JerryTodd

Prepping to Glass - or how not to build a hull.
April 2009
 
The plug, now "the hull." needed to be prepped in order to be glassed.  The card-stock quarter galleries were tossed; the stem knee shaped and tapered; and some of the brown paper detailing removed.  The sheer was trued-up and every thing was lightly sanded.
 
 
I used the polyester resin available at the local hardware superstore, and laid up one half at a time with 4oz cloth.
 
 
After one side set-up, it was trimmed and the other side laid up.  The next day that was trimmed, the whole hull sanded, and another coat of resin rolled on:
 
 
Once that was set and sanded all the forms were carefully removed.  The hull was flimsy with only the battens, paper tape, and some very fine glass cloth:
 
 
Glass matting was laid in, one side at a time.  Extra resin was poured in while the hull laid on it's side, to try and fill the spaces between the battens.  This probably would have been better done with Water Putty, or some other filler that would have filled the space more solidly:
 
 
I now had a solid fiberglass hull as the matting made it very rigid.
 
This is NOT a good way to make a hull for an RC boat.  The original plan, before I was distracted by Mowill's book, was the way I should have gone from the start; wood planking on forms, covered with glass and resined inside.  If you're following this with the idea of doing one yourself, learn from my mistakes - look at how I built the hull for my Macedonian.
 
Next: Deck Framing

Much more regarding the details of why I chose this ship to build; history of the ship; and other items of interest can be found on my web page for this project.  This "log" is to replace the one that had been posted here before the forum crashed and lost a lot of data.
 
Beginning
 
Having the plans already in the size I wanted saved a lot of time getting started, and I used the Model Ship Builder article as a guide at first.  A bit of scrap particle board from a remodeling project was used as a building board.  The forms were cut from scrap wood paneling, and the keel was some 1/2" scrap birch plywood from a cabinet I built.  This was all stood up by the end of March, 1999.
 
 
Then I discovered a book;
William Mowll's Building a Working Model Warship:HMS Warrior, 1860.

Mowll covered his forms with battens instead of planking and covered that with gummed brown paper packing tape over which he applied masking tape to create a plug for making a fiberglass mold. The masking tape was to give the texture of Warrior’s cast iron plating. I happened to have a large roll of the brown tape, and got the idea of using this method to make a plug and cast 3 hulls in glass fiber.  I didn't need the masking tape as Constellation wasn't iron plated, I would use the brown tape to impart planking details to the mold.

 
So, moving forward with this plan, I battened the forms with scrap white pine strips...
 
 
 
...and proceeded to cover that with the brown paper tape creating what would be a plug for a fiber-glass mold.
 
 
The tape shrinks a bit when it dries and can be sanded.  Once the form was covered diagonally I began applying a second layer in the form of strips to represent planking, gunport lids, and even copper bottom plating - all this detail would be picked up by the mold and imparted to the glass hull when it was laid up.  The plug still needed more details, like quarter galleries, but none of the drawings available gave these details, so I had to go digging.

 
In the meantime we sold the house and bought a small farm where we kept some horses and I commuted 65 miles one-way to work.  The plug went into the barn, covered in plastic, and wasn't touched from 2003 till 2008.

 
Next: Work resumes.

Work Resumes
 
So, life went and changed things around a bit.  My wife and I went different ways and the farm was sold.  I moved into an apartment and the workshop and the plug went into storage.  In the late spring of 2008 I bought a house with a 12 x 29 shed that became my workshop, subsequently known as "The Damn Yankee Workshop."
 
 
With the shop set up, I began to work on the plug in earnest.  Those details needed for the mold still had to be added and the quarter galleries were a big part of that, so that's where I started.

 
These things didn't need to be very structural as the entire plug would be destroyed in removing it from the mold.
 
In the mean time I visited the restored vessel and learned some things.  The bulwark on the spar deck was actually planked up hammock stanchions.  When the ship was being "restored" as a frigate, they took off the hammock irons and tossed them into the bilges, the restoration recovered all but one and reinstalled them.
 
