USS Constitution by JSGerson - Model Shipways Kit No. MS2040

[JSGerson]

You may have noticed that all the disc parts have a small hole drilled in their centers. This used to align the disc parts with a pin when they were glued together. It then becomes the starter hole for a series of progressive larger drillings to widen the opening to 5/16” to accommodate the dowel. The center hole was drilled after the discs were glued because the assembly would be a solid piece and not subject to breakage during the drilling process. It also ensures total alignment of all the openings. In the images below, the base is drilled, and the dowel has the first support disc (1/64” plywood) for the whelps. The dowel was inserted for a dry fit. The dowel has not been cut to its final length at this point.

[JSGerson]

The base was painted black so what little detail I added here for the chain notches has vanished. This was expected and was the reason I did not add any other detail. Next, I carved the whelps using a Dremel tool and files. The upper support ring was fabricated just like the previous discs I made for the base. The whelps, the upper- and lower-disc support rings, and the dowel were stained with Minwax Wood Finish Golden Pecan 245. They all glued into place.

[JSGerson]

This next section had a false start. I started to construct the section where the capstan bars are inserted to rotate the capstan. (God, I wish I knew what the name of the various capstan sections are called). And I started to make these parts the in same manner I made the previous section with the whelps. I formed two discs and drilled out the centers. In lieu of whelps I started to make the pieces in between the capstan bar holes. These worked out to be twelve 1/8” x 1/8” x 1/16” pieces which I quickly realized I had to taper into a trapezoid shape to make them fit around the ring to leave a proper opening for the bars. It just became too much fiddley work. A quiver of a fingers, or an ill aimed breath would set the tiny piece out of alignment during the dry fit. I didn’t fight it and immediately tried another solution, which I think was much easier and had better results.

[JSGerson]

This time I constructed a third, 1/16”, thick ring. Guidelines were laid out for the purpose of making twelve 1/16” notches.  Why twelve you ask? If you look closely at the actual capstan, every other square cutout in the brass plating is not hollow, but solid wood. Why it was constructed this way, I don’t know, but there it is. My brass “plating” is brass tape I got at Hobby Lobby, a crafts store. And attempting to cut out 1/16” x 1/16” openings cleanly directly on the tape is almost impossible for me at least. It is much easier to cut out the squares if there is an opening behind the tape that a sharp tool can easily pass into using the opening as a guide for the blade.

 

The Byrnes saw was perfect for the job for cutting the notches. The cuts were made by eyeball following the guidelines. This notched ring became the “meat” in my sandwich.

[JSGerson]

The color of the interior of the bar holes is red, so I painted the interior of the notches and one side of each of the other rings. I got a bit too sloppy with the paint. The excess paint, that wasn’t covered during the assembly, was sanded off and covered by the brass tape. As it turn out you can’t see any color because it’s too dark.

 

A strip of brass tape was added and pressed on real hard to ensure that it would not come off and to show by indentation where the openings were. Using a couple of fine chisels (1/16” width) I cut the clean square openings. Then I inserted six small pieces of wood into every other opening and stained it with a fine drop of the same Minwax I used before. One more section to go.

[JSGerson]

The rings of this section were a bit more delicate. They are only 1/32” thick with the edge about 1/32” and 3/64” wide. The trick to making them is to drill the center hole first in the wood stock, then cut the circle around the hole. That way the stresses of drilling won’t break the ring.

 

The whelps were almost too small to handle. Those were roughly shaped and glued into place, then filed into its final shape. In the first image, you can see the bottom ring partially in place on the capstan. The capstan axle will be trimmed later.  All the gun deck items will be glued into place after the guns have been fabricated. The pumps are next.

[JSGerson]

Gun Deck Bilge Pumps

I studied the photos of the bilge pumps long and hard trying to figure out how to recreate them in miniature. These things were going to be delicate. Therefore, I had to make them from strong material if they were going to survive the rigors of the modeler continuing to work on the model. I had one US Navy Plan No. 50976 which shows the pumps from copper bowls down to the lower decks. The A-frame mechanisms were not shown. With this plan, the plan view of the gun deck, and the photos (one of which is shown below), was all I had to work out the details.

