USS Constitution by TomCulb - FINISHED - Model Shipways - 1:76.8 - cross-section

[Tomculb]

The next task in the instructions is gluing laser cut gun port bracing on the outside of the gun deck sidewall ports.  Similar bracing (not laser-cut) will be glued to the outside of the spar deck gun ports, and it seemed to me it made sense to do both at the same time, when the spar and gun deck exterior walls are in hand and ready to be installed, as these braces are to fit between the sidewalls and the exterior walls.  Apparently the author of the instructions reached the same conclusion, and about half a dozen pages later the instructions have you install the laser-cut gun deck bracing (again) along with the spar deck bracing.  So I skipped this step for now.

 

The spar deck sidewalls are quite a project all by themselves. Each one has five eyebolts oriented horizontally, four oriented vertically (plus a fifth in the waterway), a pair of double eyebolts, two carronade pivot bases, two pin rails sharing three “large wood pegs”, a wooden cleat and a lengthwise trim piece painted black. I decided to start with the port sidewall and attach most of these things before gluing the sidewall in place. The one thing I didn’t install on this was is the carronade pivot bases, thinking it would be better to install them once the carronades are assembled and ready to install. 

 

 

A few observations:

 

As I mentioned earlier in this post when working on the gun deck sidewalls, the kit does not come with ready made eyebolts and instead has you make your own out of wire, twisting the wire to make the stem.  I have enough eyebolts in my parts bin that I don’t have to do that, but the holes pre-drilled in the sidewall are too large. Previously I had put a drop of thick CA on the stem and pushed it into the holes, but doing so this time I realized I was leaving glue on the surface of the sidewall that wasn’t very attractive.  A better approach was to cover the hole with a drop of CA from the back, and then push to eyebolt stem through. I didn't think of that until after completing the port sidewall pictured above, and it needs a little touch up paint.

 

Previously I made double eyebolts by twisting the stems of two single ones together (there is a picture back there somewhere), but I had difficulty doing that this time.  Far simpler, I realised, was bending the heads of two eyebolts to the side, then pushing their stems into the hole together side by side without twisting (after having put some glue on the back of the hole).  Much easier.

 

As the instructions suggested, I put wire pins in the pin rails to give their attachment to the side wall some strength, and used the pre-drilled holes in the sidewalls.  I did the same with the cleat, but had to drill my own hole for that one.  Strangely the large wood pegs aren’t described in the instructions until almost 30 pages later (page 59).  They would have you make them from 5/32” x 5/32” stock, which you then taper to 1/16” x 1/16” to fit in the square holes in the pin rails.  That must be a misprint as 5/32” x 5/32” is way too large, requiring an extraordinary amount of tapering to create the final product.  The kit supplies a 3/32” x 3/32” strip (to be used for the cannon axles according to the parts list) and I had plenty left over to use for these pegs.

 

Once I put it all together, glueing the sidewall in place was quite simple and straightforward.  And I didn’t get a picture.

 

The starboard sidewall was just the same thing all over again, except for the gap I mentioned previously between the waterway and the middle rib.  After a bit of thought and dry fitting, I glued a 1/16” strip to the back of the waterway, let it dry, then glued the sidewall to the waterway, to the insides of the fore and aft ribs, and to the strip. I then applied glue between the outside of the strip and the inside of the middle rib, clamped the same, and pushed the bottom of the sidewall up against the strip, and let everything dry. If the addition of this strip makes the bulwark too wide when it's time to attach the outside wall, I can sand the middle rib down some.

 

Looking at the pictures I realize I forget to add the black trim strip to the starboard sidewall, which I'll do as soon as I finish posting this.

 

Next up is assembly and rigging of the two carronades on the port side.  

 

[Tomculb]

Assembly, painting, and installation of the carronades seemed pretty straightforward for a while, but inevitably things got interesting.

 

The carronade carriages pivot on a pivot base, intended to be affixed to the bottom of the sidewall.  Seems straightforward enough, except resting the carriage on a base at that height (i.e. above the top of the waterway) results in the carriage and the cannon pointing skyward at an unreasonable angle. Fortunately I did not glue the pivot bases in place on the port side, where the carronades will be displayed.  I sanded the end of each of those bases to a 45 degree angle, then glued them to the waterway and the deck, not the sidewall, and the carriages could then be installed horizontally.  Unfortunately I did pin(!) and glue the pivot bases to the starboard sidewall, where no carronades will be installed, and I don’t think there is any way to reposition those pivot bases without doing major damage to the sidewall.  Fortunately I doubt that anyone will notice the difference in the placement of the pivot bases port and starboard.

 

 

Immediately upon trying to add the quoins it was obvious that the kit supplied ones are too large. This is especially the case given the attachment point for the train tackle hook is immediately below where the quoins go, and there isn’t room for both.  So I made my own quoins, cut from the end of a 1/16” x 1/8” strip of wood. Shaping something that small proved to be a challenge, and I think I split 5 or 6 pieces before I had two that would do the trick. I made the quoin handles from eyebolts that I painted red, adding an extra large drop of paint to the eye part of the bolt.  From a distance they don’t look too bad. One is a bit shorter than the other, since on one carronade there is no room between the cannon and the sled large enough to slip the quoin into.

 

I rigged the breaching lines first, then the train tackles, attaching the latter to the eyebolts at the back of the sleds before gluing the quoins in place. At this point I'm thinking things (including my scratch built quoins) are looking pretty good. 

 

Next I made and installed the remaining tackles (carriage and sled) for one of the carronades.

 

With one finished and photographed, I’m realizing that’s quite a rat’s nest of rope the carronade is buried under.  Part of the problem is scale -- a 4 mm block on the model translates to a foot long block on the real thing (probably 3 times the real size), and the rigging thread is probably equally oversized as well. But it's a little late to do much about that. The instructions and plans show the falls for the sled tackle wrapped tightly around the tackle itself, which looks pretty nice and tidy, but those tackles need to run free when the gun is fired, which suggests they shouldn’t be wrapped. I’m thinking about replacing the rope coils with smaller ones, and doing away with the coils altogether for the train tackles, since those tackles are fully extended and the falls need not be long enough to coil. And/or maybe I’ll hang a coil or two on the pinrails on the sidewall. Only time will tell how ambitious I get in making the carronade rigging look a little less overwhelming.

 

[Tomculb]

Meanwhile before tackling the second carronade (no pun intended), I decided to take a break and started working ahead on some other parts of the spar deck furniture.