 
This changed the shape of the hull for me.  Instead of "solid" bulwarks continuing smoothly up to the cap rail, the hull stopped with a cap on top of the waterways, and had these stanchions mounted on top of that cap and covered with wainscoting.  So, I cut the plug down to the lower level at the top of the waterways.

 
The whole idea of the plug being destroyed when the mold was made began to nag at me.  There was a chance, a very good chance in my opinion, that the mold might not turn out and the whole thing would be a disaster and a major waste of time and effort.
 
Next: A Course Change

While I considered what to do about the plug, I found some very nice white cedar while getting something else at the lumber yard, so I began making the lower masts.
Since I had no plans for Constellation's spars specifically, I used several sources for the details, including Spars and Rigging From Nautical Routine, 1849 and Biddlecomb's Art of Rigging, but the best source I found for this 1850's warship was Luce's Textbook of Seamanship which has some very detailed drawings of the rigging of this period.
 
After drawing the spars full-scale, I cut the cedar to the rough dimensions on a table saw:
 
 
I then marked out the details and the taper:
 
 
Shaved the taper, then marked the spar to make it 8-sided:
 
 
The masts were banded with the same brown paper tape the plug was made from, the hounds and the front fish were made and attached:
 
 
The cross-trees and trestle-trees for the lower tops were made along with a rough set of mast caps:
 
 
The topmasts were made from the same cedar and in the same manner as the lower masts.  Some temporary mast steps were placed inside the plug, a stand made from 3/8" plywood to hold the model up, and some paint went on the lower masts.

 
By this time I was convinced that glassing the plug and making it the model's hull was the best course to take...
 
Next: Prepping to glass

I never got why Revel never included such details as bitts, stove, etc.  As you've shown, these details add a great deal to the model.
I always thought a mini-diorama of the crew clearing for action and breaking down the cabin bulkheads would be a nice touch, but two of the three I've built were RC and had no gundeck to speak of.

I was getting a little bored with the breeching (arghhh...and that does not include the tackle for each gun!) but they are 75% done. Anyway I decided to put a few of the elements I have been working on for the last few months together (the 'mini-models' Verne ). So I worked the forward end of the gun deck.
 
I did not like the look of the flimsy bow sprit bitt and so shored it up a little 'bit.' It is probably not quite vintage but there is only so much I could  do (i.e. because of the bow sprit being molded to the existing Revell brace.) I added a longer anchor cable from Chuck's Syren Model Ship Co. (Tan 0.62 diameter) and dropped it through the corners of the midship cargo hatch. It is secured around the riding bitts but I think I will need to revise these moorings just a little.
 

 

Thank you all for your like votes.
 
I shall not bother showing the temporary placement of all the frames, you've seen one then you've seen all    There were two frames I had to remake because I found out later when putting the shear batten on I must cut them on the wrong pencil line.  
 
There are several pictures I forgot to make in the build op to this stage.  At this stage I had made the forecastle bulkhead and all the other cabin bulkheads .  As mentioned in a previous post that I made my own plywood from cherry veneer.  I made 1/8 inch for the bulkheads and 1/16 inch plywood for the interior paneling and bunks. 
 
I also made an access door in the forecastle bulkhead to the sail locker where the generator with the fuel tank and potable water tank are.  The door works.
 

View from the stern with all bulkheads installed.  The cabin deck planking was also glued in and you may see part of the forecastle door.  looking at this pic and the next one from the bow I thought that the cabin roof seemed to be a little too high.  It just didn't look right to me.  You'll notice in future installments that I cut them down a little.   Oh, there were a few other changes I made like adding small cupboards in the galley where the oval openings are.  
 

View from the bow.  This pic really shows my displeasure with the hight of the cabin bulkheads.   
 

An aerial view.  Here you can clearly see the door in the forecastle.  The head, cabin and galley deck are on the same level.  Right behind the forecastle bulkhead is the head and wash room.  There will be a curtain for privacy.  The opening in the deck framing ahead of the forecastle bulkhead is for the sail locker hatch and the mast.
 

Port side side view.  In retrospect I could have made the stern deadwood a little higher but it worked out okay with the frames extended.  If or when I'll remake this model in a larger scale I'll certainly will do that.
 
