USS Constitution by JSGerson - Model Shipways Kit No. MS2040

[JSGerson]

Another quick update on brass drilling. Yes, the new bits drilled through the brass...until they didn't.  If you look back, I made a diagram of how I was going to the drill brass blocks. Basically, each block requires two holes, some passing all the way through the block, and others only halfway. Each block required two set ups on the drill press. I was lucky if my new drill bits lasted two blocks before they quickly dulled up or broke. On moment they were drilling, the next they weren't. One didn't even drill from the start. I actually bought bits from three sources, my original bits from either Model Expo or Micro-Mark, a full set from AliExpress, and two Gyros #75 packages and one Gyros #67 each containing 12 bits/pkg. The AliExpress #67 bit broke immediately upon touching the brass and the #75 went dull. The Gyros went dull after a couple of holes. I was using a light touch, not  jamming the drill into the brass.

 

After all this, I don't have much to show for my efforts, just two cleanly drilled brass blocks. So I will admit defeat and go to plan B, Styrene plastic. The drill bits cut through in seconds, and cutting the blocks off from the bar requires just a sharp knife instead of a fine tooth saw or cutting disk. Hopefully, the brass painted blocks will blend in with all the brass rod that make up the canopies. 

[vossiewulf]

Try professional jeweler's bits, they are of much higher quality than anything MicroMark sells, and unfortunately the price reflects that. That said, scroll down where there are Swiss Tungsten Vanadium sets for $49 and I saw a cobalt steel set for $59, https://www.ottofrei.com/collections/burs-drills?pf_t_types=types%3AAll+Drills

 

It's always painful to buy something like a nice set of drills but you get drills that actually work and work for a veery long time, so the investment is worth it.

[GGibson]

1 hour ago, JSGerson said:

The AliExpress #67 bit broke immediately upon touching the brass and the #75 went dull. The Gyros went dull after a couple of holes. I was using a light touch, not  jamming the drill into the brass.

 

 

Well, crap!  Hate to hear that!  And I just bought their 0.2-1.1mm package.  Granted, they were only $5.57 for the package (maybe that was an indication of quality?!?), but sorry to hear they won't work for the intended purpose.  Did the RPM speed have an effect on that, Jon?  Could you slow down the drill speed and they'd do better?

 

I've got a bunch of the Gyros, as well, and have found that they are great for the pin vise, but the bits do wander when I put them in the Proxxon drill press.  Well, like I said at the outset... crap!

 

EDIT:  I've saved vossiewulf's link to my "favorites" just in case... 🤷‍♂️🤣

Edited December 20, 2024 by GGibson

[mtbediz]

3 hours ago, JSGerson said:

The AliExpress #67 bit broke immediately upon touching the brass and the #75 went dull. The Gyros went dull after a couple of holes. I was using a light touch, not  jamming the drill into the brass.

I'm sorry the drill bits didn't work, Jon. I have used them to drill brass sheets with a maximum thickness of 0.8 mm and they worked well, but I have never worked with thicknesses above this.

[JSGerson]

I really don't know where the problem lies, my technique, proper type of tools, quality of tools, or my skills. The one thing I couldn't try was a slower drill speed. My old Dremel drill press can only accept my one speed plug-in Dremel drill and not my cordless variable speed Dremel. I think it will work out OK with using Styrene for this one component.

 

Jon

[Der Alte Rentner]

Jon,  I spent some time today checking other build logs, one of which was XKen's.  I noticed that the drills he uses seem to be very short, or have very little of the cutting end protruding from chucks.  This might be a technique that would resist your drill bits breaking.  He doesn't discuss it, but I suspect he shortened the cutting end of the drill bits and hand sharpened them.  

 

E.G.

 

That last one might have been an outlier..

[Der Alte Rentner]

Going back and forth between builds, trying to firmly grasp construction details of cheek knees, trailboard, and head rails, I was impressed by your work in this area.  I will go so far as to say that IMHO you eclipsed XKen in managing the curve at the tail end of the trailboard, where he cut it short. 

 

Boy of boy, am I dreading this step..  

[JSGerson]

Peter, Ken Forman (xKen) is a master of metal work, so he made his scroll work out brass plate and solder and he did a beautiful job. Like him, my scroll work was fabricated from smaller pieces but I used 1/64" boxwood instead metal. I actually wanted to carve finer detail into the scroll work, but I didn't have the skills or tools to get the effect I wanted. But, from a foot away, the results were acceptable. I actually found creating the fiddlehead and the cheek knees much more difficult and I wasn't fully satisfied with those results either. Take your time, make trial pieces, and have patience and tenacity, and I have faith you'll will get it done.

