JerryTodd
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Everything posted by JerryTodd
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The launch and a pair of cutters stacked, sit atop the main hatch; so I've been trying to discover how these boats were chocked. If you want to find out how little information there is on something - go looking for it. I've looked at photos of Civil War period ships and found very few stowing boats on deck - they're almost all on davits, and a few seem to just sit on deck, lashed to the rail, with davits to left them overboard. Models seem to have gone with simple panels cut to the lines of the boat they support at that position, mounted right on a beam, or mounted on a separate short beam, I guess to be portable. Sometimes instead of shaped panels, there are posts set on end and leaning inward with their tops cut to fit the shape of the boat, like blocking in a dry-dock. In the attached photo of Constellation's deck taken in the 1890's, her boat chocks are visible on the main hatch, but it's hard to make out any real details. They seem to have an iron plat with a loop handle and a bowling pin shaped leg to hold it at an angle. A shaped wood block is bound to this plate, with what appears to be webbing. On this is what is probably padding, like a bit of fire hose or some-such. There's a lot of mops leaning against the chocks that are no part of the chocks, so watch out. I tried to approximate what I think I'm seeing in the doodle above. Where the question mark is I'm guessing there was something that held the thing in place so it wouldn't slip out from under the boat. A pin maybe, or some nail-like spikes that would dig into the beam? This doesn't mean this is how she was fitted out in 1856, and what she had then could even be a version of the three at the top of the doodle. I'm just not sure how to figure out which. I'm inclined to go with a sort-of stylized version of the ones in the photo, though it bothers me that I can't see anything in the photo for lashing the boats down, unless they tie to the handle on the chocks.
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Made two more grating sections for the main hatch, four more to do. I also glued the other three gratings, two ammo hatch, and galley hatch, in place.
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Normally, attached images were shown in-message at a reduced size; you click on then and they show to fit the screen or full-sze in a "light-box" display; but for a few months now, they show in-message at the large size instead of reduced. I can't find that this is account of my preferences or something of that sort - did the forum software change recently?
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Sized the ammo hatch grates and stained them. I'm not sure I'm going to paint them black. All the photos where they can be seen (more often than now there's hatch covers over them; they look more like the deck, not the hatch coaming. In Civil War period photos of other ships, they are often painted black, but I have no way of knowing what was on Constellation five years before the war. On the restored ship they're painted black, but they say she restored to her Civil War appearance. I like them "natural" and it's one of those things where I can fix it easily enough later if I find out differently, whereas it would be harder to "unpaint" them. The real ship's main hatch had removable beams running athwart-ship dividing the gratings into 7 rows, so I'm going to make 7 gratings, one for each row of 4. Taking jbshan's advice above, I made 32 notched pieces for the short sides and in-between, and two long notched pieces for the long sides. All the notches were filled with 1/8" x 1/16" strips running the width of the combined hatch grating. It's not sized yet, till I make the other 6. Here it is with the galley and ammo hatch gratings. This is the underside where you can see the long runs (other than the outside two) don't notch down to the bottom. Using strips instead of notched pieces does indeed save time and effort, but it also requires some planning on which way you're going to run the strips
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You're saying to put un-notched 1/8" x 1/16" strips in the notches instead of using notched 1/4" wide strips? Yeah, I'll give that a go. I could make those 28 main hatch gratings all one unit easier that way. I've seen real ones made that way, but the one time I actually made full sized ones they wanted them flat on both sides, so we used the interlocking method. They became tables in a bar, with bottle caps in the holes and epoxy poured over them.