Cheers, 

The deck clamp was built up from two layers of pine strips, much the same as the hull's battens.  The sub deck would be 3/16" luan plywood with strips glued down on top for the visible decking, so the deck clamp was set down so the finished deck would be flush with the sheer.
 
 
The subdeck was cut from the ply and fitted

 
Then the positions of the hatches and deck furniture marked on it to determine where the deck beams would be needed.

 
At this point I only had two sources for the ship's spar deck layout; Chapelle's drawing of Constellation from The History of the American Sailing Navy, and model plans of the ship from A.J.Fisher which the people restoring the actual ship told me they were using.  The Fisher drawings are of the ship in 1941 and very crude.  Chapelle's drawing says they are from the original drawings, but the 1854 drawing of the spar deck was missing from the National Archives.  The major differences being the main hatch in 1941 was shaped like a capital I and the galley hatch had a house on it - neither of which are on Chapelle's drawing.  I opted to go with Chapelle.  Later, I found more information that vindicated my decision.

 
Down in the hull, straight beams were installed to carry the equipment decks where the radio equipment and sail controls would be mounted.  I also decided to step the masts on these decks.  The deck beams were laid out to form mast partners and hatch framing.  Each beam was cambered and notched to hook under the deck clamp.  The subdeck would be epoxied on and sandwhich the beams and the deck clamp all together.
 
 
Temporary mast steps were put in to get the mast partners properly aligned, and the subdeck was sawn into 2 inch wide strips so it could conform to both the beams camber and the boat's sheer.
 

Prepping to Glass - or how not to build a hull.
April 2009
 
The plug, now "the hull." needed to be prepped in order to be glassed.  The card-stock quarter galleries were tossed; the stem knee shaped and tapered; and some of the brown paper detailing removed.  The sheer was trued-up and every thing was lightly sanded.
 
 
I used the polyester resin available at the local hardware superstore, and laid up one half at a time with 4oz cloth.
 
 
After one side set-up, it was trimmed and the other side laid up.  The next day that was trimmed, the whole hull sanded, and another coat of resin rolled on:
 
 
Once that was set and sanded all the forms were carefully removed.  The hull was flimsy with only the battens, paper tape, and some very fine glass cloth:
 
 
Glass matting was laid in, one side at a time.  Extra resin was poured in while the hull laid on it's side, to try and fill the spaces between the battens.  This probably would have been better done with Water Putty, or some other filler that would have filled the space more solidly:
 
 
I now had a solid fiberglass hull as the matting made it very rigid.
 
This is NOT a good way to make a hull for an RC boat.  The original plan, before I was distracted by Mowill's book, was the way I should have gone from the start; wood planking on forms, covered with glass and resined inside.  If you're following this with the idea of doing one yourself, learn from my mistakes - look at how I built the hull for my Macedonian.
 
Next: Deck Framing

While I considered what to do about the plug, I found some very nice white cedar while getting something else at the lumber yard, so I began making the lower masts.
Since I had no plans for Constellation's spars specifically, I used several sources for the details, including Spars and Rigging From Nautical Routine, 1849 and Biddlecomb's Art of Rigging, but the best source I found for this 1850's warship was Luce's Textbook of Seamanship which has some very detailed drawings of the rigging of this period.
 
After drawing the spars full-scale, I cut the cedar to the rough dimensions on a table saw:
 
 
I then marked out the details and the taper:
 
 
Shaved the taper, then marked the spar to make it 8-sided:
 
 
The masts were banded with the same brown paper tape the plug was made from, the hounds and the front fish were made and attached:
 
 
The cross-trees and trestle-trees for the lower tops were made along with a rough set of mast caps:
 
 
The topmasts were made from the same cedar and in the same manner as the lower masts.  Some temporary mast steps were placed inside the plug, a stand made from 3/8" plywood to hold the model up, and some paint went on the lower masts.

 
By this time I was convinced that glassing the plug and making it the model's hull was the best course to take...
 
Next: Prepping to glass

The deck clamp was built up from two layers of pine strips, much the same as the hull's battens.  The sub deck would be 3/16" luan plywood with strips glued down on top for the visible decking, so the deck clamp was set down so the finished deck would be flush with the sheer.
 
