USS Constitution by JSGerson - Model Shipways Kit No. MS2040

[JSGerson]

I've been collecting the US Navy plans ever since I decided to build the Conny back in 2014 or so..  Why these particular plans are not available from the Museum makes no sense. When the US Navy plans were first added to their website, I know these were there. I checked every plan they offered against what I purchased on their second version CD. The first version CD I got from a fellow builder, had a different file format and others plans that are not relevant to the historic ship (fire prevention, electrical, etc.) as well as the main bulk of what available to the public today. I've also found some plans in the National Archives. I know there must be a bunch more plans in the hands of the many subcontractors who have work on the ship over the decades, but why those aren't available, I don't know. 

 

Jon

[SUBaron]

On 10/21/2017 at 4:31 PM, JSGerson said:

Final Touches

I chose not to attach the rudder assembly to the boats due to their very delicate structure. In actuary, the rudders are not stored inside boat when not used. All the oars, masts, and any other accoutrements will be made at the time the boats are to be installed.

 

 

As I slog through shaping the filler blocks - I find myself viewing your boat builds and looking forward to them. I likely won’t jump ahead on mine, but you did such a good job it motivates me!

 

 

 

[JSGerson]

SUBaron - I had a lot of fun building those boats.

 

Jon

[JSGerson]

At this point, I’ve installed the main beams above the first two pairs of guns after the bow dummy guns. There are additional supplementary support beams between the main beams which I have not installed because this area will be mostly covered by the spar deck planking. However, as I progress aft, areas of the spar deck will be open to the gun deck for viewing.  I haven’t decided whether to install some or none of these supplementary beams because they will substantially obscure the view of the gun deck. This last main beam (as you view the image) is just forward of the main hatch where the whale boat is to be stored on the spare deck. My original intension was to work aft from the bow adding the gun rigging, furniture, support stanchions and beams as I progressed. I have since decided to pause here and start work from the stern forward and pausing to construct the supports for the hatchways as I encounter them.

[JSGerson]

Dining Area Partition and Commodore's Pantry

Early in the build, I did not partition the dining room area from the main gun deck area; I was going to leave that open. Since the present configuration of the actual ship has the partition in place, I’ve decided to recreate that on my model. Additionally, I did not construct the Commodore’s Pantry which encompasses the mizzen mast on the gun deck. I thought at the time that I might need that area open to facilitate the seating the mizzen mast. If I sequence assembling the parts correctly, I don’t think that will be a problem. The partition and the pantry will connect to each other.

[JSGerson]

Using card stock, I made a template for the partition. Then, using 1/32” plywood, I fabricated the partition based on the template. Due to the expected confined viewing space and dark lighting inside the finished model, the partition and pantry walls details will not be seen clearly. Like I did for the captain’s cabin’s interior walls previously, I printed the details of the partition walls on paper using PowerPoint and pasted them onto 1/32” plywood.

[mtbediz]

I love your build and look forward to your progress.

[JSGerson]

I cut the doors out of the plywood using an X-acto knife to add some depth in this space. Door handles were made from some bent wire to add some three dimensional detail. Should one be curious enough to look closely with a flashlight, the open doors will give a glimpse to the dining area. The open doors themselves will be added once the pantry is installed.

[JSGerson]

Construction of the Commodore’s pantry was made from three identical pieces of 1/32” plywood based on the US Navy plans and four vertical glueing surfaces. Using a four-way clamp, the three pantry walls were glued together. Next the two corners were filed to rounded them off. The partition was then dry fitted on the gun deck again for the image below.

[JSGerson]

Half Column on Commodore’s Pantry

The next component was the half column at the center of the forward end of the pantry. This was fabricated just like the column aft of the stove, however one side was flattened using a block sander until only a half column remained. The half column was then glued to the front of the pantry.

[JSGerson]

When I dry fitted the spar deck floor beam to the partition. I neglected to account for the effect it would have on the partition doors. I had drawn them too tall. Also, I noticed that the printed panels and doors were not to my liking, and the pasting work on the pantry front was not centered properly. So, all the printing and pasting had to be done over, as well as making new shorter doors.

[JSGerson]

While all of this was going on, I was also busy rigging four more sets of guns to match pace with the gun deck construction. These had to be in position before I could glue into place the dining partition, the Commodore’s pantry, and the spar deck floor beams. The partition doors were then installed in an open configuration leading into the dining area. The last item was installing the mizzen mast supports giving the future mast a 5° rake.