 

The holes for the bits needed to be sanded some for the bits to fit properly, and holes had to be drilled/cut for cross pieces to be installed.  I then decided to go overboard with some additional detail. Two sheave slots are nicely laser cut into each bit, and the instructions say to run pins through the slots to simulate sheave axles. But those slots would have not just sheave axles, but sheaves in them; what’s the point of installing just a sheave axle?  So I took a 1/32” x 1/8” strip, cut four square pieces off the end, rounded the corners to get something vaguely resembling a circle, painted the edges black with a marking pen, and glued one in each slot. Barely visible, but much better than a sheave axle.

 

Next was a cannon ball rack, with cannon balls, installed on the forward side of the rear hatchway frame.  The supplied cannon balls are gold colored hollow plastic beads, each with a pair of holes in them.  They were glued onto a piece of 1/32” (approx.) wire and painted black.  A length of the same wire was used to fashion a rack. The only tricky part was drilling the holes for the rack in the hatch frame base already glued to the deck. It would have been much easier to glue the rack in place before the base was glued to the deck, but it all worked out fine anyway.

 

Finally the laser cut fife rail is glued to the bits at the forward end and is supported by five laser cut stanchions at the aft end.  The base of each stanchion is square in cross section, with three sheave slots. I’ve mentioned before that this kit’s laser cutting is amazingly good, but Model Shipways pushed their luck a bit too far with these stanchions. What is supposed to be four walls of wood outside of and between the sheave slots became four paper thin fins that crumbled at the slightest provocation.  Also the midsection of the real stanchions is round in cross section and similarly shaped aesthetically vertically. But the laser cut stanchions come out of the stock they are cut from rectangular, rather than square, in cross section, making it difficult to sand the midsection round rather than oblong.  I know; I tried (after cutting the fins off). I decided I had to scratch build my own stanchions. I first took a 5/32” dowel and shaped the midsection with my lathe (a cordless drill with the dowel in the chuck). I then cut a base from some 1/8” square stock and glued it onto the shaped round piece. And I banished any thought of trying to replicate anything like some sheave slots in that base.  After making three stanchions I felt pretty darned good about how they looked (at least when viewed from a reasonable distance 😃). Those three and the fife rail are only dry fit in the photos below.  It occurred to me that I better finish the other cannon’s rigging before cluttering the deck more with the fife rail.

 

Now back to rigging the other carronade and trying to tidy things up a bit with all that rigging.

 

[BobG]

Nice work, Tom! It's coming along very well and looks great.

[Tomculb]

I redid the coils on the previously rigged carronade and completed all but one of the tackles and coils on the one I hadn’t done previously.  A few words about rope coils . . . like real rope, rigging thread has a natural twist to it which can be taken advantage of.  And like real rope, if you give the thread a half twist (after figuring out which way to twist it) as you make each loop, it makes a pretty neat coil.  I’m a big fan of diluted white school glue for securing rigging -- it saturates the thread, looks like a mess while wet, but pretty much disappears as it dries, and holds everything in place nicely.  After applying quite a bit of it, I’ll take a small piece of paper towel, torn or folded to a point, and use it to wick away larger drops of glue.  Then I’ll use the butt end of a drill bit, or something similar to hold it down flat against the deck while it dries.  In the pictures below you’ll see that I decided to hang one coil from a pin rack.  I haven’t completed that job yet because I ordered some wooden belaying pins to replace the brass ones that come with the kit (why paint brass when you can just use wood?), and they haven’t arrived yet.

 

Taking occasional breaks from tackle rigging, I finished up the rest of the deck furniture.  The gangway boarding steps went together easily, except that I had to add a shim so that the risers would meet the waterway.

 

The fife rail was next.  I had to add a couple of shims where the rails meet the bits, so that the fit would be relatively tight.  On close inspection the scratch-made stanchions could be straighter, and two of them were a tiny bit too short, so I had to hide a couple of shims on top of them under the rail, but neither problem is very obvious.  There are holes in the deck for nine white eyebolts around the white mast surround  As far as I can tell nothing will be attached to them, and I don't usually think of such things being painted white, but looking at the real ship (thanks to Google Maps), there they are, painted white and not used for anything. So they became part of my build. At least a couple of them need a tiny dab of touchup paint.  There is a hole in the deck where an ammo scuttle needs to be installed, but I am still awaiting paint I ordered for it.

 

Finally I added a couple of posts on the gun deck forward where I decided not to put in stairs.

 

That more or less completes the decks and the ship's interior, so I get to move on to the outside of the hull.  An exciting milestone!

[Tomculb]

The last couple of weeks in the shipyard got increasingly challenging, putting together the gun and spar deck outer walls and framing the gun ports. 

 

Things started easily enough . . . a laser cut wall for each side, spanning two decks.  As usual the laser cutting, and the scribed detail on the outer sides, are very good.  Both were painted black, with the white gun stripe.  It’s beginning to look like a war ship!

 

At the spar deck level the wall is a consistent 3/16” thick, inner and outer walls being 1/16” each, and what the instructions call “braces”, also 1/16” thick, between the two walls.  Those braces are cut from 1/16” x 1/8” stock, and they frame the gun ports and provide gluing surfaces between the walls (in addition to the ribs). I cut all 20 pieces at the same time, labeling them as you’ll see in the next photo of the port side.

 

At the gun deck level, the inner and outer walls spread farther apart, and the braces at that level are laser cut. They are helpfully scribed B, M, M and S, for bow, middle, middle and stern.  As cut, they are actually maybe 1/8“ too long, and in cutting them shorter I overdid it a bit, but no matter.

 

About a month ago (first picture below) installing the inner wall on the starboard side I confronted the fact that the middle rib on that side extends outward out of line with the forward and aft ribs.  I don’t know whether the laser cutting of that middle rib is at fault, or whether I was sloppy in putting  the ribs and the base together last spring, but it’s an issue that gets worse the further away you are from the keel.  To deal with it when installing the inner wall, I glued a 1/32” shim to the inside of the inner wall.

 

In the second picture below that problem is not obvious, but you can see that I had started trying to thin that plywood rib by sanding it, which I quickly realized would be inadequate.  What I eventually did was to cut the rib off at the level of the spar deck, and then glue another 1/32” shim to the one already there, so that this replacement rib is the requisite 1/16” thick.  Below the spar deck I thinned the rib with a lot of grinding with my cordless Dremel tool, followed by a lot of sanding, to get that rib to conform with the other two.  Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures of that process.

 

Nor did I get pictures of what follows.  I think I was too focused on what proved to be a difficult task. I tackled the port side first.