 
The subdeck was cut from the ply and fitted

 
Then the positions of the hatches and deck furniture marked on it to determine where the deck beams would be needed.

 
At this point I only had two sources for the ship's spar deck layout; Chapelle's drawing of Constellation from The History of the American Sailing Navy, and model plans of the ship from A.J.Fisher which the people restoring the actual ship told me they were using.  The Fisher drawings are of the ship in 1941 and very crude.  Chapelle's drawing says they are from the original drawings, but the 1854 drawing of the spar deck was missing from the National Archives.  The major differences being the main hatch in 1941 was shaped like a capital I and the galley hatch had a house on it - neither of which are on Chapelle's drawing.  I opted to go with Chapelle.  Later, I found more information that vindicated my decision.

 
Down in the hull, straight beams were installed to carry the equipment decks where the radio equipment and sail controls would be mounted.  I also decided to step the masts on these decks.  The deck beams were laid out to form mast partners and hatch framing.  Each beam was cambered and notched to hook under the deck clamp.  The subdeck would be epoxied on and sandwhich the beams and the deck clamp all together.
 
 
Temporary mast steps were put in to get the mast partners properly aligned, and the subdeck was sawn into 2 inch wide strips so it could conform to both the beams camber and the boat's sheer.
 

While I considered what to do about the plug, I found some very nice white cedar while getting something else at the lumber yard, so I began making the lower masts.
Since I had no plans for Constellation's spars specifically, I used several sources for the details, including Spars and Rigging From Nautical Routine, 1849 and Biddlecomb's Art of Rigging, but the best source I found for this 1850's warship was Luce's Textbook of Seamanship which has some very detailed drawings of the rigging of this period.
 
After drawing the spars full-scale, I cut the cedar to the rough dimensions on a table saw:
 
 
I then marked out the details and the taper:
 
 
Shaved the taper, then marked the spar to make it 8-sided:
 
 
The masts were banded with the same brown paper tape the plug was made from, the hounds and the front fish were made and attached:
 
 
The cross-trees and trestle-trees for the lower tops were made along with a rough set of mast caps:
 
 
The topmasts were made from the same cedar and in the same manner as the lower masts.  Some temporary mast steps were placed inside the plug, a stand made from 3/8" plywood to hold the model up, and some paint went on the lower masts.

 
By this time I was convinced that glassing the plug and making it the model's hull was the best course to take...
 
Next: Prepping to glass

The deck clamp was built up from two layers of pine strips, much the same as the hull's battens.  The sub deck would be 3/16" luan plywood with strips glued down on top for the visible decking, so the deck clamp was set down so the finished deck would be flush with the sheer.
 
 
The subdeck was cut from the ply and fitted

 
Then the positions of the hatches and deck furniture marked on it to determine where the deck beams would be needed.

 
At this point I only had two sources for the ship's spar deck layout; Chapelle's drawing of Constellation from The History of the American Sailing Navy, and model plans of the ship from A.J.Fisher which the people restoring the actual ship told me they were using.  The Fisher drawings are of the ship in 1941 and very crude.  Chapelle's drawing says they are from the original drawings, but the 1854 drawing of the spar deck was missing from the National Archives.  The major differences being the main hatch in 1941 was shaped like a capital I and the galley hatch had a house on it - neither of which are on Chapelle's drawing.  I opted to go with Chapelle.  Later, I found more information that vindicated my decision.

 
Down in the hull, straight beams were installed to carry the equipment decks where the radio equipment and sail controls would be mounted.  I also decided to step the masts on these decks.  The deck beams were laid out to form mast partners and hatch framing.  Each beam was cambered and notched to hook under the deck clamp.  The subdeck would be epoxied on and sandwhich the beams and the deck clamp all together.
 
 
Temporary mast steps were put in to get the mast partners properly aligned, and the subdeck was sawn into 2 inch wide strips so it could conform to both the beams camber and the boat's sheer.
 

Inspired by a large RC model of the Rattlesnake featured in an issue of Model Ship Builder magazine, I looked around for a subject to built and decided to built the ship in my own back yard, the sloop of war Constellation tied up in Baltimore's Inner Harbor since the mid 1950's.
 