[JSGerson]

I tried looking at other builders to see what they did, but the only builder I could find that decided to show the interior of the gun deck as I had planned was SawdustDave . Unfortunately for me, he made his model at a larger scale of 1:60 and he did not provide a lot of detail to the actual construction process of his bilge pumps. He did however have some excellent photos. I hope to do as well but at the smaller scale of 1: 76.8.

[JSGerson]

My first thought was to create the A-Frames and rocker arm assemblies from 1/32” and 1/64” spruce plywood; that or boxwood. But cutting such small delicate pieces with precision daunted me. My next material option was for the most part, brass bar and brass rod. If I make the frames right, they should be sturdy enough.

 

This brought up the next question, what method should I use to fasten the brass pieces together, specifically at the apex of the A-Frame? I though of a few choices that I could use. Epoxy, glazing putty that I use as wood filler on the hull, or silver solder. The “glue” would also have to act as the A-frame apex filler from which an axial hole could be drilled. The preliminary plans are shown below. The rest will be developed as I go along.

[JSGerson]

My first attempt using the epoxy method was a failure,...not due to my concept but seemingly due to the epoxy. I made a very simple jig which laid on a piece of wax paper. The wax paper prevented the epoxy from sticking to my work bench surface and it would easily peel off the fastened joint. After the epoxy set after six minutes as indicated by the epoxy instructions, I had expected the epoxy to be rigid. Instead it was like a slightly flexible hard rubber. The epoxy did not adhere well to the brass pieces. The brass legs were easy to pull apart from the epoxy.  Even after four hours, which the instructions stated it needed to cure, the epoxy remained flexible. Maybe I had the wrong type of epoxy.

 

My second attempt was with the glazing putty. This actually work somewhat. However, the putty shrinks as it sets up after about a half hour, so that the web in the A-frame apex had a concave surface and thus additional putty would be required. On the plus side, trimming the excess dry putty was easy and quick.

 

My last attempt was with the silver solder. It worked. I had to condition the bras pieces with acid to clean the surfaces and work off a heat resistant surface. Trimming the excess solder with a hand file was a bit more tedious. As a bonus, the solder apex web appears to be strong enough to have a hole bored through it for the axial, which I not sure the glazing version could do.

 

In the photos below, is the set up for the solder process. The wooden jig is removed of course before I hit it with the torch. The last photo shows the comparison between the soldered version and the glazing version after I trimmed off the excess materials. I’ll redo the glazing version with solder. One down, 11 more to do.

[J11]

Superb work on her, look forward to more updates!

 

[JSGerson]

This next part of the bilge pump part deals the two longest rocker arms and the one short one from the quad pump, and the one slightly shorter long arm from the double pump. At first glance I thought this would be relatively simple. It wasn’t. Instead of making the rocker arms from 1/32” plywood, I decided that the arms would be durable if they were made of brass bars. Because I didn’t have rectangular cross-section bars, I made the rocker arms using two, 1/32” brass bars stacked upon each other.

 

The two bars were clamped together with two aluminum pinching clamps. A bead of silver solder paste was applied along the junction of the two pieces. This by the way was my first-time using solder paste. The advantage of paste is that no addition flux is required. Using a small Butane torch, the solder melts into the seam in a matter of seconds. The excess solder was then filed away.

[JSGerson]

A hole at the center is required for the pump axial to pass through. My best guesstimate for the axial diameter worked out to be a 1/16”. You can see the problem here, If I drill a 1/16” hole through the 1/16” x 1/32” bar, it will cut the bar into two. The actual pump rocker arm has re-enforcing at this juncture, and I had to come up with something like that.

 

Using a 3mm punch, I made eight brass discs from 0.005” brass plate. This is the same brass plate I used to make the “bolt heads” on the bulwarks. The discs are wider than the rocker assembly. The trick here was to solder a disc dead center on either side of the rocker arm’s 1/16” face. Solder paste was placed on one side of a disc and positioned into place using solder paste like a glue. On either side of the solder area the aluminum clamps were attached to act as a heat sink to prevent the bars from heating up, melting the previous solder and thus come apart. The flame was focused on the disc and as soon as the solder melted, the heat was cut. Then the assembly was flipped over, and the other disc was position opposite the first one. The gap in between the two discs which extended over the bar was to fill with solder when the second disc was soldered. Again, the excess solder was filed away. This worked well enough for this scale.

