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

[Tomculb]

The rope coils project began with making a jig, inspired by one that is well explained and photographed on the Crafty Sailor website.  I got ambitious and made one on which I could put together 5 coils at a time.  Unfortunately they were too close together, and while making one coil I found myself snagging the threat on the posts for the neighboring coils.  So I pulled the posts for two of them out and turned it into a 3 coil jig. The posts were cut from a large paper clip.

 

I cut slits in the base to secure the end of the rigging thread, but those didn’t hold well at all.  Clipping a mini-clothespin to the end worked a lot better.  I then wrapped two coils around the vertical posts, then wrapped the third coil around the vertical posts at the top of the coil, and the final two coils around both vertical posts.  I then took two or three wraps around the coils and secured it with a half hitch at the end.  For some reason the latter wraps proved to be more difficult than I expected, and for the most part they don’t have a consistent look from coil to coil. As a young adult sailor some decades ago I easily coiled thousands of lines over the years, but rope and rigging thread just don’t behave the same way.

 

Also, getting the coils to hang naturally (vertically) was sometimes problematic.  Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of the numerous odd ways I leaned things against the coils to get them to hang vertically, soaking the loop around the belaying pin with diluted white glue and letting it dry.

 

There were two empty belaying pins on the athwartships part of the fife rail, so I hung a couple of extra coils on them.  I also hung coils on the cleats on the mast I secured the trusses with.

 

And now some pictures . . .

Next project is completing the hammock netting and rails I started but never finished maybe a year or so ago.

 

 

Edited December 28, 2022 by Tomculb
Removed duplicate photo at the end

[schooner]

Clever! and they look good

[Tomculb]

About a year ago I assembled one of two hammock rails. After gluing the hammock rail stanchions onto the previously painted cap rails, I then cut a piece of netting to the appropriate size, and led some thread through the netting and the eyes at the tops of the stanchions.  I then ran another piece of thread through the bottom of the netting and tied it to the bottoms of the stanchions.  None of this was easy to do, it took many hours, and I was not happy with the result. Strike one.  I carefully stored this one away and left for another day the assembly of the other hammock rail.

Well, another day has come.  This time I had learned something about working with this netting material, from having put together the back rail on the fighting top.  Coating the netting with diluted white glue makes it stiffer, easier to cut, and easier (but still not easy) to work with. One detail I learned is that you need to have some small pieces of paper towel handy to blot away excess glue; otherwise you end up with unsightly white flakes in some of the netting.

 

This time I threaded the netting with thin wire rather than thread . . . wire which despite my fears to the contrary, I was able to straighten pretty well.  The result was better than my effort from a year ago, but I was still left with an unsightly upper edge of netting . . . a bunch of exposed diamonds I found almost impossible to cut away cleanly without cutting the diamonds I had so carefully threaded the wire through.  Strike two.

My third effort was much better; if not a home run, at least good for extra bases.  This time I used wood glue to glue a 1/32 x 1/16 strip of wood to the top edge of a cut strip of  netting. I did this on top of  wax paper, which peeled away pretty cleanly when the glue was still a little bit tacky. That small strip of wood nicely hides the upper edge of the netting.

 

I then carefully twisted each stanchion so that the eye at the top ran fore and aft rather than athwartships.  Then I put a tiny drop of wood glue in each eye, and glued the wood strip and netting to the outside of the stanchions. To be able to apply some pressure while the glue dried, I snuggly fit a strip of wood into the space between the inner and outer stanchions and slipped a strip of wax paper between the stanchions and that strip. I should have taken some pictures along the way but didn’t. In any event, the end result looked much better than my previous efforts.  I did not do anything with the lower edge of the netting; it simply lies nicely against the edge of the cap rail, without any glue.  Since it is black on black, from viewing distance the netting is almost invisible lying against the cap rail (or maybe it’s just my eyes). The Constitution as she exists today, and presumably previous iterations,  has cable running through the top of the netting.  But in this case I am happy to sacrifice some historical accuracy for something that leads to a better looking model.