 
Some video of Rattlesnake
 
 
Constellation was a sloop-of-war, of 22 guns, designed by John Lenthal, and built in 1854 by Gosport Navy Yard at Norfolk, Virginia; the last US warship designed and built to operate under sail alone. For a long time she was believed by many to be the old frigate of 1797, rebuilt and moderized, and that debate has raged in the maritime history community for decades.
 
Her lines and sail plan were acquired from the National Archives where I got to handle the actual hand drawn documents.  I decided to build her as she appeared in a portrait by deSimone when she was in Naples in 1856 and still a new ship.
 

 
Her lines were drawn in 1:36 scale, which was perfect, giving a model:
Beam: 13-5/8" (34.713 cm) Length over the rig: 96" (243.84 cm) Width over the rig: 36" (91.44 cm) ~ Main yard w/o stuns'l booms. Length on deck: 61" (154.94 cm) Length between perpendiculars: 59-1/8" (150.178 cm) Draft, without ballast keel: 7" (17.78 cm) With 3-1/2" ballast keel: 10-1/2" (27.94 cm) Height bottom of keel to main truck, without ballast keel: 65" (165.1 cm) With ballast keel: 69" (175.26 cm) Sail Area: 2,807.01 square inches in 17 sails (19.5 sf, 18,109.7 scm, 1.8 sqm)
 
This log will cover my work on this model since it began in 1999 up to where it is now.
 
Author's Note:  This is a log of how I am building this model, not a guide to how a model such as this ought to be built.  It's full of fits and starts, changes of mind, errors, re-do's, more error's, a few mistakes; and somehow, despite all this, it seems to be becoming a working, sailing model that actually looks something like it's namesake.  The director of the actual ship recognized it on first sight - I take that as a good sign!
If you're considering taking on a project like this, please, please, don't let this build log deter you - it's not nearly as difficult as I make it seem.  Just take away from it that which helps you along, and ignore the rest.
 

Much more regarding the details of why I chose this ship to build; history of the ship; and other items of interest can be found on my web page for this project.  This "log" is to replace the one that had been posted here before the forum crashed and lost a lot of data.
 
Beginning
 
Having the plans already in the size I wanted saved a lot of time getting started, and I used the Model Ship Builder article as a guide at first.  A bit of scrap particle board from a remodeling project was used as a building board.  The forms were cut from scrap wood paneling, and the keel was some 1/2" scrap birch plywood from a cabinet I built.  This was all stood up by the end of March, 1999.
 
 
Then I discovered a book;
William Mowll's Building a Working Model Warship:HMS Warrior, 1860.

Mowll covered his forms with battens instead of planking and covered that with gummed brown paper packing tape over which he applied masking tape to create a plug for making a fiberglass mold. The masking tape was to give the texture of Warrior’s cast iron plating. I happened to have a large roll of the brown tape, and got the idea of using this method to make a plug and cast 3 hulls in glass fiber.  I didn't need the masking tape as Constellation wasn't iron plated, I would use the brown tape to impart planking details to the mold.

 
So, moving forward with this plan, I battened the forms with scrap white pine strips...
 
 
 
...and proceeded to cover that with the brown paper tape creating what would be a plug for a fiber-glass mold.
 
 
The tape shrinks a bit when it dries and can be sanded.  Once the form was covered diagonally I began applying a second layer in the form of strips to represent planking, gunport lids, and even copper bottom plating - all this detail would be picked up by the mold and imparted to the glass hull when it was laid up.  The plug still needed more details, like quarter galleries, but none of the drawings available gave these details, so I had to go digging.

 
In the meantime we sold the house and bought a small farm where we kept some horses and I commuted 65 miles one-way to work.  The plug went into the barn, covered in plastic, and wasn't touched from 2003 till 2008.

 
Next: Work resumes.

Work Resumes
 
So, life went and changed things around a bit.  My wife and I went different ways and the farm was sold.  I moved into an apartment and the workshop and the plug went into storage.  In the late spring of 2008 I bought a house with a 12 x 29 shed that became my workshop, subsequently known as "The Damn Yankee Workshop."
 
