USS Constitution by Avi - BlueJacket Shipcrafters - 1:96

[Avi]

Quote

Good eye

But poor aim. Both the bolt heads and the airports have some that are off, quite noticeably. Hopefully black paint will hide a lot of it. 😁

[JSGerson]

If you use the glue blob method, you can wipe off the glue if you notice the error early enough or use an Xacto knife and just pop off the dried glue. I used (0.6mm punch) with brass punch-out's. I used Wipe-on-Poly as the adhesive.  While still wet, I  had time to maneuvered the punch-outs into position.  It dried fairly quickly and adhered the punch-out to the surface. Drilling is permanent. I wouldn't worry about out of position bolt heads. Once the hull is painted, you will be hard pressed to see them, let alone be able to identify which are out of position.

 

I deliberately used this phenomenon when I copper plated the hull. Most of the builders who decided to emboss the copper plates to simulated nail dents either went around the plate edge with a ponce wheel or made a pattern embossing stamp. This resulted in what I felt were out of scale dents on the plates for these model scales. I embossed the plates with random indentations made by pressing the plates with coarse sandpaper for the face of the plate and adding edge markings from the straight line teeth of a fine miter saw. From three inches back you could not see if my "nail" indentations were random or patterned. What it did do was remove the flat shiny surface. The effect worked great.

 

Jon

Edited January 26, 2023 by JSGerson

[Avi]

@JSGerson so you pressed the entire plate of copper on some coarse grained sandpaper (80 grit? Higher?), and then just pressed the teeth of the mitre saw just inside of each of the four edges? Is that it? What does that look like?

Actually not sure how much I need it. I’ve got the copper plates from bluejacket, which have the texture on them already; see pic. 

Edited January 27, 2023 by Avi

[JSGerson]

If you take a look at my build log starting at post 633, you can read why I did what I did and see the results.

[ERS Rich]

On 1/16/2023 at 2:48 PM, Avi said:

This is much better. I did a combination of what @ERS Rich suggested and a suggestion from @MrBlueJacket much earlier in this log. 
 

No sealer, two coats of 50/50 thinned primer (Vallejo grey), lightly sanded with 1000 grit after each, then two coats of black, lightly sanded between first and second with the same 1000 grit. 
 

EDIT: I uploaded a higher resolution picture here so it’s clearer. 
 

 

and another after it fully dried overnight. 
 

@ERS Rich why is the paint so smooth and consistent looking in your picture? I’ve heard of people using high grit sandpaper on the final coat, but when I try that, even with 1000 grit, it just takes it off. 

Hi Avi,

 

My steps were: Minwax stain, lite pass with steel wool, then airbrush. The black and copper are Tamiya, and the white is Vallejo.  The black and copper were applied with an Iwata RG3 Minigun and the white with a Paasche Talon.  The minigun can deliver a high volume of paint and quickly covers large surface areas.  
 

In my view we are dealing with small boards, so stain is enough to seal the fibers without creating a surface finish that completely eliminates the grain.  Apply the stain carefully, apply just the right amount so all of the stain is absorbed, wipe off any excess quickly.

 

It seems like the sealer and primer are creating a finish that completely eliminates the grain.

 

Water absorption causes wood fiber swelling - the fuzzies.  Minwax stain (not water based) causes very little swelling, hence the lite cleanup with steel wool.  
 

Next is the paint.  Thinning the paint is important.  For Tamiya, I learned from Mike’s Hobby Headquarters to start with a fresh bottle, then top it off with thinner.  I don’t think Tamiya has a lot of water in their acrylic formula, so it yields a nice smooth, rich texture, with wood grain slightly visible..  The same seems to be true with Vallejo, about 1/3 thinner in the cup works for me.

 

All of this gives a very thin finish.  That probably can’t be sanded, I never tried.  

 

Hope this helps.

 

Cheers

 

 

Edited January 27, 2023 by ERS Rich

[Avi]

The detail is really helpful @ERS Rich, thank you.

 

I don't have a spray gun, not all that interested in getting one at this point. I will live fine with the hand painting with various brushes.

 

I have mostly Vallejos, but have been thinning about 50/50, maybe a little more than that. So I will try the top coat with less thinner. I have plenty of planks on which to experiment.