 

Edited January 5, 2023 by Tomculb
Typo: strengthen corrected to straighten

[Tomculb]

Getting awfully close to adding “FINISHED” to the name of this log . . . I’m excited.

 

This post’s project is what the instructions call the “hatchway canopy frame”.  In my mind it became the Gilded Birdcage.

 

The Birdcage is built from eight Britannia metal pieces. Typical to these kinds of fittings, there was a lot of flashing to be trimmed off, and they all were bent out of shape to one degree or another. None of which was a problem.

 

There were however some challenges.  As can be seen in the picture immediately below, the bottom half of the Birdcage consists of two pairs of fence-like pieces. The other four pieces are arc-like frames which make up the upper half and top of the Birdcage.  The bottoms of these upper pieces fit into shallow holes in the tops of the lower piece fence posts. Of each pair of fence pieces, one came with this hole nicely formed, and one came with an extension that needed to be cut off and no formed hole.  In the picture below, I have cut off the extension and drilled the hole in one of the four fence posts, but not yet in the other three. Needless to say, drilling the holes in these tiny pieces was a challenge, to say the least.

 

The instructions direct building the Birdcage in the hatchway frame on the model, then removing it for painting before finally gluing it in place.  However, the pieces needed a lot of precise bending to get them to fit right, and there was no way my fat thumbs and fingers would have adequate space to do that if the assembly was on the model.  So I carefully duplicated in a spare piece of wood the holes that were pre-drilled in the hatchway frame and built the Birdcage off the model.

As mentioned before, there are four upper pieces.  The lower one of these has a pin which fits through holes in the middle of the pieces above it, as can be seen in the next picture below. The upper piece has a decorative knob on top, with a small hole inside it to take the upper end of the pin from the lower piece.  That hole had to be drilled as it was not drilled in the upper piece as supplied.  The hole after I drilled it can be sort of seen in the second picture below, which is unfortunately not well focused.

The Birdcage on the real ship appears to be unfinished brass.  I bought a couple of bottles of Vallejo paint (a brand I haven’t used before), color-labeled Brass and Old Gold. In the bottle Brass looked like what I wanted, and that is what I painted the Birdcage with. It fits tightly in most of the holes in the hatchway frame (two of the holes were simply out of line), and I did not feel a need to glue it in place. Painted and installed on the model, it’s a bit bright for my taste (thus the Gilded Birdcage), and I thought about pulling it off and repainting it with Old Gold. But I fear that may result in something that looks more like Drab Mud, so I think I will leave it as is. 😊

I now have a list of about a dozen things that need attention before I can truly call this build finished.  Those will be the subject of my next post.

Edited January 11, 2023 by Tomculb

[mbp521]

Looking good Tom. I’ve never been a fan of the Britannia parts MS uses in their kits, and I often replace them with scratch built pieces when I can. Needless to say though, you did a great job on straightening and cleaning up the kit pieces and the bird cage looks wonderful. It will be a bittersweet day when “Finished” is added to the title of this build log. 
 

-Brian

[Tomculb]

Thanks Brian.  Cleaning up and bending to shape may not be my favorite activity, but I have a lot more confidence doing that than scratch building parts like that.  Kudos to you for making your own parts. 

I don't think FINISHED will be bitter sweet for me; I'm already getting excited for my next build.

[Tomculb]

The end-of-the-build to do list . . . 

 

I finished the lower shroud ratlines.  Back when those shrouds were installed I made the decision to defer these ratlines until the running rigging was finished, for fear that the former would get in the way of rigging the latter. That was a mistake. The running rigging made rigging the ratlines more challenging, and I didn’t even think about the lower yard getting in the way of rigging the last several ratlines at the upper end. I found myself wanting to put my face where the end of the studding sail boom was, and to avoid damaging the boom (or my eyes), I put a yellow warning flag made of masking tape at the end of each boom.