 
With the shop set up, I began to work on the plug in earnest.  Those details needed for the mold still had to be added and the quarter galleries were a big part of that, so that's where I started.

 
These things didn't need to be very structural as the entire plug would be destroyed in removing it from the mold.
 
In the mean time I visited the restored vessel and learned some things.  The bulwark on the spar deck was actually planked up hammock stanchions.  When the ship was being "restored" as a frigate, they took off the hammock irons and tossed them into the bilges, the restoration recovered all but one and reinstalled them.
 
 
This changed the shape of the hull for me.  Instead of "solid" bulwarks continuing smoothly up to the cap rail, the hull stopped with a cap on top of the waterways, and had these stanchions mounted on top of that cap and covered with wainscoting.  So, I cut the plug down to the lower level at the top of the waterways.

 
The whole idea of the plug being destroyed when the mold was made began to nag at me.  There was a chance, a very good chance in my opinion, that the mold might not turn out and the whole thing would be a disaster and a major waste of time and effort.
 
Next: A Course Change

While I considered what to do about the plug, I found some very nice white cedar while getting something else at the lumber yard, so I began making the lower masts.
Since I had no plans for Constellation's spars specifically, I used several sources for the details, including Spars and Rigging From Nautical Routine, 1849 and Biddlecomb's Art of Rigging, but the best source I found for this 1850's warship was Luce's Textbook of Seamanship which has some very detailed drawings of the rigging of this period.
 
After drawing the spars full-scale, I cut the cedar to the rough dimensions on a table saw:
 
 
I then marked out the details and the taper:
 
 
Shaved the taper, then marked the spar to make it 8-sided:
 
 
The masts were banded with the same brown paper tape the plug was made from, the hounds and the front fish were made and attached:
 
 
The cross-trees and trestle-trees for the lower tops were made along with a rough set of mast caps:
 
 
The topmasts were made from the same cedar and in the same manner as the lower masts.  Some temporary mast steps were placed inside the plug, a stand made from 3/8" plywood to hold the model up, and some paint went on the lower masts.

 
By this time I was convinced that glassing the plug and making it the model's hull was the best course to take...
 
Next: Prepping to glass

Prepping to Glass - or how not to build a hull.
April 2009
 
The plug, now "the hull." needed to be prepped in order to be glassed.  The card-stock quarter galleries were tossed; the stem knee shaped and tapered; and some of the brown paper detailing removed.  The sheer was trued-up and every thing was lightly sanded.
 
 
I used the polyester resin available at the local hardware superstore, and laid up one half at a time with 4oz cloth.
 
 
After one side set-up, it was trimmed and the other side laid up.  The next day that was trimmed, the whole hull sanded, and another coat of resin rolled on:
 
 
Once that was set and sanded all the forms were carefully removed.  The hull was flimsy with only the battens, paper tape, and some very fine glass cloth:
 
 
Glass matting was laid in, one side at a time.  Extra resin was poured in while the hull laid on it's side, to try and fill the spaces between the battens.  This probably would have been better done with Water Putty, or some other filler that would have filled the space more solidly:
 
 
I now had a solid fiberglass hull as the matting made it very rigid.
 
This is NOT a good way to make a hull for an RC boat.  The original plan, before I was distracted by Mowill's book, was the way I should have gone from the start; wood planking on forms, covered with glass and resined inside.  If you're following this with the idea of doing one yourself, learn from my mistakes - look at how I built the hull for my Macedonian.
 
Next: Deck Framing

Prepping to Glass - or how not to build a hull.
April 2009
 
The plug, now "the hull." needed to be prepped in order to be glassed.  The card-stock quarter galleries were tossed; the stem knee shaped and tapered; and some of the brown paper detailing removed.  The sheer was trued-up and every thing was lightly sanded.
 
 
I used the polyester resin available at the local hardware superstore, and laid up one half at a time with 4oz cloth.
 