[JSGerson]

Using a metal cutting #53 drill bit and my old Dremel drill stand as a drill press, I attempted to drill the 1/16” hole into the rocker arms where the re-enforcing discs were located. The #53 bit is just a tad smaller than 1/16” which give me a bit of a cushion when making the final hole adjustment. The precision of the stand leaves a little bit to be desired. My first attempt on the first bar worked in so far as making a hole. The problem was the hole was off just enough (about 3/128”) that it cut through the edge. This was repaired with more solder. The results are not polished products yet as there is still much to do.

[JSGerson]

The bilge pump rocker arms have arm extensions so that the ship’s crew can consolidate the pumps for more working space when not in use. The photos of the actual ship show the bilge pumps in their stowed configuration with the rocker arms extensions removed and lashed to the pumps.

 

I plan to have the arms fully extended so the typical viewer can understand their function better. There are two kinds of rocker arm handles. The double pump has a “Y” branch to a double brackets for the handle while the quad pumps have a single bracket and a long handle connecting two pumps. To top it all off, the rocker arms are tapered to the handles from the extension joint.  These details required me to further refine my bilge pump plan.

[JSGerson]

First, I tapered the rocker arms, then I created the handle brackets out of 1/16” brass tube. The problem that presented itself and which drove me crazy was that there was extraordinarily little surface area to bond the bracket to the arm. I threw away my two-part epoxy and bought fresh. The bond failed again. Once more the cured epoxy was more like a hard rubber. I could peel the epoxy off the brass with a dull knife. So, it was back to solder. Before every attempt, I cleaned all the surfaces with mild acid. It took nearly three tries per bracket till I finally got a solid bond.

 

Almost as frustrating, was the Y-branch bracket – how to make it and keep it strong? How do I create a 3-part joint and then connect it to the rocker arm? I came up with a solution but there is probable a better solution out there. I just didn’t think of it. My solution was to double twist two brass wires and create a kind of brass rope. I could then open up the braided strands to insert the rocker arm and handle. Once I had that, I lathered the brass rope with solder flux and solder paste and fired up the torch. The idea was the solder would fill in the voids in the rope making a solid piece. This too took numerous attempts. The excess solder was then filed off. I had to be careful here because I didn’t want to remove too much solder and weaken the bond…again.

 

I almost forgot, the handle material is music wire, very stiff. Wood would have broken, burned, and it doesn’t solder very well.

[JSGerson]

The last bit to complete the rocker arms were the extension joints. This is where the extension arm slides into a short pocket to create the extension. I though about gluing 1/16” piece of wood to simulate the “box” bracket, but in the end. I just wrapped some thread around the arm with a dab of CA glue to create the illusion of a boxy bump on the arms. Most of imperfections will disappear under black paint and low light viewing conditions.

[JSGerson]

I put the bilge pump pieces I’ve made up to this point together (dry fit) to see how everything is fitting. This close up shows there still is a bit of polishing the surfaces and fine tuning to do, but overall, so far, so good. On to the pump rods and copper spheres.

[Matt D]

The bilge pumps look like quite a neat little project.  It looks like you’re on track to make them really nicely. I’m looking forward to seeing this come together.  

[JSGerson]

All the pump rods pass through the copper spheres which have a discharge pipe except for two which are mounted on the short rocker arm. They passed through the deck directly.

 

The pump rods were made from two short pieces of 1/32” bar and one longer piece of 1/32” rod. These were solder together.

[JSGerson]

Starting the fabrication of the brass sphere assemblies, not having a punch of the right size, brass discs were hand cut from a 005” thick brass sheet, the same sheet I used to make the bulwark “boltheads.” Next, 1/32” thick slices of 3/64” dia. brass tube for the quad pumps and 1/64” slices for the double pump, were then CA glued onto the brass discs.

