USS Constitution by SawdustDave - FINISHED - 1:60th Scale

[JSGerson]

You should be very proud. Now I've got to ask a few questions:

• I assumed you carved the stars. How did you hold them to do it?

The nameplate intrigued me:

• Did you carve the letters? If not, what did you use?
• How did you achieve the very thin white border around the nameplate?

Jon

[SawdustDave]

3 hours ago, JSGerson said:

You should be very proud. Now I've got to ask a few questions:

• I assumed you carved the stars. How did you hold them to do it?

The nameplate intrigued me:

• Did you carve the letters? If not, what did you use?
• How did you achieve the very thin white border around the nameplate?

Jon

Hi Jon:

All excellent questions.... 
Really tiny carvings such as the stars and the nameplate lettering are most easily handled by gluing a printed image directly onto the wood surface.
I simply used a photo from the actual ship.... scaled it to the size needed (200 dpi), and printed a few copies to go with.

 

In this case, the nameplate letters were a little more difficult than the stars, with some of the letters being more difficult than others.... "I" and "T" and "N" were much easier than the others having curved shapes... i.e. "C", "O", and "S".

The nameplate.... I painted a piece of white card stock black and trimmed out the shape of the nameplate.  The thin white border you see is actually the edge of the card stock which I revealed by trimming the edge at a slight angle.

 

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the visit Jon, and others.

Dave

[SawdustDave]

I've said numerous times, the primary reason I take close shots of areas in progress is to allow me to examine and flaws and try to fix what I can.  The camera really is our most reliable critic.

A good example in this case.... I have gone back and tweaked the tops of those little columns to even out the alignment.  Also, I didn't like the two undersized "N's" in the name plate lettering, so I removed them and re-carved replacements....

 

Still not perfect, but much better now. 

[SawdustDave]

One more note....
I have decided not to add the gun port lids to the transom area at this point because they are very fragile and I will be handling the hull extensively as I now proceed with more planking and copper plating.

Also...I'm thinking seriously about using vinyl material to plank the entire area of the hull that will be copper plated.  Two reasons.....

1.  I purchased two rolls of self adhesive copper and tested them on wood and on vinyl, discovering that they adhere to the vinyl surface much better than the wood.

2.  Some of the bending of planks around the aft area of the hull is rather severe.  The vinyl strips will be much easier to cut and bend in those areas.

 

Dave

[BANYAN]

Great techniques for the decoration Dave; they turned out great!  She is looking good and you seem top have achieved a nice even coat of black.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[usedtosail]

I am not sure how the vinyl works, but if you want to stay with wood I have found that a coat of primer on the wood helps the copper tape stick much better than bare wood.

[JerryTodd]

Copper tape wants a smooth surface, the smoother the better.

[Greg the peg leg sailor]

G'day Dave 

Ditto from me. Fantastic carvings my friend. 

Havagooday 

Greg 

[SawdustDave]

A tale of success.... followed by failure.... followed by success:

The first tale of success to report being the completion of the hull planking.  
I did use the 1-1/2 wide by 1/4" thick vinyl lattice strips purchased at Lowe's.  
Ripping down to 1/4" wide by 1/8th think planks on my mini table saw took about 8 hours because the feeding is extremely slow and tedious.  
The result is well worth the effort with perfect planks that can be bent to extreme shapes and easily smoothed to a great surface with a palm sander.
Some areas were touched up using "Bondo" (auto body filler).

Next - The tale of failure.... Dave's Copper Plate Riveting Tool -

First I must say, the single reason I have put off building the Constitution for years is because, after two Vics, The Syren, and a large Pirate ship for my old coaches, I swore I would NEVER build another ship with copper sheathing.
So here I am, once again, the dreaded copper plates.
First, I created a ponce wheel from a fabric marking tool purchased at WalMart. 

Played around with rivet patterns and decided I wanted to use three rows of rivits on each plate.... seen here in the pile on the left.  

Not happy with the accuracy and consistency of the rows as they lined up end-to-end, I had the bright idea of creating a tool that would give me an exact pattern for every single plate.

After several hours of trial and error, the tool was a disaster! 
Getting perfect alignment of the rivet patterns was much harder than it seemed, plus, the individual rivet dimples were just too fat for the scale.

Three days of effort seen above had to be pulled off and scrapped.... bad day in the ship yard!

Back to the ponce wheel.  
The final tale of success comes with developing a method of getting three perfect patterns of rivets that line up consistently end-to-end from plate to plate.
I needed a visual reference to follow with the ponce wheel.  I first marked and cut the copper tape into lengths of ten plates (3/4" long).
I then created a couple of simple jigs used to mark precise lines on the back of the copper strips.

And here's the result I am going with....
Note that I also decided to give the hull a coat of flat black spray enamel in order to improve the adherence of the plates.

Well on my way....

[Greg the peg leg sailor]

G'day Dave 

Persistence is truly a virtue my mate. Well done and the final efforts has an exceptionally quality to it.

Thanks for showing us your failures as it also remind me of what Thomas Edison said when he was trying to find the correct filiment to use on his light globe. "I only showed that there was 1000 filiments not to use" or something simular.😆

Havagooday 

Greg 

[SawdustDave]

Thank you, as always Greg.

Another failure not mentioned here was my attempt to create plates from sheets of copper with no adhesive on the back.... posting #143.... also turned out to be a train wreck.  