 

The gun ports are framed with laser cut 1/16” pieces. The instructions have you glue the outer walls to the ribs and braces, carefully aligning the gun ports as best you can.  They then have you assemble the gun port framing, building little boxes that you then slide into the ports. I built the port side frame boxes as instructed, then tried to use them to help align the sides when gluing the outer wall on. To make a long story short, at the gun deck level the outer wall ports simply did not align very well at all with the inner wall ports.

 

More on that later, but first a few words about the frames. At the spar deck level, they are simple four sided boxes 3/16” deep. Oddly they are not even mentioned in the instructions, but they are identified in a caption to one of the photos in the instructions.  At the gun deck level, they are slightly more than 3/16” deep at the top, and deeper than that at the bottom.  So the top and bottom pieces vary slightly in width (something that is easy to overlook), and the side pieces are somewhat trapezoid in shape.  These frame boxes also differ from the ones at the spar deck level in that another frame box fits inside them, flush on the inside edge, and inset 1/16” from the outside edge.  I think the reason for this double framing is to provide for a ledge for the gun port lids to rest against when they are closed.  I took the approach of building the outer box first, then gluing the sides of the inner box to the inside of the outer box.

 

Sliding and gluing the port side spar deck frames into their respective ports went reasonably well, but I was still left with gaps between the frame and the wall along the sides, as can be seen in the picture below. Most of the gaps I filled with paint, but I pulled out the offending frame shown below and rebuilt it.  

 

At the gun deck level, the frames simply wouldn’t fit at all, and I had to do a lot of shaving of the inner wall with my Xacto knife, followed by some sanding, to get them to fit.  Needless to say that was nerve wracking, as I didn’t want to do any damage to the long guns and their rigging.  And of course my fat fingers and thumbs pretty well blocked any view of what I was doing. The end result, after doing some cosmetic work, wasn't bad.  The second picture is obviously after gluing the wales in place.

 

 

On the starboard side I decided to take a different approach.  Rather than build frame boxes, I would glue the frames piece by piece into their respective ports.  That worked OK on the spar deck level, although I can see I lft some gaps.

 

 

On the gun deck level, as on the port side the gun deck outer wall ports did not align well at all with the inner ports, and a great deal of shaving and sanding was needed so that the frame pieces could be glued in. The misalignment was mostly longitudinal; that is, the inner wall port was a few millimeters aft of the outer wall port, and the forward side of those ports had to be cut back.  What I didn’t think about was the fact that the aft side of those ports was of course misaligned as well, meaning that the outer wall obscured the fact that the edge of the inner wall was a few millimeters aft, leaving an uneven surface to glue the frame piece to.

 

On this starboard side I need to do some cosmetic work, but I’m not sure exactly what to do.  Actually I do know what to do . . . take a break from working on the ports and move on to planking the hull.  I’ll ome back to the ports when it’s time to put in the port lids and when I’m fresher and and maybe have a little more positive attitude about the work I'm doing.

 

[Tomculb]

Clearly this was going to be, and proved to be, the easiest hull planking I have ever done.  Also a big milestone in separating the hull from the base it has been part of since the start of this build about nine months ago.  

 

Following the instructions I planked from the wales down, about 2/3rds of the way, before cutting off the base.  The kit comes with plenty of 1/16” x 3/16” stock for planking, but I have a bunch of 1/16” by 1/14” lying around, and I decided to use that instead.  Fewer planks to cut and glue on. And I don’t think I ended up with any more plank lines than I would have with the narrower planks.

 

But first I was concerned about damaging the long guns that stick out from the hull on the port side, so I took a piece of ½” by ½” scrap and rubber banded it to the hull below the guns, to give the hull something to rest on other than those cannons.

 

I have an Xacto miter saw and box, and long ago replaced the standard saw blade with one with much finer teeth that I found online -- makes all the difference in the world for things like sawing the base off the hull.

 

Free of the base, I glued three planks coming up from the keel, and gradually closed the gap between those planks and the ones coming down from above.  As expected the closing planks had to be tapered to fit.  The instructions say to cut them from a 1/16” x 7/16” strip, which wasn’t listed in the parts list and wasn’t included in the kit. I cut them from more commonly found 1/16” x 1/2” stock (also not supplied) I already had in the lumber yard.  In the third picture below they are the fourth planks up from the keel.  You'll also see that months ago I tested some stain on the bottom side of the orlop floor.

 

I then painted everything from the wales to the keel with some Model Shipways primer, did some filling and sanding, and then applied a couple of coats of Tamiya flat black. No pictures of any of that painting.

 

What followed was carrying out what may be a controversial decision I’ve been mulling over for some time.

Personally, and no offence to the many on these forums who have built beautiful models doing otherwise, I have never found copper plating to look that great on ship models. It also looks like a lot of very tedious work. The kit comes with a roll of 1/4” copper tape, but I decided to use copper paint instead.  There is an intersting discussion on one of these forums on this topic, and there are those whose frame of mind on this is similar to mine and those who feel otherwise.  A few years ago I built Model Shipways Yacht America, which I painted copper below the waterline and I have been pleased with how it turned out, so I decided to do the same with my Connie.

 

For the America build,I found it difficult to find copper paint I liked. I ended up using Tamiya’s Dark Copper, and darkened it further as described below.  For this build, I bought some of that paint, and a bottle of what Model Shipways calls Copper.  I applied a small amount of each to the backside of one of the sidewalls to see how they would look.  The MS Copper doesn’t look like any copper I’ve ever seen. It might more appropriately be labeled Bazooka as it reminds me of the bubble gum I occasionally chewed as a child. The Tamiya Dark Copper does look like copper, but I don’t see anything dark about it.  To me it looks about as dark as a shiny new penny.

 

With the America, I mixed something darker with the paint to take away some of the shine; I don’t remember exactly what color I added.  This time I found some Tamiya Dark Grey in the paint locker and carefully added that, several drops at a time, to the Dark Copper to get something like a darker older penny. The first coat revealed a greater need than I expected to do more filling and sanding (it looks brighter in the picture than in real life). The look I’m striving for is the elimination of any planking lines, but not trying for silky smooth since the Connie’s hull wasn’t made of fiberglass. Maybe that’s just creative rationalization, as I easily get bored with filling and sanding.  Bottom line though is the most important judge and jury watching this build (that being me) is happy with the result.

 

[BobG]

1 hour ago, Tomculb said:

Clearly this was going to be, and proved to be, the easiest hull planking I have ever done.