 

Jon

[JSGerson]

I am taking my canopy frame fabrication cues from several builders but am using 1/32” brass tube instead of 1/32” brass rod as many other builders have used for the vertical components. This allows me to use a continuous vertical component, passing through the junction blocks and decorative balls to just beyond the top railing. Then the overhead canopy support made of 0.02” brass rod can be inserted into the 1/32” tube creating a strong mechanical connection. The 0.06” blocks will only support the horizontal rails with no stress. The brass balls are strictly ornamental and provide no support. The tricky part is where the canopy arches all meet at the top. A hub piece will be used to connect all the arches plus the finial. The finial is to be comprised of a rod and tube configuration (TBD), and filed into its final shape and inserted into the hub. The vertical framework base will be inserted into rings made from 1/16” tubes, embedded into the grating wood frames. Here is a summary of the materials:

• Base of vertical component: 1/16” brass tube – K&S Engineering No. 5125
• Vertical component: 1/32” brass tube– K&S Engineering No. 815035
• Horizontal component: 1/32” brass rod - K&S Engineering No.
• Junction blocks: 0.06” Styrene square rod – Evergreen No. 223
• Ornament: 1/32” brass balls – Tribal Desert from Etsy
• Junction hub: 3/32” styrene tube – Evergreen No. 153

So here is my plan based on the US Navy plans and the trial prototypes of the vertical components and the canopy hub element to see if this would work. The prototype is purely concept, so it is not adjusted for proper dimensions or glued and yet it stands on its own. The final image shows the styrene painted brass. It appears it just might work.

[GGibson]

Looks like a good plan, Jon!  And how many of these will be on the deck?  Whew!  Watching with great interest! 👍🏆

[Der Alte Rentner]

On 12/26/2024 at 3:18 PM, JSGerson said:

The final image shows the styrene painted brass. It appears it just might work.

Perhaps it's because of the nature of a super zoomed photograph, but I'm not entirely convinced on the color.  But then, when I saw the spec of 1/16" square on those styrene junction boxes, I had to gulp.  Yikes! 

 

This is a long way off for me, and I may not bother with them anyway, but, I think I would try to find some 1/16" square brass stock and drill holes in that instead of messing with styrene.  Or hunt down someone who has plans for the canopy frames and can knock them off with a 3D printer (in this country).  I have a friend who has a 3D printer, but he'd need plans or whatever the specs are called for him to make them for me. 

 

I'm beginning to wish I'd started with a much larger scale, so that I wouldn't need an electron microscope and nano robotics to work on these smaller details.    

 

Nice work Jon.   

Edited December 28, 2024 by Der Alte Rentner
added content

[JSGerson]

Peter, The US Navy plans I have. The 3-D printer I don't have, nor do I know of anyone who does have one. Cutting the brass 1/16" stock or the styrene 0.060" stock into cubes wasn't a real problem if you have a small miter box and a fine tooth saw. Cutting the brass rod and tubes also not a big deal. I used a fine tooth saw because if I used a cutting disk on a Dremel tool, the tiny piece pieces would fly off into Never-Never Land. I bought the brass balls. The hard part (for me at least), was trying to drill holes into the brass as I have documented.

 

Take it one step at a time, and it will come together. Albeit, there are a lot of steps.  As for going to a larger scale, the 1:76 scale of the MS kit creates a four foot model. That in turn requires an even larger display box, which requires a display table large enough to properly show off the display box. Now increase the scale of the model and everything gets bigger. Oh, one other thing, usually a larger scale almost demands more detail. Be careful what you wish for.🤥

 

If you enjoy it, it not work

Jon

Edited December 28, 2024 by JSGerson

[Der Alte Rentner]

I hear you loud and clear,  Jon, and will cross that bridge (swearing all the way) when I finally get there. Though, it may take a while, given my tendency to overthink things - and for my boxwood vendor to deliver fresh supplies..   

 

Thanks again and

Happy New Year

[Der Alte Rentner]

 

Jon,  I can't thank you enough for having provided this photo to XKen, way back in 2016.  It answers a big question for me on how to tackle the tailboards.

Thanks again.  Peter

[JSGerson]

Glad to be of help.  As always, if you need any additional pictures or plans, just ask.

 

Jon

[JSGerson]

It has been over a month since my last posting of the progress of my model. I have not been idle but working on it at my usual pace…slowly. I made very little progress considering the time I spent.

 

For the first railing and canopy structure I chose the companionway and skylight frame because it was large and looked like it was the easiest. I drilled seven 1/16” holes for the 1/16” base sleeves which were cut from a 1/16” brass tube. The stanchions were cut from 3/32” brass tube and inserted into the sleeves for fit.

[JSGerson]

Now the fun began. Making the connector blocks for the canopy stanchions was very delicate and tedious. My original plan required two to three drill press setups per block depending on whether it was for a corner, an open end or inner stanchion. Changing the setup was required because of the two different sized brass rod/tubes that needed to fit into the blocks. After a few haphazard starts, I realized that all that was necessary was to drill a 1/32” passthrough hole with the drill press for the 3/32” brass tube which will be the vertical stanchion. This hole left an opening with only a 1/64” wall outside of the hole. Precision was required. The other holes for the 0.020” rod (horizonal rails), were a little more forgiving and was done with a hand drill fairly quickly. Cutting the 1/16” cube from the 1/16” square styrene rod was done with my mini miter block with a properly set stop and a razor saw. However, a 1/16” cube of styrene with holes drilled through it almost to its edges created a very fragile component with very little surface area remaining for gluing. I slipped on the unpainted styrene blocks again for fit.