 

Dave. 

[BANYAN]

Those newer plates look good Dave, as Greg said - persistence pays off.  I admire your drive for scratch made.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[SawdustDave]

Thank you Pat....and for the friends who continue to drop in.

I think we can all agree that the task of copper plating a large hull is similar, in my mind, to tying rat lines.  We really have a special celebration upon final completion.
I'm looking forward to the day when I can get back to building out the gun deck and begin making her tall.

[SawdustDave]

Copper Plating Completed....

First this shot of the copper plated hull....

And the rudder with pintles ....

And the gudgeons....

I created the straps from vinyl strips (1/16th" wide) because I found that I could press the bolt head dimples from the back side.  Then painted the straps with brilliant gold metallic enamel.  
Finally, each bolt head was touched with a tiny dot of black 3D Fabric Paint.

[SawdustDave]

Rudder Installed....

 

It seems really good to flip her back to her upright position.
Back to work on the gun deck.

 

[SawdustDave]

Leaving Friday for Boston.

Man!  I hate flying!

[Greg the peg leg sailor]

G'day Dave 

She's coming on great. The copper plating is amazing. A bloody brilliant job memattieee. 

I don't mind flying, but talking off and landing gives me more grey hairs. (It that possible may I ask,  I don't think so as I'm quite grey now!)

Havagreatimeaway 

Greg 

[SawdustDave]

New Display Base....

 

Thank you Greg.  Plenty of gray hair here as well.  Actually, it's the messing around with air port terminals that I mostly hate.  Did enough flying around the world in my work career for a lifetime and have enjoyed not having to do that any more.

With the additional thickness of the copper plates to the keel, the temporary mounting base no longer works, so before proceeding with work on the gun decks etc. I decided this morning to take a few days to create a solid new display base.
Pretty good idea what I want to do.... 
Looks like this will be a sawdust day.  

[usedtosail]

Bring a warm coat Dave. It has been kind of chilly around here lately.

[SawdustDave]

 

49 minutes ago, usedtosail said:

Bring a warm coat Dave. It has been kind of chilly around here lately.

Long as the white stuff is gone, I can handle "kind of chilly" Tom.

Looking forward to getting to tour this great ship.

Any chance you might be able to join my son and I for a beer Friday or Sat.?

[usedtosail]

Sure. Sent you a PM to work out details.

[SawdustDave]

Ship Ahoy!  Man the cannons!

I definitely feel a carving coming on.

[Greg the peg leg sailor]

G'day Dave

Where's the First Officer?

Havagoodone yaol'seadog

Greg 

[SawdustDave]

Enjoyed meeting Tom (Usedtosail) on Friday.... we talked about all of you over great beers.  Waiting for him to post the photo evidence.

Not the best time for our visit to the ship because all guns were totally removed while she's undergoing major "spruce-up".

 

[usedtosail]

Here we are. Had a great visit too. You'll have to come back when she is all up and rigged again.

 

[SawdustDave]

Wish I could say I'll be back Tom.  While possible, not likely any time soon.  Maybe after I eventually finish the build.
Yes it was great walking her decks but disappointed she was so stripped down.
BTW.... We did manage to get really choice box seats right beside the Sox dug out for Saturday's game against TB.  Got to admit a day at Fenway was the highlight of my trip.  
After spending 8 years in Cincinnati during the era of the "Big Red Machine I only THOUGHT I had experienced the best baseball had to offer.... NO WAY!
Now I know, Baseball at Fenway is like no other.
Good to be back in the ship yard.

[usedtosail]

Glad you got to Fenway Pahk. The game was on at the graduation party I went to on Saturday. It looked like a good one.

[SawdustDave]

BACK TO WORK....

After our incredible visit to walk her decks, I'm happy to be back in the shop.... now having a little case of self doubt that I have the required skills to do justice to this great ship.

First.... I finished up the new display base.  Since there should be no reason to work on the upside down hull, the base is firmly attached to the keel with two  4" long wood screws.... passing through the 1/2" thick base and through the two (two piece) turnings and 3/4" deep into the keel.  
The stained base has three coats of satin poly.

Next, I added the rigging hardware to the bulwarks and began creating pinrails and belaying pins....(one result of my visit was seeing how thick her pinrails are)

The pins are each turned from wooden tooth picks....

 

 

[Piet]

Back with you Dave. Great progress since my absence. The copper plating 2.0 looks really very good. Glad you enjoyed your visit with the real Conny and quafing a few with Tom. Yeah, I hate flying too - - commercial and in the back   Next July I'll be flying to Quebec City with our daughter to see the "tall ship" event. Hope to see a few  friends there.

 

Love to see you do that beautiful eagle carving Dave, that'll be a nice addition to your model.

 

Cheers,

[jud]

Looking good. Enjoyed your photos of the visit and the Wheel and Entry details. Being an old rifleman and gunner, I have this quirk to study the background, 'impact area', and spotted the Fletcher Destroyer. Was she the USS The Sullivians, DD 537? My first ship was the Ammen, DD 527. Checked the internet and ran across this interesting video tour, probably greater enjoyment for me than other because it was was a duplicate of the Ammen except for the 40 MM guns in the 3" 50 gun tubs and the 20's scattered around the deck where we had "K" guns, we didn't have them when I was aboard. Would have needed to finish putting the holding and tightening turns on the bunks before using them.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1-YwzcFfeQ