 

Very nice, Tom. I might even be able to plank a hull like that without messing up too badly! 🤣

[Tomculb]

With the hull painted it was time to turn it back right side up.  I feel like I’m coming around the final bend and headed for the finish line . . . as to the hull, that is.  Major projects between here and there appear to be the boarding (or sea) steps, the gun ports (including “eyebrows”), the hammock railing & cap rail, and the channels & deadeyes.

 

For whatever reason, I chose the steps first.  Ten step assemblies on each side means cutting various lengths of 1/32” thick strips (incorrectly said to be 1/64” in the instructions) with widths of 3/32”, 1/16” and 1/32”, for a total of 60 tiny pieces.  Each piece needs to be sanded round at the outside corners, and then a piece of each dimension needs to be glued together to create a single step assembly.  The instructions suggest building a jig for cutting the pieces, but years ago I bought something called “The Chopper”, and it has proved to be one of the most valuable of my collection of tools.  Only complaint I have is that it does not have a built- in ruler, but that’s really not much of an issue.

 

Once cut, assembled and painted, I glued 10 on each side, 1/16” back from the forward rib.  The instructions say the four steps glued to the wales need to be flush with that rib, to make room for the forward scupper.  I found enough room while maintaining a consistent 1/16” back, and I thought consistency looked better if it was possible, as it was.  The instructions also say to space the steps apart with a piece of 3/32” strip, but fortunately I measured the space to be filled and did the arithmetic, and 3/32” was not wide enough.  I laid the steps out with 1/8“, and that was a little too big.  We all know that wood strips are not milled as precisely as we’d like, so I found a “narrow” 1/8“ piece and used that.  The space between the top built step and the deck level step (yet to be glued in) is a little too large, but not enough so to be noticeable.

 

It then occurred to me that I ought to assemble, stain and attach the stand while I could still turn the hull upside down. The smallest wood screws I could find were bigger than the ⅛” thick frame pieces, so I installed a cross beam along the keel to put a couple of screws in.  For stain I used Verathane’s “Traditional Pecan”.  It’s a bit bright for my taste, but not as much as the photos would lead you to believe.  I think I’m OK with the color, but I’m having some doubts about the stand as a whole, since it obscures so much of the hull.  A decision for another day, but I’m thinking about a couple to conventional pedestals mounted on a wood base. 

 

Finally I glued the “eyebrows” above the gun deck ports. 

 

Next step is the port lids, which is likely to be delayed a bit as the shipyard is becoming a guest room for the holidays.  Merry Christmas everyone.

[Tomculb]

 

I actually had a good start on the gun port lids (or hatches) when I wrote that last post, and the guest room wasn’t needed until a day later than I had planned on, so this post comes along sooner than I expected.

 

I decided to start with the starboard side ports.  Recall my major kit-bashing . . . cutting a hole in the spar deck on that side to open up visibility to the long guns and other details below, and installing those cannons in recoil position with the result  that their port lids could be displayed closed. 

 

Each pair of lids forms a hole through which the gun barrel can poke through.  Each upper lid has an additional pair of holes, which I assume were there for ventilation.  In the laser-cut upper lids, these additional holes are almost as large as the cannon barrel hole, which just doesn’t look right.  Looking at pictures of the real ship in Boston and various models of the entire ship (including the one developed by MS), the vent holes should be much smaller.  

 

This bothered me enough that I cut out my own upper lids with much smaller vent holes.  I drilled holes for two lids in 1/16” stock, then split the stock in half to separate the two.  The gun barrel hole had to be 11/64” in diameter to match the lower lid, and drilling the hole proved problematic.  Even when drilled by using a handful of successively larger bits, the wood split in two well before I could get the hole as large as 11/64”. I then used a pin vice to get the holes to about 1/16”, then used a conical shaped sander on my Dremel to finish the job.  All of that took a while, but it worked. 

 

Once drilled, I painted the outsides of each lid white and the insides black, consistent with what I saw in photos of the real ship and other models (but not the photos in the instructions which show both sides white).

 

I had made the upper lids intentionally about a millimeter large in both dimensions, just to be safe, so some trimming and sanding was necessary to get them to size, particularly in the case of the port on the right in the pictures.  

 

Both lids have rigging to assist in opening and closing them.  The instructions would have you make the rigging out of 34 gauge (.006”), but wire that thin is not supplied in the kit.  The photos in the instructions (especially the one on page 49) use wire that looks thicker, and which to my eye looks too thick and stiff.   I assume this was rope that was belayed on a cleat and or maybe wound around a small winch; in either case it had to be something flexible.  I used some of the .008” black rigging line which came with the kit, which looked much better to me.  I dipped the ends of it in diluted white glue to make it stiff enough to pass it through the hole in the eyebrow and the tiny holes in the corners of the lids.  On the lower lid I knotted a short piece of rigging line, tied a knot in it, ran the line through the hole, soaked it with more diluted white glue, and cut the ends of the knot (on the outside) and the bare line (on the inside).

 

Starboard lids completed, the guests are arriving, and I’ll get to the port side later next week.

[Tomculb]

Progress both quick and slow . . . 

 

The gun port lids on the port side are displayed open.  Putting them together was straightforward and relatively quick.  I realized later that I had not put the photo etched brass hinges on the lids on either side, probably in part because they were missing from my kit. I don’t think they will be missed, and who knows, maybe I'll add them later.

 

Next I decided to do the cap rails and hammock stanchions & netting.  The cap rails are made from ¼’” x ⅛” strips.  The outside edge of each is to be shaped with double half round molding, and the instructions suggest using a molding cutter for that purpose (and a picture of such a cutter is shown several pages later in the instructions, with regard to the channels).  The only cutters I could find are made by Artisanea Latina. I purchased a set and gave it a try.  Unfortunately they are all made for metric sized wood strips, and keeping a US measured strip centered in the desired form was a bit of a challenge.  But it worked pretty well, but a bit out of focus in the photo below.

 

Installing the stanchions on the caprials was pretty straightforward. Fortunately as described further below, I had the foresight to enlarge the holes in them before gluing them onto the cap rail.

 

The netting was next, and it was anything but straightforward.  I looked at logs of a few whole-ship Constitution builds, and discovered others found the netting to be challenging (including GrandpaPhil, an occasional visitor here, on his Victory).  After consuming many more hours than it should have, I completed one of four sides of netting, and I’m not entirely satisfied with the result.

 

Here are a few things I learned or figured out in this effort, which may be helpful to others:

1. The instructions suggest using 34 gauge wire to simulate the rope which links the stanchions together, but none of the supplied wire or wire I already had was thin enough to get through the holes even after enlarging.  And using wire to simulate rope seems kind of counterintuitive anyway.

