged iron ring that a pin or bolt holds closed so it can be removed, or maybe a leather covered rope grommet which would explain those chains as giving it weight to make slide down the mast. Looking at photos of other ship's contemporary to Constellation, it does appear that other sloops were rigged this way; Savannah, Macedonian, St Marys, Saratoga, and Portsmouth that I've been able to discern from photos. Interesting is how they routed the braces when Saratoga were fitted with split tops'ls. I presume Portsmouth was likely done in the same manner. While I haven't confirmed this ring thing anywhere but on Constellation, I did notice that the main tops'l brace is routed to blocks partway down the mizzen mast on every American warship of this period (1850+) where I could see it, including frigates. In the painting of Constellation at anchor in Naples that I'm basing my model on, you can't see how the main tops'l yard is braced, but in the painting of her under sail by the same artist in 1862, those braces are visible, and deSimone does show those blocks on the mizzen mast. It is interesting that every time I get to some other point in the model's progress, I learn something new about how they did things in the Navy of that time. I'd never seen, rather, I'd never noticed that ring thing or anything like it before. How does all this affect my model? Not much really. I wondered if it would affect the geometry on my bracing system, but the tops'ls on the model will rarely be lowered so my operation is only concerned with it being in the set position.

No relation, Humphreys designed Macedonian specifically to replace the captured British frigate. She was a "modern" frigate in the older ship's dimensions.

The new ship was deliberately built to about the same dimensions because Macedonian was still an important trophy and Decatur was still a hero.

Some threads you have to go though 50 "atta-boys" for every 1 post by the builder. It's like Cracker Jacks that's all popcorn and no peanuts. I like the likes and wish more forums supported it that currently don't. Besides, it tells you who "liked" your post, so except for MTaylor, who likes everything there's no robots.

A photo I took of a painting of Macedonian in the Naval Academy

I look forward to that thread Tal

A couple of sources for functional turnbuckles/bottle-screws Model Yacht Fittings: http://www.modelyachtfittings.com/Pages/default.aspx RBModel: http://www.rbmodel.com/index.php?action=products&group=019

Psssst, hey Tim, have you seen your private messages here?

Nice sticks

Ed, you are fast replacing Crabtree as my favorite ship modeler

This was the best I could manage of the image on the wall of the Mariner's Museum in Newport News VA.

Sewn, glued, or soldiered, the boltrope does not attach the the knife edge of the cloth.

Constellation reached Fortress Monroe on Christmas Day 1864. In January 1865, the men whose enlistments had expired were "paid off" and discharged, the remainder of the crew was transferred to the frigate St. Lawrence, and the officers sent on leave to await orders. Constellation finished the Civil War as a Receiving Ship, first at Norfolk, and later at Philadelphia, until 1869. This AR Waud sketch is propably of her at Norfolk, if it's her at all. The stern is wrong and should look much like the frigate's in the storm, except ROUND. Here she is in 1859 being refitted before the African cruise

http://todd.mainecav.org/model/sail-making/

When I first saw the Constellation in the storm of 1833 I thought, wait, that's the Albany But looking closer at the image it obviously was a frigate, and I realized it was another angle of the same subject Still looking for a better image of this painting of Constellation at Naples, as it's the only one I know of that shows any of her stern. It's credited to the Naval Historical Foundation who forwarded me to the Washington Naval Yard, who said it was a photo copy of the box art from a plastic model kit. (it's not)

It's interesting; I noticed that the prototype model of the brig Syren has boomkins, but I've see several photos of completed models of that kit that do not, and the tacks, if rigged, were lead to the cat-heads. If the sail-plan is checked, the cat-heads would not pull the clew forward enough on Syren either.

The cathead won't haul the clew forward enough. The reconstructed vessel has stumpy little boomkins a good 10 feet forward of the catheads, and long enough to require a couple of stays. I've been making reenactor stuff, mostly tent pins, instead of working on models. When I took a break to work on boats it was on my 16 footer that I hadn't sailed since '09. Constellation's gonna sail soon though. She still jury-rigged from May, I just have to reeve her braces and make a new handle for her cart, the old closet pole broke, twice.

It's a bumpkin, boomkin, or some variation of that depending on where you're from. Pretty much all vessels with a square fores'l will have boomkins forward, and sometime on the quarters aft as well, for the main braces and sheets. The tack will run to a block on the boomkin the up to a pin, cleat, or post near the knightheads, or thereabouts. The point is to haul the windward clew of the sail forward on the wind (close-hauled), which is what the yards do on the sails above the course.

A couple of oldies

I think it was just a credit card ad