 
After one side set-up, it was trimmed and the other side laid up.  The next day that was trimmed, the whole hull sanded, and another coat of resin rolled on:
 
 
Once that was set and sanded all the forms were carefully removed.  The hull was flimsy with only the battens, paper tape, and some very fine glass cloth:
 
 
Glass matting was laid in, one side at a time.  Extra resin was poured in while the hull laid on it's side, to try and fill the spaces between the battens.  This probably would have been better done with Water Putty, or some other filler that would have filled the space more solidly:
 
 
I now had a solid fiberglass hull as the matting made it very rigid.
 
This is NOT a good way to make a hull for an RC boat.  The original plan, before I was distracted by Mowill's book, was the way I should have gone from the start; wood planking on forms, covered with glass and resined inside.  If you're following this with the idea of doing one yourself, learn from my mistakes - look at how I built the hull for my Macedonian.
 
Next: Deck Framing

While I considered what to do about the plug, I found some very nice white cedar while getting something else at the lumber yard, so I began making the lower masts.
Since I had no plans for Constellation's spars specifically, I used several sources for the details, including Spars and Rigging From Nautical Routine, 1849 and Biddlecomb's Art of Rigging, but the best source I found for this 1850's warship was Luce's Textbook of Seamanship which has some very detailed drawings of the rigging of this period.
 
After drawing the spars full-scale, I cut the cedar to the rough dimensions on a table saw:
 
 
I then marked out the details and the taper:
 
 
Shaved the taper, then marked the spar to make it 8-sided:
 
 
The masts were banded with the same brown paper tape the plug was made from, the hounds and the front fish were made and attached:
 
 
The cross-trees and trestle-trees for the lower tops were made along with a rough set of mast caps:
 
 
The topmasts were made from the same cedar and in the same manner as the lower masts.  Some temporary mast steps were placed inside the plug, a stand made from 3/8" plywood to hold the model up, and some paint went on the lower masts.

 
By this time I was convinced that glassing the plug and making it the model's hull was the best course to take...
 
Next: Prepping to glass

Much more regarding the details of why I chose this ship to build; history of the ship; and other items of interest can be found on my web page for this project.  This "log" is to replace the one that had been posted here before the forum crashed and lost a lot of data.
 
Beginning
 
Having the plans already in the size I wanted saved a lot of time getting started, and I used the Model Ship Builder article as a guide at first.  A bit of scrap particle board from a remodeling project was used as a building board.  The forms were cut from scrap wood paneling, and the keel was some 1/2" scrap birch plywood from a cabinet I built.  This was all stood up by the end of March, 1999.
 
 
Then I discovered a book;
William Mowll's Building a Working Model Warship:HMS Warrior, 1860.

Mowll covered his forms with battens instead of planking and covered that with gummed brown paper packing tape over which he applied masking tape to create a plug for making a fiberglass mold. The masking tape was to give the texture of Warrior’s cast iron plating. I happened to have a large roll of the brown tape, and got the idea of using this method to make a plug and cast 3 hulls in glass fiber.  I didn't need the masking tape as Constellation wasn't iron plated, I would use the brown tape to impart planking details to the mold.

 
So, moving forward with this plan, I battened the forms with scrap white pine strips...
 
 
 
...and proceeded to cover that with the brown paper tape creating what would be a plug for a fiber-glass mold.
 
 
The tape shrinks a bit when it dries and can be sanded.  Once the form was covered diagonally I began applying a second layer in the form of strips to represent planking, gunport lids, and even copper bottom plating - all this detail would be picked up by the mold and imparted to the glass hull when it was laid up.  The plug still needed more details, like quarter galleries, but none of the drawings available gave these details, so I had to go digging.

 
In the meantime we sold the house and bought a small farm where we kept some horses and I commuted 65 miles one-way to work.  The plug went into the barn, covered in plastic, and wasn't touched from 2003 till 2008.

 
Next: Work resumes.

Inspired by a large RC model of the Rattlesnake featured in an issue of Model Ship Builder magazine, I looked around for a subject to built and decided to built the ship in my own back yard, the sloop of war Constellation tied up in Baltimore's Inner Harbor since the mid 1950's.
 