[JSGerson]

Mustafa. I think we are a mutual admiration society😁

[mtbediz]

42 minutes ago, JSGerson said:

Mustafa. I think we are a mutual admiration society😁

You are my inspiration, Jon. I am learning a lot from you.

[GGibson]

6 hours ago, JSGerson said:

Construction of the Commodore’s pantry was made from three identical pieces of 1/32” plywood based on the US Navy plans and four vertical glueing surfaces. Using a four-way clamp, the three pantry walls were glued together. Next the two corners were filed to rounded them off. The partition was then dry fitted on the gun deck again for the image below.

 

Great work, Jon, as usual!  I am always looking for new and interesting hobby tools.  Where did you find the four-corner brace/brackets in the 1st photo of this post?

 

And... for what it's worth, I have admiration for what both you and Mustafa (and Peter aka Der Alte Rentner, as well) are doing with your Constitutions!  I took advantage of Model Shipways recent sale and have added the Constitution to my shipyard.  Couldn't pass up a great deal on an iconic ship.  Besides the fact that I have some great modelers who have paved the way in front of me!  Carry on, sir! 

[Der Alte Rentner]

3 hours ago, GGibson said:

Great work, Jon, as usual!  I am always looking for new and interesting hobby tools.  Where did you find the four-corner brace/brackets in the 1st photo of this post?

 

And... for what it's worth, I have admiration for what both you and Mustafa (and Peter aka Der Alte Rentner, as well) are doing with your Constitutions!  I took advantage of Model Shipways recent sale and have added the Constitution to my shipyard.  Couldn't pass up a great deal on an iconic ship.  Besides the fact that I have some great modelers who have paved the way in front of me!  Carry on, sir! 

I'd like to know your source for the four-corner brace/brackets as well Jon,

 

I had a thought last night as I was contemplating how I'm going to clamp the remaining strakes in the planking.  The spring clamps I've been using are no longer working given the shrinking open space at the bottom of the hull.  Flipping through the Micro Mark catalog, I saw a picture of a pile of rare earth magnets.  I think these would be perfect to hold a new strake flush with the previous one.  They come in varying strengths.  I get a small variety to try and post the results to my build log.  

 

Lastly, on days when I don't get much done on Conny, I wander through all the Constitution build logs here at the site and marvel that each build is unique.  

[Geoff Matson]

That is a lot of detail, but that is what makes the model. Nice job

[JSGerson]

Thanks all for the kudos!🤗

 

Greg, I got that clamp from Micro Mark. I've had for a number of years, but rarely had a chance to use it. I'll probably use it again once I get to fabricating the various ship's hold framings on the spar deck.

[JSGerson]

While continuing to work on rigging the guns, I took a diversion from this tedious task and once again went looking for figurines to be placed on the model later to add some scale. I added figurines to my 1:64 scale Rattlesnake which I finished in 2017 which worked out quite nicely and I want to do the same thing with the 1:76.8 Constitution which I started in 2017, but I’ve had no success finding any suitable figurines.

 

For a typical 5’6” (165cm) tall man, I needed something around 0.841” (21.34mm) at scale. I was seriously considering modifying HO train figurines when I finally found five 22mm 18^th (?) century sailor figures at Ages of Sail. I’ve checked this site before numerous times and even got the 25mm figurines for my Rattlesnake (1:64) from them some 8 or 9 years ago, but I never saw the 22mm ones until now. Strangely enough, the two sizes do not have the same figures, and are totally different from each other. Still, I immediately bought all five and it may be years (at my rate of speed) before I’ll need them. Who knows how long they will be available?