[Avi]

Found a few planks that had come loose, good time to fix them up. Some of the bolt head nails also came out, so I put them back. Not too bad, fewer than ten. I redid those with medium CA. I think I might have done the spardeck topside heads with a slightly larger drill bit. That makes it easy to get them in, but loses the benefit of the wood pressure itself holding them in, and means that thin CA might not be enough. All in all, though, if I only had to redo ten, that’s pretty good. 
 

As discussed above, no wood sealer, just two coats of grey Vallejo primer thinned 50/50, sanded lightly with 2000 grit in between (no idea where my 1000 went).  
 

Letting it set overnight and then will start on actual colours. 

[Avi]

Starting on the colours. Laying out the waterline in pencil - used the original template on cardboard (good thing I kept it) to mark the endpoints, then just connecting. As far as I can tell from the figure 30, the dressing belt straddles the WL, which means it goes above it. So I can paint black to the WL exactly and copper below and be fine.

 

Some things I didn’t understand about the coppering. 

 

First, figure 30 shows the stem and keel plates overlapping the strakes. Is that correct? If so, does the keel also overlap the one above? If not, where do I stop the keel, and how do I transition from the keel (overlapped from above) to the stem (overlaps on it).

 

 

Second, I don’t at all understand this paragraph. “Stealer so that the the next five plates lie naturally…. Since the girth amidships is much greater than girth at stem… copper sheets are not tapered, nine goring pieces are required…”

 

 

I see three bands C1/2/3 and the dressing belt, but I do not understand how these all fit together. 
 

 

 

[JSGerson]

What the first diagram is try to convey is, as you apply the copper plates to the hull, you start at the stern and work your way forward and upwards overlapping the edges of of the previous aft plate as well as the plate below's top edge.

 

The second instruction is trying to state that because the plates are applied to the hull with no tapering unlike the wooden planks which are tapered. Therefore, sharp curves are going to be created at either or both the stern and bow. In order to minimize those curves a steeler, an extra row for a short length is added. The BlueJacket instruction is telling where a steeler should be placed. At each band, you in effect start a new horizontal uncurved row. The higher band cuts off the curving from the lower band. The diagram below illustrates a coppering method. I hope this helps and not confuse you more.

 

Jon

[Avi]

1 hour ago, JSGerson said:

What the first diagram is try to convey is, as you apply the copper plates to the hull, you start at the stern and work your way forward and upwards overlapping the edges of of the previous aft plate as well as the plate below's top edge.

I understood that, but couldn’t figure out how that worked with the keel and stem plating. It looks like the stem plates overlap the horizontal ones (which fits with “from aft forward”), but those curve to the keel, which means either there’s a strange transition somewhere from “keel under next row above” to “stem over horizontal row”, or there’s no transition and the keel plates overlap the one above, which doesn’t fit with the directions. 
 

1 hour ago, JSGerson said:

The second instruction is trying to state that because the plates are applied to the hull with no tapering unlike the wooden planks which are tapered. Therefore, sharp curves are going to be created at either or both the stern and bow. In order to minimize those curves a steeler, an extra row for a short length is added. The BlueJacket instruction is telling where a steeler should be placed. At each band, you in effect start a new horizontal uncurved row. The higher band cuts off the curving from the lower band. The diagram below illustrates a coppering method. I hope this helps and not confuse you more.

I think you’re saying that instead of tapering, as you go up, it will curve naturally, so at a certain point you stop going up and start a fresh horizontal strake which covers the curved one below? So what is the stealer? Is it a strake that is high on the band, and doesn’t make it all the way to bow or stern, just fills in the “gap” caused by the middle of the curve, so that the next strake - the lowest one of the next band, fully horizontal - will cover it?

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  'Looks to me like thin copper sheet is just applied over an underlying row so it "looks" like the plate below is tapered.  In the case of planks (which are much thicker, the 'stealer' is tapered down to nothing (in a planned way) and the next plank butts up against it and then onwards - and the new plank may be tapered also as needed.

 

  But remember the 7th Commandment 'Thou shalt not steal' ... (so why would the Lord help them who 'help themselves'?)  And there are logs/references elsewhere in MSW that demonstrate how (with a bit of planning and foresight ... and a lot of pre-marking the bulkheads - or first layer of planking in a double planked model) one can completely plank a curved hull without having to resort to stealers (except perhaps in the stern where the fairing must go out to a vertical (or near vertical) profile where the rudder will attach.