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Soaking the strips in alcohol softened the wood, which I should know because that's how I make sail hoops. I didn't allow enough time for them to dry and being spongy made them hard to put together, and more prone to damage while doing it. I managed to save enough to make gratings for the two ammunition hatches behind the pivot guns, but the remaining parts were just to damaged from handling to use. These still need to be sized to fit. So, I went back to bass because I have a bunch of 1/16" x 1/4" x 48" strips on hand. I cut one strip into 17 pieces to make the galley hatch grating. This time, instead of gluing them their whole length, I only glued them together at the ends and added on a couple of extra strips to take the eventual tear-out the saw would cause. This worked out much better. Instead of soaking them, I cut off the glued ends. It was quicker setting up. Didn't have to wait for them to dry after soaking. The cuts were more precise and consistent, which made putting them together a lot easier, which meant less damage from trying to manhandle them into place. With a little sanding, here's the galley hatch grating, it'll get stained and sealed before it's glued in place. So, now I can glue up some strips this way, cut the grooves, and put them aside until I need a hatch grating. I still have 32 to make for Constellation, 28 of them in the main hatch; and one more for Pride. Why are the attached images so big of late - they used to show in the message much smaller, now they seem to display full size.
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I bought this "Mighty Mite" 4" tablesaw from Harbor Freight a while back with the intention of building a box around it, make setting the blade height easier and more accurate, and use it specifically for things like making hatch gratings. Ok, well I never got to all that, yet, but I decided I needed to give hatch gratings a try. The only time I've made them before I drilled holes in a sheet and squared the holes with a nail ground square. That was ok for the two or three gratings I needed then, but I want to make nice gratings for Constellation, Pride, and Macedonian. For my first try I used 1/16" bass (lime). Glued some strips into a block, and cut the slots on the bandsaw with a stop to keep the cut from going too deep. With my finest blade the bandsaw still knocked teeth out of the "comb." That's when I pulled down the Harbor Freight Mighty Mite. (so "mighty" it binds cutting balsa). I cut a set of "combs" by marking the table with a Sharpie and cutting by eye. That didn't turn out too awful, though I did loose a lot of "teeth." Next I made a jig by gluing a 1/16" square strip to some card and taped it all down with the strip about 3/32 left of the blade and the blade set 1/8" above the table. Then I cut some pine scraps into 5" strips 1/4" wide, glued them all together with PVA, and sanded the block on all 8 sides. The first cut is with the end of the block against the strip. Then that cut is placed on the strip for the second cut, and so on until the whole block is notched. I tossed the block into some alcohol to dissolve the PVA and then separated the "combs" I cut the combs in half so they were about 2-1/2" long The first grate, I dipped in some oak stain and cut down to fit the Pride's lazerette hatch, so it's getting used. So, I'm going to see if I can find a better blade for the Mighty Mite, and add some sacrificial wood on the block of strips so the tear-out won't destroy the last strip or two. The pine seemed to be a little better than the bass, except the bass was much easier to get into strips. If I sandwich the bass between some pine, that may reinforce it enough to not wind up with so much waste. There's a lot more gratings to make, Constellation's main hatch gets 28 of them all about 2" x 2-1/2", so this has to get to assembly line grade but quick.
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Adding these folks to my links page!
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I didn't force the issue, but let it happen naturally after sailing. There's nothing wrong with your copper looking "new" for a while, it was "new" on the real ship at some point. Goodness, next you'll be wanting a foot of sea grass hanging from her bottom. Anyway, you can still take her for a dip despite not having her rigged as yet - she looks like she's ready for a float and some sexy pics at the beach.
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She is a beauty. You are going to love sailing her. You'll need a band of copper that comes up above the LWL, OR, a batten at the top of the copper. Both are meant to cover the points created where each strake of copper sheets end at the waterline. Just the water running by can begin to peel the sheets off unless something fairs over them. Initially the batten was used, but by the late 1700's the waterline band of sheets seems to be the standard in the RN.