2. I used a 76 gauge drill bit to enlarge the holes in the stanchions, the smallest bit I had that resulted in a hole large enough to get thread through.  The drilling had to be done manually with a pin vise and done very carefully to avoid having the bit get stuck and twist the top of the stanchion off.

3. The instructions have you do the netting after gluing the cap rails (with stanchions) to the top of the bulwarks, but I assumed correctly that I would need to approach this task from a lot of different angles, and that wouldn’t be possible once the cap rails were glued in place. I also decided that I won’t glue the cap rails in place until late in the build, after most of the rigging is done, to avoid constantly snagging the rigging on the cap rail/hammock assemblies.

4. The instructions have you glue the netting to the wire (or in my case thread) with tiny drops of CA glue.  In my experience even the tiniest drop of CA spreads all over the place and tends to make a mess.  Furthermore, it’s usually quite visible after it dries.  I much prefer diluted white school glue, because although it too spreads all over, it’s virtually invisible after it’s dry.  The downside is that it’s nowhere near as strong as CA, and I doubt that using it to try to glue netting to wire or thread would be sufficient.  I thus tried to weave the thread through the diamonds in the net.

5. Putting something white behind what I was doing helped immensely in being able to better see the thread and netting.

6. I used a metal ruler and a knife with a new blade to cut the netting, but I wasn’t careful enough to avoid leaving bare ends of netting (rather than cutting right at the top of each diamond), which are like fishhooks in terms of their ability to snag both the thread and other parts of the netting.

7. As the result of snagging, on my first attempt to thread the thread through the netting, it became unraveled and frayed.  On my second attempt, I first ran the length of thread through some diluted white glue, which helped quite a bit.  I also dipped the first half inch or so in thin CA glue, to make it like a needle passing through the holes in the stanchions and in the netting.

8. Despite what I thought was extreme care in measuring the height of the strip of net, I cut this one a little too small. Next time I may cut it a little too large, and fold the excess in along the top of the cap rail.  

9. The instructions suggest running the forward end of the wire (or thread) into holes drilled in the gangway trail board. This isn’t done on the real ship; instead of attaching the rope somehow to the trail board, the rope ends at the forward stanchion, which is a few inches away from the trailboard.  I decided I would do the same with my model. 

10. I haven’t figured out why the thread gravitates toward the left and right points of each diamond rather than the top or bottom (as the case may be) of each diamond.

Having completed one of four sides of netting, I have decided to set it aside, and every month or so while working on the mast, take a few hours break and work on one of the other three sides.  With enough practice maybe I’ll get good enough, and have developed the patience, to remove my first effort and redo it with a more satisfactory result. In the photo below I have put the partially completed project in place, but without glue.

 

I'm working now on the channels and chainplates.

[Tomculb]

The channels are laser cut from a 3/32” sheet. There are six chain plates on each side (5 attached to deadeyes; 1 attached to a small ring), and it appears that MS is having some difficulty in their counting department.  The channels have only 5 notches for chain plates (a fault easily remedied by cutting another notch), and the supplied photo-etched sheet of chain plates contains only 10 of them. Fortunately MS has a reputation for great service when parts are missing or broken (a well deserved reputation in my experience), and they sent me a second sheet of chain plates, so now I have extras.

 

The plans show the channels tapering toward the outer edges, as one would expect as the ship’s designers would probably want to reduce weight on anything extending beyond the walls of the hull. I tapered them from 3/32” to 1/16”, glued a 1/16” square strip along the outer edge, and sanded it round.  The instructions suggest a more elaborate molding along the outer edge using the molding shaper discussed in my previous post, but with only 1/16” to work with, and painted black no less, I decided that would not be worth the effort.

 

The instructions suggest using wire to strop the deadeyes to the top of the chainplates, but I have always found rigging thread easier to work with than wire.  Getting the chain plates bent just right took some trial and error, differences of fraction of a millimeter being quite apparent when installed on the hull, so once I got it right on the first one, I reproduced it on paper and tried to bend all the others accordingly.  As the instructions mention, they are also a little to long and need to be cut shorter.

 

Then I simply took .021” black thread, wrapped it around the deadeye, tied half of a square knot tightly, loosely tied a second half of the knot, slipped the bent hook of the chain plate between the two halves, tightened everything up, bent the hook tightly against the knot, and added a large drop of diluted white glue for additional security. The deadeye that emerged once everything dried looked so happy I almost hesitated to cut his arm’s off. 🤪 

 

The instructions show the deadeyes left natural, but the real ship has them painted black, and before I got to this stage, I gave a fair amount of thought as to how I wanted to do mine.  But when it came time to tie the first one to the chain plate, I was so focused on that project that I didn’t even think about painting it.  Apparently my subconscious brain made the decision for me.

 

As can be seen above, the chain plates actually come in two pieces, a longer one running from the channel down to the hull (referred to as the “strap” in the instructions) and a shorter one attached to the bottom of the strap, running down flush with the hull (referred to as the “link”).  Installing them would probably have been a lot easier had they been provided as one long piece.  In any event, I dropped the chain plate/dead eye assembly through the notch in the channel, then brought the lower end of the chain plate to the surface of the hull, and drilled a hole, trying to keep each chain plate perpendicular to the waterline and parallel to the adjacent chain plate.  I had previously enlarged the holes in the strap and link parts of the chainplates (as I did with the hammock stanchions discussed in my previous post), as they come supplied with holes too tiny to get much of anything through them.

 

On alternate chain plates, the instructions (and the real ship) have an eyebolt with a ring hanging from it where the strap and link meet.  I’m not sure what function these rings serve, but I suppose they could be used when a small boat ties up along side or when the ship is tied to a dock. On the alternate chain plates the pictures in the instructions show nothing in the holes where these pieces meet nor at the bottom of any of the links.  On the ship obviously the chain plates would be secured in these places with large thorough-the-hull bolts, as this is what holds the masts up, and some sort of pin in each of these places on the model would help help assure the chain plates stay in place when the ratlines are firmly tied on.  So I dug through my leftover materials from other builds, found some brass wire the same thickness as the wire eyebolts, and pinned the pieces of the chain plates in place with 1/8" lengths of wire, secured with a drop of medium CA glue.  Doing this was quite a bit more difficult than it sounds, as anyone working with tiny pieces of photo-etched brass knows that those pieces generally ignore all the rules of gravity, aerodynamics and Newtonian physics. But while it took some effort (and dexterity which seems harder to come by as the years go by), I eventually finished the starboard side, and the port side is now maybe 75% finished. A tiny drop of flat black paint applied to each pin hid the brass, and created something that might look like a bolt head but at this scale too small to really see.  I did make the mistake of looking at a couple of them through a magnifying glass, but I don’t think I’ll do that again. 😃 Fortunately the links in person look darker than they do in the picture below.