[JSGerson]

Getting back to the gun rigging, I decided to plunge in and complete the rigging once and for all. I just wanted to get it over and done with. Adding 22 fully rigged guns was no simple task. I made the following calculations and was staggered by what it revealed. From start to finish, adding eyebolts to the interior of the gun deck, to fabricating and assembling the gun trucks, and then rigging them, I got the following numbers:

 

There are 235 separate parts per gun port or 5,170 parts for 22 fully rigged guns not counting brass blackening, painting, and do-overs. Most of these had to be fabricated from scratch. That breaks downs as follows:

 

Gun & Truck = 26 pieces/gun = 572 pieces total

Item                                        Quantity

Gun                                               1

Sides                                             2

Axials                                            2

Wheels                                         4

Transom                                       1

Breast Piece                                 1

Quion                                           1

Quion Handle                               1

Quion Bed                                    1

Trunnion cap                                2

Eyebolts                                       8

Rings                                             2

 

 

Gun Ropes (including excess waste)

Ropes/gun: 10 cut pieces/gun = 220 pieces of rope total

 

     Recoil Rope.                    1-6” piece 0.030” (0.76mm) dia./gun x 22 guns = 66 pieces = 132” = 11’ = 3.6 yds total

     Tackle Ropes w/coils     7” piece 0.018” (0.45mm) dia. + 1.5” (for double block)/tackle + coil = 8.5”/tackle + 1 rope coil x 3 tackles + coils/gun” =                                             7 pieces of rope/gun = 3 Tackles +3 coils/gun @ 25.5”/ gun = 154 pieces of rope = 561” = 47’ ~ 16 yds total for 66 tackles + 66 coils = 3,388 pieces total

 

 

Rope Seizings/gun: = 21 rope seizings/gun = 462 seizings total = 3 yds thread total

     Recoil rope seizings       6 seizings/piece = 24” of thread = 2’ total/recoil rope

     Tackle seizings                5 seizings (@4”/seizings) /tackle = 20” thread/tackle rope

                                         3 tackles/gun = 15 seizings  = 5’ thread/gun  = 3 yards thread total

      Note: rope coils made from excess rope and supplemented with additional rope

 

 

3 Tackles/gun =  6 blocks/gun = 132 blocks total

     3/32” Single blocks        1/tackle @ 3 tackles/gun =3 blocks/gun = 66 blocks total

     3/32” Double blocks      1/tackle @ 3 tackles/gun = 3 blocks/gun = 66 blocks total

     Block hooks                    6/gun = 132 hooks total

 

 

Gun Ports = 12 parts/port = 222 total

     Eyebolts: 10/port = 220 total:

          Recoil Rope eyebolts/port          4 = 88 total

          Tackle double eyebolts/port      2 = 44 total

          Idle eyebolts/port                       3 = 66 total

          Deck tackle eyebolt                     1 = 22 total

     Recoil rope bulkhead pins         2/port = 44 total

 

All gun deck guns are now rigged!!! Whew!!! As I promised, an OSHA nightmare.

[GGibson]

Very impressive gun rigging, Jon!  And I love your calculations, going to need to remember those for... whenever! 🤷‍♀️🤣🏆

[Der Alte Rentner]

20 hours ago, JSGerson said:

I made the following calculations and was staggered by what it revealed. From start to finish, adding eyebolts to the interior of the gun deck, to fabricating and assembling the gun trucks, and then rigging them, I got the following numbers:

 

There are 235 separate parts per gun port or 5,170 parts for 22 fully rigged guns not counting brass blackening, painting, and do-overs. Most of these had to be fabricated from scratch. That breaks downs as follows: ..

 

Egad!  As I struggle to finish the last 11 strakes of hull planking and wishing it were OVER, I am glad I opted out of the gundeck kit bash.  

Love your attention to detail and the math.  

 

Keep up the great work!

Edited April 16 by Der Alte Rentner

[mtbediz]

Great job on the gun rigging. I gave up adding tackles to the guns in my Constitution model because I couldn't produce blocks that fit the scale. Maybe I'll try doing it again for the spar deck guns.

Edited April 16 by mtbediz

[JSGerson]

Waaaaayyyyy back in July 2018 when I was first installing ladders from the gun deck down to the pseudo berth deck level, I made and installed the associated ladder stanchions and hand ropes. They didn’t last long due to my inadequate fabrication and installation skills; and they were being battered about by handling the model installing other stuff. Well, due to my admiration and inspiration of Mustafa’s (mtbediz) fine workmanship of his model, I’m giving it another go. If I’m going to do it, it must be now before the gun deck becomes too inaccessible for this detail.

My first attempt, I tried to maintain the scale based on the US Navy’s plans and I wanted my stanchions to be robust enough to handle any jarring due to my manipulation of the model.