 

I bought some 5 mm “memory wire end caps” (don’t know exactly what their original intended purpose was) in the DIY jewelry section of Hobby Lobby. I would have been just as happy with plain spherical beads but couldn’t find any of the right size and surface smoothness. These “caps” had one opening which did not pass through to the other side. I stuck them on the ends of toothpicks and painted them with copper enamel.

 

The spheres were then CA glued onto 1/32” slices of brass 3/64” dia. brass tube for the quad pumps and 1/64” slices for the double pump. The discharge tubes were added angled slightly down for the quad pumps and horizontal for the double pumps. Why the pumps were designed this way, I don’t know.

[JSGerson]

The last two pump rods attached to the short rocker arm in between the two longer rocker arms on the quad pump go directly through an elongated brass guided opening in the deck. These guides were fabricated by squeezing a brass tube flat to the proper shape and slicing them off. They were capped off on one end by a piece of the brass sheet. Of course, in reality, the opening is not blocked like the model.

[JSGerson]

On top of the brass spheres there are what appears to be white discs. They are in fact protective canvas coverings over the top openings. These were made from 1/32” plywood. The top surface was beveled slightly inward with a Dremel tool. They were painted white with a small brown center. The pump rods will pass through the openings into the spheres. The remainder of the pieces that needed to be painted were painted gloss black. (Note the paint job may look  a bit splotchy, but that’s just the weird reflections in the photo.)

 

I just did not realize how many parts there were to the bilge pump when I started. As it turned out, the fabrication required 67 separate pieces of wood and brass rods, bars, tubes, and sheet. . This does not include all the rejected parts during the course of fabrication. Assembly is next.

[JSGerson]

I started to assemble the pumps, but when I got to the spheres and pump rods, thing went awry. The pump rods where way too long. I deliberately made them a bit longer so I could make fine adjustments when installing the pumps onto the deck, but this was way off. I checked the dimensions of the spheres, the and the A-frames. On there own they appeared correct. When I designed the parts, I used US Navy plan No. 50976, “Fittings, Pump & Pipe Fittings Over Galley, Sketches of Fire Pump-Berth Dk Water Pump-Berth Dk.” which shows the dimension of the spheres among other things and plan No. 24423, “Gun Deck General Arrangement Taken From Work Navy Yard – Boston”. I couldn’t find a drawings of the A-frame nor the pump rods, so they were designed from photos. Upon re-examining plan No. 50976, I discovered there was a partial sketch of the A-frame. I was pretty close to the actual dimensions for the A-frame but the upshot of this was, I made my A-frame about 1/8” too short in height. That’s about 9 5/8” in actual height. The cap size I bought for the spheres were close enough, but the tube slices I used to build the sphere assemblies had cumulative tolerance errors making the assembly a bit too tall. The Navy plan has the assembly as 13/64” scale vs ¼” as built. All in all, I lost up to ¼” space for the rods. That’s 40%. At 76.8:1 scale, the tolerances are very tight.  As a result, I will remake the A-fames to gain some height. The spheres assemblies are locked tight with CA glue so those will remain.

 

Below is a photo of the miss-matched pump rod, the pump plan revised again (red dimensions), plus the applicable sections of the US Navy plan No, 50976.

[jgilchrist800]

Beautiful ingenious work!!

[JSGerson]

Thanks jgilchrist800, If all goes well, I should have the finished pumps soon with pics

[JSGerson]

Remaking the A-frames to make them about ¼” taller was much easier this time as I knew what had to be done. The results were successful.

[JSGerson]

After re-drilling the holes in the spheres, a bit wider and deeper, shortening the pump rods to their proper lengths, and with some trial and error, I think I got it. Here is an early dry fit test. The pieces must now be glued together, and paint added to worn areas during the adjustment and constant re-assembly process.

[JSGerson]

Finally, the bilge pump pieces are glued together without any more major mishaps! Before I even added the touch-up paint, I had to see what they looked like on the deck, I also fabricated and placed some brass discs on the deck to represent the ammo scuttles. Nothing however is glued down to the deck and I don’t plan to until I finish creating all the deck furnishings including the guns and gun rigging.

[JeffT]

They turned out great.