 

As mentioned (and can be seen) above, the sixth chain plate on each side is attached to a ring rather than to a deadeye. Here I took a wire eye bolt, bent the stem 90 degrees to the eye, and glued the stem to the underside of the channel with a few dabs of medium CA.  The hole in the channel was large enough to accommodate both the stem and the chain plate, and I secured both in place with another dab of CA.

 

[usedtosail]

Nice job with the chain plates Tom. They are a bit tricky. One thing to consider is that they should not be perpendicular to the waterline or parallel to each other, but they should follow the line of the shroud that is attached to each one, so they angle to the mast increases the further away from the mast the chain plate is. On the cross section the difference to what you have is probably pretty minor but something to keep in mind for future models.

[Tomculb]

Thanks for your observations Tom.  I actually gave that issue some thought, because my initial assumption was, as you say, that the chain plates should be in line with the shrouds.  I'm no engineer, but intuatively that seems like the best way to run them from a structural point of view.  And that's how they are shown on the plans.

 

However in the pictures in the instructions, especially the picture on page 93, they appear to run straight up and down and parallel to each other, except on either side of one of the gun ports. And looking at the Google Maps tour of the real ship (picture below) they all look parallel.  Parallel seemed easier to do than trying to run them in line with where I think (or hope) the shrouds will run, when they won't be installed until sometime later.  So I decided to take the easy approach and make them parallel.  I also figured that trying to line them up with the shrouds and missing the mark would probably look worse than parallel albeit inaccurate. 

 

Incidentally, your post led me to go back to look at your Connie build log, which to my recollection I had not seen before.  What a magnificent job.  Your log will now be one of my go-to sources when I have a question on how to proceed (which seems to happen a lot).  Several times during this build (most recently the chain plates) I have marvelled at the patience it must take to build a model of the entire ship, and I have found myself grateful that I am tackling only a cross section.  Also . . . the Beagle is on my list (probably the Occre kit), and I'll be looking at your build log when I get to that one. 

 

Thanks again for dropping by.

[Tomculb]

Different subject as I finish up some details on the hull and look ahead to the mast and rigging . . . The instructions have you finish the shrouds and ratlines before doing any of the running rigging.  The running rigging seems to all tie off to the fife rail and a couple of the rails on the inside of the bulwarks. But doing the rigging from the outside in like that, isn't the standing rigging going to get in the way when trying to tie off the running rigging? Wouldn't it be easier to do the running rigging first?  Any thoughts??

[Tomculb]

Back to Tom . . . I too used to sail, including a Hobie 16, and occassionally I still get the opportunity (most recently a friend's Hobie 16 on Lake Couer d'Alene).  I lived in Hawaii for 18 years as a young adult, and after crewing for others on ocean racers for several years, I raced a Fireball for a while, and then got into Hobie Cats, mostly 16s and then 18s.  The 18 was my favorite. . . the dagger boards helped with tacking and the roller furling jib was a plus.  As much as I enjoy the moutains and lakes of the Inland Northwest, I miss those days.

[usedtosail]

Thanks for the kind words. I had no idea the current ship has the chain plates parallel like that.

I envy you Tom. Back in the day Hobie Catting in Hawaii was a dream for me that never came to pass. The cold Atlantic off New England, even in the Summer, was just not the same, but we had a blast anyway.

As for rigging, I always set up the shrouds first so that the masts are stabilized before adding the running rigging. I put my masts in slightly larger holes in the decks then use the shrouds to set the mast angle and center them side to side. I wouldn't want to try tightening running rigging with the masts flopping around. But that's just how I do it. I add the running rigging with long tweezers through and around the shrouds, which is a pain sometimes. I know some builders add the running rigging to the masts and yards before they add them to the model so that at least you have one end secured off the model. I have tried that but don't like trying to keep all those lines untangled, even if I coil them until I need them. I am also able to do seizings in mid air which makes adding running rigging lines to masts and yards after they are installed a little easier for me.

[Tomculb]

More on whether the chainplates should be perpendicular or run with the shouds to which they are attached . . . 

 

One thing I like about Model Shipways is you can download instructions to any of their kits free of charge.  Some time ago I downloaded the instructions to their full-ship Constitution, and I refer to it from time to time when the cross-section instructions leave me with a question or two.  I was doing that earlier today with a different question in mind and stumbled upon this old picture of the real ship.  Apparently the chainplates were not always perpendicular but did at one time follow the line of the shrouds.  In restoring/rebuilding an historic ship to turn it into a museum, that strikes me as an odd thing to change.  Anyone have any insight on that?

 

 

 

[Tomculb]

Well I think I can now declare the hull FINISHED! 

 

With a couple of caveats. First, as mentioned in a previous post, I’m doing the tedious job of securing the netting for the hammock rails in stages, and I am not gluing them in place on the bulwarks until the end of the build. Similarly I’m also leaving one gangway headboard on each side for the end of the build, since it needs to be glued on end with nothing to support it, and I don’t want to snag them either while rigging the mast.

 

I did manage to finish the other side of the hammock netting, so I am halfway through that job. Hard to see in the photo, but I think I did a better job this time cutting the netting so as not to leave ends sticking up in mid air.

 

One gangway headboard on each side is glued to the end of the bulwark.  That was easy.  Also easy . . . a few eyebots and thread, and I had a handrail to go with the sea steps previously installed.  In the photo you can see where the other headboard is to be installed and how fragile an installation that will be.  I’ll probably pin it to make it a little more secure.  

 

In the picture below you can also see the trim I molded and glued in place.   The mold shaping tool I mentioned previously worked very well, and was easier to use than last time because the American dimensioned trim pieces were very close to a metric dimension used by the tool.

 

One more incomplete project . . .  in the process of turning everything upside down and planking the hull I managed to dislodge a few of the teeth in Connie’s grin (ie some barrels).  I haven’t gotten around to gluing them back in yet, and I will probably wait until I have installed the mast, so I can look inside and see where its bottom meets the mast step.

 

Finally, I realized that the bentinck shrouds will one day be secured to eyebolts installed months ago in the middle of the spar deck waterways.  Installed before the cannons were tied in place and became all but completely hidden from view.  Obviously hooking the shrouds to those eyebolts isn’t going to get any easier, so I better do it now.  The shroud is seized to a bullseye, which is lashed (with a lanyard) to another bullseye which is seized to a hook.  Sounds easy enough, but I discovered that my seizing skills are a bit rusty (“skill” being not necessarily the right word in my case), and there was more than one do over along the way but I eventually got it done.  I left the lanyard untied, since I assume that is what I will adjust someday to get the shroud appropriately taut.