[JSGerson]

So, I chose 0.032” (0.81mm) music wire for the stanchion because it won’t bend with normal handling. For the rope tab, the idea was to wrap a 0.005” thick brass strip around the wire and then glue the ends together to form the tab. Lastly, drill a hole in the tab with a #78 drill bit to create a rope hole. Everything went according to plan…until it didn’t. For the life of me, I could not create the rope hole. My drill bit bent if I applied any pressure. (Cheap bits, I don’t know?) I tried creating a dimple into the brass with a needle for the bit to bite into, but all that did was deform the thin strip. I even tried using a very fine cone shape grinding bit but couldn’t keep it perfectly centered on the brass strip. It would drift and eat away one side or the other of the strip making the strip useless.

[JSGerson]

What to do? So, for my second attempt, I messaged Mustafa (mtbediz), the man who inspired me to do this over again. He very graciously gave all the details which I followed with some minor modifications.

 

First, He used exclusively 0.8 mm brass wire, but I stuck with the 0.81mm music wire for the stanchion for reasons mentioned above.

He used a short piece of 0.81mm brass wire to create the rope tab. I used a short piece of 0.64mm brass wire which was cut and formed into a U-shape like he did. It was trimmed so the ends were even and placed near the top of the music wire piece like a flag with the open ends of the brass wire touching the music wire.

 

Mustafa used lead solder paste (I believe) to fill the interior of the “flag” and secured the two pieces of wire in place with metal weights. I had silver solder paste but found mine wasn’t sticky enough to stay in place when I tried to fill the “flag” void (paste too old?). As a result, I used soldering flux and silver solder wire. The surface tension of the flux held everything in position. It was backed up with a bolt so it wouldn’t move during the heating process.

 

To heat the assembly so the solder would melt, Mustafa used a heat gun which I don’t have. I used a mini-butane torch which worked quite nicely. The excess solder was filed off and a hole was drilled through the solder without any problems. The stanchion were painted black, threaded with miniature rope.

[JSGerson]

If you look closely at Mustafa’s model. His stanchions fit into holes drilled into the top of the hatchway walls. For what ever reason, the walls on my hatchways ended up being too narrow to drill holes for the stanchion poles. To support the stanchions, I decided to use brass brackets on the inside corners of the hatchway. Hopefully these would provide sufficient physical support and glueing surface to hold the stanchions in place. Making the brackets was simple but installing them was a little tricky. Due to the installed beams, the most forward hatchway was the most difficult to access. My fingers were too fat to fit between the beams, so I had to do everything with tweezers. I couldn’t use CA glue because I couldn’t get the bracket into position, hold it there, at the same time applying minute drops of CA glue. PVA glue allowed me to stick the bracket in close vicinity of where it needed to be and maneuver it into the proper position (still not easy). Once it dried, then I could add more glue for proper strength. Once the brackets were in place, then the stanchion could be set into them. This was a time-consuming process because I had to wait for the glue to dry solid before I moved on to the next step. I also made a stairway plug to prevent anything from falling to the hatchway, like a loose bracket. Once anything fell in, there was no way I could get it out. It was a black hole.

[JSGerson]

The stanchions were stung together with 0.12” (.30mm) black rope prior to installation so that I wouldn’t have to thread them on the model. Mustafa used tan rope which I must admit looks great, but the real ship uses black rope; but it doesn’t have the visual impact like the tan. So be it. It was slow, tedious, tricky, and time consuming That one stairwell down, six to go. Hopefully these will get installed quicker.

[mtbediz]

Stanchions look nice Jon. Using brackets to support the stanchions is a very clever solution.

[JSGerson]

Well, creating the remaining six stairwell hand ropes did go quicker, just not quick. Because I had to use PVC glue both to allow me time to position properly the 24 stanchions and as a filler material at the base of some of the stanchions, I had to wait at least an hour or so before I could move on to the next steps. During that wait I couldn’t touch the model for fear of upsetting the drying setup and process. If I had done this sooner (which I did) but more robust (which it wasn’t), this installation could have been much simpler to do.

 

There is still a bunch of stuff that needs to be installed on the gun deck but requires the installation of more spar deck beams and those beams must be in the proper position to line up with stuff on the gun deck. It’s almost like which comes first, the chicken or the egg. So, I be installing both gun deck and spar deck items alternately.