[JSGerson]

I thought assembling the pieces was going to straight forward, so I painted the blocks with brass color paint which as it turned out, was a bit more copper in color than the actual brass parts. Attaching a block to the stanchions was basic, however attaching the horizontal rails was not.

[JSGerson]

I had to work out the sequence of CA gluing a block to a rail and sliding the block and rail component down the stanchion to the bottom position and have the rail slip into the block on the other stanchion with precision. Then do it again for the top rail. Those rails lengths had to be precise which meant nipping the ends of the rail and filing to shorten the brass rod within thousands of an inch by trial and error. Then gluing the rail into the block so it didn’t protrude into the stanchion’s vertical hole, about 1/64”. Invariably, I broke glue joints, crushed blocks, lost the tiny pieces if I dropped them, and had to refabricate numerous parts

 

Now I must bring 7 arched 1/32” brass rods together into a styrene ring that is to hold them together at the center of the stairwell and add a yet to be fabricated ornament it its center. So, this is as far as I got in all this time.

[GGibson]

Hey Jon!  Great work on these rails.  I know you have toiled long and hard on how to best recreate these stair rails, and your solutions have resulted in a great finish.  Looking forward to seeing these in place on the deck.  Carry on, sir! 👍

[Unegawahya]

Your companion way canopy frames are looking great!

Seeing your pictures is making me miss working on my ship! I had two commissions come in that I needed to work on and I have one done and the other is 60%. I’ll hopefully be back to her soon and can get my 36’ long boat done and installed!

[Der Alte Rentner]

On 2/1/2025 at 12:10 PM, JSGerson said:

I thought assembling the pieces was going to straight forward,

Very little in life is "straight forward".  Seeing what I am here, I may well skip this detail.  Could you please take a picture from a distance so I can see how things look from a typical viewer's perspective, instead of the electron microscope closeup? 

 

I admire your tenacity! 

[JSGerson]

Per the USS Constitution Museum, the arched canopy frames were likely installed when the USS Constitution became a U.S. Naval Academy training ship in the 1850s, so they were not installed for tourist. They have been on the ship for about 175 years. That is why I am installing them; it’s officially part of the ship.

 

Don’t be discouraged by my efforts, I am learning like most of us builders; trial and error (mostly error) is par for the course. Use me as an example as a "glutton for punishment," not as an excuse for not doing something because it is a challenge. If you feel intimidated, follow other builders who have had more success with drilling brass and used more robust brass rod (although out of scale). I've even seen images of 3D printed canopy frames, but can't remember where; so, there are alternatives methods.

 

So here are the pictures you requested. Please be aware the frames are not complete yet and don't stand out visually yet because there is no planking to provide a smooth background.

 

Jon

[Unegawahya]

3 hours ago, Der Alte Rentner said:

Very little in life is "straight forward".  Seeing what I am here, I may well skip this detail.  Could you please take a picture from a distance so I can see how things look from a typical viewer's perspective, instead of the electron microscope closeup? 

 

I admire your tenacity! 

If it helps, here are some more pictures to show the canopy frames from more of a distance.For me thinking about the canopy frames was harder than actually doing them. The second two were definitely a lot easier than the first one because I was able to get a method and I built them together.

I also wish I would have built mine like Jon! It would been much easier before I installed the hatch ways.

 

 

I found the post showing the 3D printed ones if your wanting to go that route. He may be able to print another set.

[Der Alte Rentner]

On 2/4/2025 at 11:31 AM, Unegawahya said:

 

I found the post showing the 3D printed ones if your wanting to go that route. He may be able to print another set.

I may indeed go that route.  I've seen that post here at MSW and will look it up.  Thanks for the reminder.  

Edited February 6 by Der Alte Rentner

[JSGerson]

Peter, I inquired to helmarsowick as to how to get the 3D printed canopy supports for a potential Plan C should my attempt of constructing the supports fail. Plan B was substituting styrene for brass.

 

Jon

[Der Alte Rentner]

I searched the MSW site and found your initial dialog with Helmarsowick in 2023.  I believe his supplier is located in Poland, which suggests the ordering process may be a bit of an issue.  I wonder if anyone in the USA offers this product.  But, if you do get the details on ordering the printed canopies, I'd likely follow suit and order them too.

 

Thanks Jon

[GGibson]

53 minutes ago, Der Alte Rentner said:

...if you do get the details on ordering the printed canopies, I'd likely follow suit and order them too.

 

Thanks Jon

 

Perhaps Mr. Szkutnik could do a batch order... save at least on shipping individual units. 🤷‍♂️🤣👍

[mtbediz]

Canopies can be made by soldering brass wires together, omitting the cube-shaped parts at the connection points. That's how I plan to do it. It does not seem possible to reduce these cube-shaped fasteners at this scale anyway.

[Der Alte Rentner]

Jon, was it you who argued in favor of keeping lines randomly scattered around the deck to show the ship in a state of action?  If so, there would be no canopies up during battle.  That could be your ticket for skipping them altogether..  😉