 

Hooking the shroud assembly to the eyebolt was not as difficult as I feared; got it done on about the third or fourth try. But once I took a look at how it will eventually look I decided was not happy with the running rigging thread I had used for the lanyard . . . too thick and seemed too light in color.

 

I mentioned previously that I have been taking a few looks at UsedToSail’s build log of the full ship Constitution, and in it there is a interesting discussion about the lanyards used with deadeyes and bullseyes.  They are basically part of the standing rigging, but they are intended to be adjusted occasionally, certainly not frequently.  Adjustable standing rigging.  On the current ship, the deadeyes, the bullseyes and the lanyards are all black, but as mentioned previously I subconsciously decided to leave my deadeyes natural (dark brown).  Someone in that discussion suggested making the lanyards dark brown and mentioned having used dark stain to color lighter thread for that purpose. Not having any dark brown thread, I decided to give that a try . . . another do over. I found some thread of a more acceptable thickness, but after staining it’s a little shiny, which I don’t like (not as bad though as in the pictures below). So in my mind the jury is still out on what thread I will use for lanyards (maybe just black). I may make a trip to a fabric store one day to find some thread that is manufactured in a color I like. In any event, I think yet another do over is called for.  At least I’m finding hooking it to the eyebolt to be easier than I feared.

 

Finally I decided to coil the end of one of the cannon tackles and hang it from the nearby pinrail.  And just for fun I hung another coil on the opposite side, where there are no cannons.

 

So on to the mast, which looks like quite a project.  I have decided to take a bit of a break before moving on, probably a few weeks worth, as I spend some time on other things that need to be done and study ahead in the instructions to familiarize myself with the upcoming build. One thing that has me perplexed already is how the other end of the bentinck shrouds are secured to the futtock shrouds . . . . I'm having difficulty understanding the written instructions and something about the pictures just doesn't look right.  

 

[BobG]

Very nice work, Tom. It's coming along nicely!

[usedtosail]

Nicely done on the bentinck shroud rigging so far Tom. That was a very enlightening discussion in my build log on lanyard colors for me. I always used tan line for them, now I only use dark brown, not black. I remember that drawing of the futtock and bentinck shrouds from the instructions and I was equally confused. I then found this image that I took of the area under the fighting top the last time I toured the actual ship, that actually shows the shrouds and how they are rigged. There are a number of thimbles and lanyards that are seized to the futtock staves. I don't think I recreated this exactly on my Connie but it was a reasonable facsimile at that scale. Hope this helps.

[Tomculb]

Thank you Tom.  That photo will be a big help.  I have occassionally been looking at these forums while taking some time away from the build, and I'm surprised I didn't see your post from a month ago, thus the delayed response. 

 

Another question for you or anyone else. . . The instructions refer to four heavy lines (your picture shows 2 of them) which end in thimbles, which are attached to nothing.  They just hang there.  The instructions refer to them as pendants.  Any idea what they are or why they are there?  I'm inclined to leave them off my model for fear it will look like I failed to complete something.

 

Just getting started on the mast.  I imagine I'll be posting on progress in a week or so.

[MrBlueJacket]

I believe those lines ending in thimbles were used when hauling cargo on/off board. They would have hooked a block and tackle to them.

[JSGerson]

Tom,  those "heavy lines which end in thimbles are called Burton Pendants. From David Antscherl's book, "The Fully Framed Model, Rigging a Sixth Rate Sloop of 1767-1780" Vol IV: “Burton Pendants are served lines that were slipped over the mastheads prior to stepping the lower masts in full-sized practice. Blocks and tackles were then attached to them for hauling up to the tops and other items of rigging.” They are an essential part of the ship.

 

I have collected a vast photo library for my build of the Constitution. Here are some images of the bentinck shroud rigging and burton Pendants that I have.

 

Jon

[Tomculb]

Many thanks Jon for all the pictures and information; thanks to you too Nic. Hard to believe I started this hobby before we had this wonderful community of generous builders. 

[Tomculb]

After a little travel and some other head-clearing distractions I’m ready to tackle the mast. The initial part of the mast work doesn't lend itself to meaningful photography, so this post will be a lot of text and only a couple of photos.

 

For the lower mast the kit supplies a 16” x 7/16” dowel (identified by those dimensions in the parts list).  The first thing we’re to do with that dowel, according to the instructions, is “cut [it] to the length of 16-3/8” long.” If anyone knows how to cut a 16” dowel to 16-3/8” please let me know; knowing how to do so would save a lot of time wasted measuring twice. 😀

 

Fortunately most of the missing ⅜” the instructions think you can produce consists of a knob at that bottom designed to fit into the mast foot created (in my case) close to a year ago.  Again in my case, that knob is unnecessary to secure the mast, as I will use the mast surrounds to securely hold the mast vertical crosswise and with the desired amount of rake. And once all the barrels are in place down there, the interface between the mast bottom and the mast step won't be visible.

 

Speaking of mast rake . . . I enlarged each of the deck mast holes as I went along to allow for some final adjustment before securing the surrounds, but I think I need to pull the mast just a little bit farther forward than the holes allow to avoid too much rake.  The instructions suggest tapering the below decks part of the mast, which I did, but I tapered only the aft half so the above decks part can be brought farther forward.  The plans show a mast rake of 3 ½ degrees relative to the waterline, and I think that’s about what I get if I pull the mast forward as far as it goes. I'll try precision before gluing anything in place.

 

The mast above the deck also is tapered to 3/8”.  For that, I first tried using a small plane, but I found it difficult to control, and make somewhat consistent, the amount I shaved off.  Trying a different approach, I wrapped some tape around the lower end of the dowel and was able (barely) to wedge it into the chuck of my drill. With a sanding pad and the drill running at a fairly high speed I was able to get much better results.

 

The top 3-1/8th” is cut square.  For that I pulled out a Dremel beveling table I bought years ago and rarely used since because its grip on the Dremel drill was too flimsy.  I confirmed that it hasn’t gotten any stiffer over the years, and the flattened sides that resulted were not as flat as they needed to be, but for the most part the flaws disappeared with some sanding. A 1/16th chamfer is then cut into each corner. . . I used a sanding block for that.