 

  Briefly (as I recall), one makes even marks (equal to the widest planking stock) up and down at the widest point of the hull - that where the distance from the shear to the keel is longest.  Then one makes the same spaces pencil marks along a straight line equal to the distance marked on the hull on the short side of a piece of paper.  Turn the paper sideways and mark the center at the opposite end.  Using a straightedge, draw lines from each (numbered) pencil mark all the way to the 'vanishing point'.  Now you have proportionally decreasing lines.

 

  Measure the length from the shear to the keel at convenient distances fore-and-aft, and cut a vertical slice from your proportional drawing where the distance from top to bottom matches the new distance measured on the hull.  Use the marks on the guide to transfer mark to the hull (doing do both port and starboard).  When done (and it is a little tedious), you will have the entire hull marked out (save as noted at the sternmost area - there you will have to have a couple inserted pieces).

 

  Each plank will have to be custom tapered (and with a slight bevel on the edges as needed), as measured off the pre-marked hull.  This step is even more tedious than the marking, but that is what 'museum quality' models exhibit.

 

  Now for a ship to be copper (or Muntz-metal) bottomed, you can forget most of the above and plank below the waterline any way you want as long as you're happy with the lines - that area will not show.  Another technique I've seen on some models not copper clad is to stop planking a little below the waterline and have enough ribs showing (one can cut out the bottom center area of solid bulkheads so that what will show will resemble ribs) and add enough 'dummy' ribs for good measure (they can be fit in after planking).  Then you don't have to plank the entire hull OR go to the trouble of coppering - and still have a dandy looking model by doing a good job of everything else.  Many British Admiralty models were made in this manner.

Edited January 31, 2023 by Snug Harbor Johnny

[ERS Rich]

Good luck Avi! 😎

[KurtH]

Just a suggestion - If you follow the coppering pattern illustrated in the Marquardt AOS, the job becomes a lot simper.  There is no goring at the bow.  Just lay the plates in rows then trim them when you reach the stem and then the water line.  You will still need a few stealers aft, but I do not remember these being very difficult.  The same pattern is followed in the Revell model.  I used one dressing strake at the water line, but you could have two.

[Avi]

Oh good idea @KHauptfuehrer thank you. I’ve got the book of course and will look. 

[Avi]

@Snug Harbor Johnny quite detailed, but not sure what that has to do with coppering?

[JSGerson]

I would have gotten back to you sooner, but my internet connection was cut off since 1:45pm yesterday. Here are some of the diagrams from the MS Constitution plans. I hope these answer most of your questions

[ERS Rich]

On 1/31/2023 at 3:27 AM, Avi said:

 

First, figure 30 shows the stem and keel plates overlapping the strakes. Is that correct? If so, does the keel also overlap the one above? If not, where do I stop the keel, and how do I transition from the keel (overlapped from above) to the stem (overlaps on it).

Good Morning,

 

Let’s interpret that drawing.  Consider the dotted lines on the plates.  A dotted line means there is an edge underneath the plate.  
 

The first copper strake above the keel has dotted lines on the bottom. So the keel plates are underneath.  The forward plate is a trapezoid, the lower edge has a dotted line, the forward edge does not.  So it looks like a butt joint on the forward edge.

 

Looking at the second strake up, not sure what is happening with dotted lines, thick lines here.

 

The next third strake up has dotted lines on the top edge, meaning plates above tuck under the top edge, rather than the bottom.

 

So what to do?  
 

Consider the dimensions of the overlap are so small, at this scale it would be invisible to the eye.

 

It’s your ship, build it the way you like.  The reality is there can be a big difference between drawings and as built.  No amount of research and drawings can account 100% for what happened in the shipyard during construction.  It’s impossible to know how everyone practiced shipbuilding over hundreds of years.
 

For me it’s about time and practicality.  If something isn’t visible, or an observer wouldn’t notice, I don’t spend time doing it.  When I do get around to doing this I’ll probably use butt joints everywhere and just reduce the plate width to account for the overlap.

 

Have fun with it.

[Avi]

That’s a good perspective @ERS Rich; I follow that, but I seem to do so only after I make a mistake that isn’t worth cleaning up. Maybe a bit more of doing it a priori would help. Thanks!

[Avi]

Haven’t posted in quite a while; some non ship related issues to deal with (oh yeah, work, too 😁). 
 