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American sailing warships with no plans or records
JerryTodd replied to CharlieZardoz's topic in Nautical/Naval History
In Moses Safford's diary "Showing the Colors" Safford mentions "painting ship" about once a year. 8/22/62: painting ship 6/26/63: painting ship and tarring rigging 7/27/64: painting ship I recall him mentioning them painting out the white strip with no mention of why other than the captain ordered it so, nor any report of it being painted back on. She had the stripe when deSimone painted her in 62, and when she arrived at Norfolk in 65. The index only mentions the three above "painting ship" occurrences from March 62 to February 65, I can't find the specific point the stripe was painted out.- 401 replies
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Looking through Lee's for something else and got to thinking about Macedonian's sticks, so I started drawing them full-size (for the model that is). As many British friigates I've seen get built on this forum, I was surprised at how complicated figuring out Macedonian's rig has turned out to be. I knew I didn't want the spar dimensions taken off in 1819, as she was completely re-rigged to American standards at that point. I wanted British dimensions, but the standard spar dimensions for a 38 gun frigate turned out to be not all that standard. after checking various sources within Lee's, as well as a couple of iterations of Steels, and a couple of other places - even trying to get an idea of proportion from the lovely in this NMM photo; I eventually just opted to go with the proportions given in Appendix I of Lee's which is based on the main mast being the length of the gundeck plus the beam, divided by two (then divided by 36 to get my scale). I built an Excel spreadsheet that figures it all out by plugging in those two numbers and the scale (the forum wouldn't let me attach it). Again, using Lee's as a guide, to figure out the proportions for the period Macedonian was built (1810), I started drawing... This is the front face and port profile of the main mast which is about 33.5" overall. Ignore the tops, the size is right, but the front curve is not. I just scanned the top shown in Lee's and scaled it to each mast.
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Here's a couple showing vessels under "battle sails" with the corses and t'gallants in bunts and clews
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They could be "hanging in their bunts" as if they were just loosed or about to be furled proper.
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Constellation's been coppered since 2010. She's been in fresh water and brackish water. The tape sticking hasn't been an issue, but sliding the model on something like auto-carpeting the wrong way will catch and lift corners, like scaling a fish; and edges, protrusions, etc, rubbing along the bottom should be avoided - all of these are transport issues. If you have to transport her off the cradle, put a pad of some sort under her so she can be slid without rubbing her scales the wrong way. As for the patina... Being a working model, I could let her take on her own patina naturally, then clear-coat it when it was where I wanted it. I clear-coated her bottom in September 2014 using a matt finish spray. When I paint Macedonian I'll give it some brown washes a little at a time till I get her bottom to look like Constellation's copper. The paint I used has copper in it, or so says the can, but being in a paint suspension it won't brown or dull on it's own.
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I coppered Constellation with copper tape from a place that sells it for electrical applications. They sell a coated version (non-conductive), you don't want, and an uncoated version (conductive) you do want if you want a "patina." It was cheaper than the model suppliers, and the large size is harder to find at model suppliers anyway since they cater to 1/48 scale and smaller kits. You can see my coppering job, including the nail patterning on my thread Very soon after getting coppered, while is was still bright and shiny. Very pretty, but not what I wanted. A couple of dips in the water later, the copper is much more dulled and browner, but still looks good. This is when I clear coated it and hopefully it'll stay this way. Notice, it's not green! Copper tape is expensive. It took slightly over two rolls to cover Constellation and cost over $50 US. The copper paint I pre-painted her bottom with looked good though, and I could get 4 inch wide aluminum peel and stick duct-tape for $20 a 100 foot roll! I tested the idea on Constellation's launch and plan to use it on Macedonian instead of actual copper.
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Ship lettering
JerryTodd replied to piperck's topic in Building, Framing, Planking and plating a ships hull and deck
Mine were a little larger than you might want, but I got gold dry-transfer lettering from Letraset in the UK. http://www.letraset.com/products/90-Letraset-Transfers/
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Copper sheets were held on with counter-sunk, flat headed, copper nails - not rivets. If you're using peel-n-stick copper tape, get some thin brass or aluminum and make dents in it for the nail pattern, You can fold an edge down to imprint the seam. Mount the plate on a block or handle, and press it into the tape on a firm backer, like hard rubber. The above model is 1:36 scale and 62" on deck, and the tape is 1/2" wide. The dents are made from the outside, and get pushed back out when the plate's pressed onto the hull, giving a counter-sunk nail appearance. The process works as well at smaller scales.