 

Finally, the top 1/4” is cut to a square tenon, to accept the mast cap (which is made from two identical 1/8” thick laser cut pieces). Here,  I made a mistake, as the plans appeared to show the mast extending about a 1/16” above the cap, as I would expect, rather than having it end flush with the upper surface of the cap.  So I cut the tenon to a length of 5/16”. Turns out the mast does end flush with the upper surface of the cap, and what appeared to be an extension of the mast above it is actually two 1/16” square, so-called “spacers” , shown 15 pages later in the instructions.  Fortunately a minor mistake.

 

[Tomculb]

From the square cut section down to the deck, the aft portion of the mast has wrapped around it what the instructions refer to as a “chafing fish”, a term I have never heard before and can’t find in any online nautical dictionary.  In any event, it consists of additional planking, presumably to absorb chafing from running rigging.  On the model, it is made from nine 1/16” x 1/8” strips, the middle three of which are to be cut to a length of 8-7/8” and the outer three on each side to 4-5/16”. The middle three cut to that length run all the way from the square portion of the mast down to the deck, which won’t work since it leaves no room for the spar deck mast surround.  I cut them shorter allowing for the mast surround and an additional ⅛” gap between the chafing fish and the surround.  

 

As instructed, I beveled the edges of each strip so that each one meets flush with the adjoining one, but I apparently did not bevel them sufficiently, as there were some small gaps at the surface..  The gaps were easily remedied with some wood filler, but the “fish” ends up wrapping a little farther around the mast than shown on the plans.  I found myself thinking I should have used 1/16” x 3/32” instead of 1/16” x 1/8” strips, but better to have done a better job of bevelling the adjoining edges of each strip.

 

The instructions have you install the lower mast cheeks at this time, carefully sanding/grinding away portions of the chafing fish so that the cheeks can be tangent with the surface of the mast itself.  Since the cheeks help support the fighting top and should therefore be glued to its underside without any gap or misalignment, I decided to delay this until the fighting top is assembled and ready to be installed.  That project will be made a little more challenging by the fact that the fighting top will be horizontal, parallel with the water line, and not perpendicular to the mast, given the latter’s rake (at least I assume that’s correct, and that appears to be the case on the plans).

Next up . . . mast bands, which wrap between the edges of the chafing fish and all the way around the mast where it is squared for a few inches at the top.  The kit supplies 1/64 x 1/16 brass for this purpose.  While thinking about how best to put a waterline on my previous build (Joshua Slocumb’s Spray), I learned on these forums about a product called Chartpak, which is vinyl tape in a variety of widths and colors.  In addition to a roll of black I purchased for the waterline, I purchased a roll of 1/16” wide white to make a mast band for that model.  Voila!  It worked like a charm on Connie’s main mast.  It cuts easily with scissors and it is easy to trim if the first cut is a little long.  And it wraps around the mast perfectly conforming to the curve with virtually no effort or tools, certainly without anything like needle nose pliers or wire cutters. It’s only shortcoming is that the adhesive on the back of the tape doesn’t adhere to anything for very long, so I had to add a little bit of glue.  I completed all the bands in no time, and the end result looks pretty good.

 

After adding laser cut chocks and a fairlead, I gave the whole thing a couple of coats of white paint (without any special priming of the mast bands needed!).  I have to say I’m pretty pleased with the result.

 

 

Edited March 24, 2022 by Tomculb
What I referred to as "mistakes" were actually done correctly.

[Tomculb]

Well do I feel stupid (not the first time).  I wrote and posted that last entry while away from my model desk for a couple of days, and now upon re-examining the plans and instructions on my return, I see that the “mistakes” I said I made were not mistakes at all. I don’t know how I got that idea into my head! Two weeks prior I had tested positive for Covid, with very minor symptoms, and maybe I did not recognize the Covid fog.  In any event, the plans, and at least one of the instructions’ photos, do show a gap between the bottom of the chafing protector (makes more sense to me than “fish”) and the mast surround, and the chafing protector does in fact wrap around the front of the mast and not the back. I edited my post accordingly.

[Tomculb]

Assembling the fighting top is pretty straightforward.  The laser cut floor and a small frame around the perimeter fit together precisely.  The center cutout in the floor has a center mark, which greatly facilitates gluing the timbers in place. I drew the various lines running outward from that center mark. The instructions suggest determining the location of the aft timbers directly from the plans rather than using the center mark, but I don’t know why.  The timbers overlap the frame forward, and cutting the notches to accommodate them turned out to be easier than I expected.  And consistent with expectations, the laser cut upper crosstrees fit precisely.  

 

There are also four laser cut cleats which can be seen in the second picture below. After gluing them in place I saw in the instructions quite a few pages ahead that at least a couple of them will be used to secure some lower yard rigging, and I have some concern that they may be too flimsy for the job.  A challenge for another day . . .  

 

The underside of the fighting top is as straightforward as the top side.  The laser cut lower crosstrees and trestle trees fit precisely as expected.  Same with what are referred to as the “thumb cleats” and their cast metal sheaves.  I painted the sheaves black, I guess out of a tendency to leave no metal piece untreated, but so painted they become almost invisible.  The instructions have you glue one trestle tree in place (3/16” off the center line) and leave the other one unglued, presumably to allow for a tight fit when it's time to glue the fighting top to the mast.  I preferred to leave both trestle trees unglued.

 

Next I painted the whole thing white, then mixed up some light gray to paint the upper side of the deck. Finally I painted white half (horizontally) a 1/8 x 1/32 strip, and after soaking it, and with the help of an old iron, carefully wrapped and glued it around the front and sides of the fighting top.

 

A few eyebolts and some deadeyes will finish this stage of the fighting top.  The instructions have you build and install the guard rail much later in the build.

 

Note added two months later -- part of a caption to a photo on page 56 of the instructions says "18 eyebolts added to various locations."  Those eyebolts are not mentioned in the instruction text, and I completely overlooked that photo caption. Ten of those eyebolts are supposed to be added to the top of the fighting top, just inboard of where the deadeyes will be installed, and those ten eyebolts will eventually anchor the royal and topgallant shrouds.  Easier to add them at this point in the build than where I am now (with deadeyes in and fighting top installed on the mast), but fortunately I have not yet installed the topsail shrouds, which would have made the job almost impossible.

 

Edited June 5, 2022 by Tomculb
Information learned later that would have been nice to know at this stage in the build.

[Tomculb]

Mr. BlueJacket kindly messaged me to point out that the trestle trees in the last two photos above are backwards; that is, the port one is on the starboard side and vice versa. The sheaves should be outboard, not inboard. Fortunately they are only dry fit in place to be photographed and not glued.