I primed and painted the exterior all the way up, painted the black by taping off the place where the white stripe would be, and then reverse for the white. The tape never works 100%, mainly because of the bolt heads sticking out, I think, but very close. I fixed any leakage with a steady hand and very fine brush. 
 

Next, I painted copper from the keel to the waterline. I didn’t bother taping there, as precision is less important; I’ll be coppering to a little above the waterline, ie above the black-copper boundary anyways. 
 

I primed the gunports - spardeck and gundeck - and then painted the interiors of the spardeck ones black. I put a line of tape on the interior, so that the black wouldn’t leak onto the interior that should be green. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, I can always reprime the leaks, but it is easier and nicer if I don’t have to. To my pleasant surprise, it worked quite well this time. I also fixed all the areas where primer spread a bit onto the black on the exterior. Two coats of primer and two coats of paint everywhere. 
 

I didn’t yet get to the gundeck gunports, as I ran out of time last session. Those will be next, then the interiors: spardeck green, gundeck white with a green waterway. 
 

Pictures will follow when I have a chance. 

Edited March 5, 2023 by Avi

[Avi]

Finished the gundeck gunports black - people were correct; once they are done and painted, the slight differences in planking are well hidden unless you really look for them. This part was difficult though. You’re trying to get all four sides of something interior without getting paint on the outside. Needless to say, I didn’t succeed entirely, and had to put several coats of primer and white paint to cover up my errors. I probably could have sanded, but I suspect I would have taken off in other areas as well. 
 

I also got the interior of the gundeck white. Next is green for the waterways and spardeck interior bulwarks. 
 

Then on to protecting the exterior, trimming the gundeck surface some to reduce the camber, and coppering. 

[Avi]

Some pictures. 
 

Yeah, I do know that the green bled onto the surface of the gundeck and onto the top of the bulwarks. But I don’t care. I’ve got planked decking going on the gundecks, and the caprail on top of the bulwarks, so I didn’t need to be too careful there. 

Edited March 20, 2023 by Avi

[Avi]

I kind of thought the green would be darker, more of a hunter green. I found the specific paints over a year ago, so I don’t remember how I picked Vallejo dark green, but that’s what my notes have. I also have their black green, maybe a single coat of that? Or a third coat of dark green?

[JSGerson]

From your images, the green looks good to me. Like all painted surfaces, how it looks depends among other things, on the light source. Go online and find an image of the bulwarks in the full sun and compare that with your model under the same type of lighting. Then decide if you need to adjust.

 

Jon

[Avi]

1 hour ago, JSGerson said:

From your images, the green looks good to me. Like all painted surfaces, how it looks depends among other things, on the light source. Go online and find an image of the bulwarks in the full sun and compare that with your model under the same type of lighting. Then decide if you need to adjust.

 

Jon

I have my own pictures of it from Boston last May. Partly cloudy day. I will take the ship out tomorrow when the sun is out partly and look.

[JSGerson]

I've collected and cataloged about 1,000 images of the ship over the years, so if you need an image of a particular item, just let me know. The chances are good that I will have a number of photos from different angles of it.

 

Jon

[ERS Rich]

Looking good!

[KurtH]

Model Shipways dark bulwarks green is considerably darker.  My posts of Feb. 14 and 16 shows the color used on the port quarter boat and the bulwarks.

Edited March 21, 2023 by KHauptfuehrer

[Avi]

15 minutes ago, KHauptfuehrer said:

Model Shipways dark bulwarks green is considerably darker.  My posts of Feb. 14 and 16 shows the color used on the port quarter boat and the bulwarks.

That’s quite helpful. Looking closely at your pics and my ship, they look just a bit darker. 
 

I’ll take some strips of plank, paint to get like my current, then add a coat of black green to see. 

[Avi]

Left (2DG) is current, 2 coats of Vallejo dark green. Middle is an extra coat of dark green (3DG). Right (2DG+1BG) is same 2 coats of dark green plus a coat of Vallejo black green.

 

 

Time to show to my artistically inclined daughter. 😃 

 

UPDATE: Both my wife and my daughter think that the rightmost one - a coat of black green on top of the two coats of dark green - is the best pick. The pictures may not do it justice, but the current one (2DG) is just too bright. 

Edited March 23, 2023 by Avi

[Avi]

Did the black-green coat, I’m much more satisfied with it. Also touched up some areas on white where green bled out, and the spardeck gunports, where some primed areas had not been fully covered with black.