 
Some video of Rattlesnake
 
 
Constellation was a sloop-of-war, of 22 guns, designed by John Lenthal, and built in 1854 by Gosport Navy Yard at Norfolk, Virginia; the last US warship designed and built to operate under sail alone. For a long time she was believed by many to be the old frigate of 1797, rebuilt and moderized, and that debate has raged in the maritime history community for decades.
 
Her lines and sail plan were acquired from the National Archives where I got to handle the actual hand drawn documents.  I decided to build her as she appeared in a portrait by deSimone when she was in Naples in 1856 and still a new ship.
 

 
Her lines were drawn in 1:36 scale, which was perfect, giving a model:
Beam: 13-5/8" (34.713 cm) Length over the rig: 96" (243.84 cm) Width over the rig: 36" (91.44 cm) ~ Main yard w/o stuns'l booms. Length on deck: 61" (154.94 cm) Length between perpendiculars: 59-1/8" (150.178 cm) Draft, without ballast keel: 7" (17.78 cm) With 3-1/2" ballast keel: 10-1/2" (27.94 cm) Height bottom of keel to main truck, without ballast keel: 65" (165.1 cm) With ballast keel: 69" (175.26 cm) Sail Area: 2,807.01 square inches in 17 sails (19.5 sf, 18,109.7 scm, 1.8 sqm)
 
This log will cover my work on this model since it began in 1999 up to where it is now.
 
Author's Note:  This is a log of how I am building this model, not a guide to how a model such as this ought to be built.  It's full of fits and starts, changes of mind, errors, re-do's, more error's, a few mistakes; and somehow, despite all this, it seems to be becoming a working, sailing model that actually looks something like it's namesake.  The director of the actual ship recognized it on first sight - I take that as a good sign!
If you're considering taking on a project like this, please, please, don't let this build log deter you - it's not nearly as difficult as I make it seem.  Just take away from it that which helps you along, and ignore the rest.
 

Inspired by a large RC model of the Rattlesnake featured in an issue of Model Ship Builder magazine, I looked around for a subject to built and decided to built the ship in my own back yard, the sloop of war Constellation tied up in Baltimore's Inner Harbor since the mid 1950's.
 

 
Some video of Rattlesnake
 
 
Constellation was a sloop-of-war, of 22 guns, designed by John Lenthal, and built in 1854 by Gosport Navy Yard at Norfolk, Virginia; the last US warship designed and built to operate under sail alone. For a long time she was believed by many to be the old frigate of 1797, rebuilt and moderized, and that debate has raged in the maritime history community for decades.
 
Her lines and sail plan were acquired from the National Archives where I got to handle the actual hand drawn documents.  I decided to build her as she appeared in a portrait by deSimone when she was in Naples in 1856 and still a new ship.
 

 
Her lines were drawn in 1:36 scale, which was perfect, giving a model:
Beam: 13-5/8" (34.713 cm) Length over the rig: 96" (243.84 cm) Width over the rig: 36" (91.44 cm) ~ Main yard w/o stuns'l booms. Length on deck: 61" (154.94 cm) Length between perpendiculars: 59-1/8" (150.178 cm) Draft, without ballast keel: 7" (17.78 cm) With 3-1/2" ballast keel: 10-1/2" (27.94 cm) Height bottom of keel to main truck, without ballast keel: 65" (165.1 cm) With ballast keel: 69" (175.26 cm) Sail Area: 2,807.01 square inches in 17 sails (19.5 sf, 18,109.7 scm, 1.8 sqm)
 
This log will cover my work on this model since it began in 1999 up to where it is now.
 
Author's Note:  This is a log of how I am building this model, not a guide to how a model such as this ought to be built.  It's full of fits and starts, changes of mind, errors, re-do's, more error's, a few mistakes; and somehow, despite all this, it seems to be becoming a working, sailing model that actually looks something like it's namesake.  The director of the actual ship recognized it on first sight - I take that as a good sign!
If you're considering taking on a project like this, please, please, don't let this build log deter you - it's not nearly as difficult as I make it seem.  Just take away from it that which helps you along, and ignore the rest.
 

I use Tightbond III for wood-to-wood joints, and epoxy everywhere else.

I use Tightbond III for wood-to-wood joints, and epoxy everywhere else.