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Still working on the fores'l sheeting. My problem is too much friction - it binds too much for the arm to pull the sail across. With a single fair-lead I can pull the sail over with the sheet just laid over my finger, but the port sheet has to be routed across to the starboard side, and both are doubled onto the arms to increase the arm's pull length. But for now, it's time to procrastinate... I mounted the master switch in the front of the cabin trunk... ...installed blocking in the mast partners that hold the masts at the correct rake angle and help against twisting... Installed a "beam" aft to catch the end of the sub-deck there... ...and got to making some quickie blocks to use on the fair-leads down below decks. They don't have working sheaves, but the line glides through the wider hardwood dowel than it does around narrow screw-eyes. Some of these will no-doubt get replaced with ones that have working sheaves (probably from some Delrin rod I have), but these help me get the system in order. On the subject of working sheaves; these lovely blocks, sent to me some time ago by Victor Yancovitch, will be modified (like the one front-center) with working sheaves for use on the tiller ropes above deck. Another bit of procrastination was framing up the new "engine room hatch" between the main mast and the cabin trunk. I thinking I may need to widen the main hatch from 5.5" to maybe 8". The last fair-lead for the sheeting arms are mounted near their tips, inside the hull, up under the deck, and will be a real pain to access. That's down the road. Once I get the sheets working, then I'll revisit the idea and determine if it's really necessary to get into that level of surgery. I went ahead and painted the inner cabin trunk black. The lid has slit windows on the sides and I colored the inner part with black marker where you could see through them. It just seemed cleaner to paint the whole thing.
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I've been pecking at the sheeting for the fores'l and not having much luck. In the mean-time I ordered some cable extensions for the rudder servo and some shaft collars which came in yesterday. The shaft collars are for making a 1-1/8" propeller since I couldn't find a metal 2-blade prop that size online. I just gave it a little pitch until I can test it in water.
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Actually rigging the vessel's great, but making things like chain-plates and bullseyes for a working model is not my favorite thing. Making blocks is ok, even with working sheaves (since I buy brass sheaves and don't typically have to make them). I'm not a fan of walking rope either, but in the diameters and lengths I usually need I don't have much to choose from; I've yet to find a source of 1/8" or 3/16" diameter line made from Dacron polyester which is what the standing rigging on my models typically is. Glad that's off my chest - I feel better
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A little paint... A look at everything... Threaded the gaff haliard hooks on the masts and put nuts on them.... And a little video of the steering in operation. Once the working blocks are installed on deck and on the pillow blocks P&S of the rudder servo - it'll be smoother - it's rubbing in a lot of places at the moment.
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I settled on a way to handle the steering that's pretty much the same way I did it on Constellation. The arm on the rudder servo has cleats so I can adjust the lines if needed. I mounted oak blocks in the hull to lead the steering cables to either side of the servo. The arm and the cleats are made of very thin luan plywood called doorskin which is literally what they sheath interior doors with. I'll paint it red eventually because I have a can of red spray paint I have no use for otherwise.
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There is no "under deck" back there, at least none that I'll be able to access or run gear through. I originally though to run the steering lines to the waterways and then into the cabin sides to the servo, but then the idea of routing it through the lazerette hatch struck me as doing the job more subtlety and actually using otherwise unusable space. The main hatch forward is 13" x 5-1/2" - a lot easier for me to get into and the main reason I move the rudder servo forward. I have a different idea at that end I'm working on which I'll post when I get it set-up. Counter's frames installed, these are maybe 1/8" thick. Under the counter. Counter decked with 1/16" bass. The prop shaft tube installed, showing the tight space behind the cabin that will be inaccessible once the deck is on. (those twin beams are gone, unneeded.)
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