The forward companionway heading boards are precariously glued to the ship standing on one of their 1\16” edges.  To give them a little more security, I glued a short length of narrow gauge wire in a small hole in each piece to act as a reinforcing pin glued into a corresponding hole in the companionway. Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of the pin, but you should get the idea.

The plans show an extension of the footrope (a Flemish horse) at the ends of the lower and topsail yards, with the notation “Optional detail depending upon the period being built.” One of my earlier posts asked if anyone knew what “period” was being referred to, and I got no responses.  I simply decided that my model needed this additional detail.

The kit comes with a long, thin pendant, and the instructions provide a detailed description of how to make the flag look like it’s blowing in the wind.  I decided I just didn’t like the look of the pendant and didn’t even try to include it, but I did string a halyard through a small block at the top of the mast down to the outer belaying pin on the aft port bulwark. I linked a couple of small rings together to roughly simulate clips or shackles that would attach to two corners of any flag.  Then I took a couple of wraps around the belaying pin with the lower end of the rope loop.  There would be no rope coil here, as the halyard is a loop.

Over a period of weeks or months after I glued barrels into the gravel in the bilge, a number of them came loose and fell out, both fore and aft. On the aft end, I glued all the missing barrels back in, filling the gaps in Connie’s toothy grin.  At the forward end, I left two barrels out, in order to allow a view of the bottom of the mast and the ends of the bilge pump pipes buried in the gravel.

Finally I installed the previously constructed bell on the front of the mast.

My FINISHED post, after taking some FINISHED photos, will come along within a few days, maybe sooner.

Edited January 15, 2023 by Tomculb

[Tomculb]

This has been a challenging--and very fun and rewarding--build, and I’m excited to say it’s FINISHED!! The Model Shipways kit is outstanding--great detail, fittings, materials, laser-cut parts and plans.  As I mentioned a few times, the instructions sometimes left a few things to be desired, but on the whole they were pretty good, and certainly comprehensive. I would recommend the kit enthusiastically to any builder with a little bit of experience under his/her belt.

 

And now for some photos (perhaps too many photos), followed by a few comments on my next build.

Coming up next is Occre’s model of Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance.  This will be my first experience with Occre, and I’m looking forward to it.  There are quite a few Endurance build logs on these boards, which makes me think twice before writing yet another one. I will probably post one anyway, but perhaps posting less frequently, and primarily when I am deviating from the kit or when something out of the ordinary deserves comment. I don’t anticipate getting started for a month or two, first simply taking a break, then some time reviewing the instructions, taking inventory, reviewing the existing logs, doing some internet research, and doing enough construction to have something to talk about.  I look forward to the journey.

 

 

 

 

[BobG]

Congratulations, Tom, on this wonderful, complex model. You've created quite a showpiece and it's been a pleasure following along as you have built it. I'm looking forward to your Endurance build. The book is one of my favorites ever.

[JSGerson]

Beautifully done. I hope you plan on acquiring or building a case to protect the fruits of your labor. I know those cases aren't cheap, but they are worth the investment. I'm 5 years in, and still haven't completed the hull on my build, but I'll use your build as one of my sources to guide me going forward. Take that break, you deserve it.

 

Jonathan Gerson

[mbp521]

Beautiful work Tom, and congratulations! So sad to see the build come to an end but can't wait to see what's next. Thank you for putting this log together, I have it bookmarked for when I finally get around to building my kit.

 

-Brian

[schooner]

Great, great build and log! And a superb reference for the rest of us when trying to figure out rigging on masts. Thanks for taking the time to put all this together - it's one of my go to bookmarks.

[Tomculb]

Thank you Bob, Jonathan, Brian and Tim for your kind words, and thank you to the rest of you for the thumbs up.  This would have been a much less satisfying build without the encouragement and advice I received from so many people on these boards.

 

And yes, Jonathan, I intend to get a case.  But I probably should acknowledge that I've been intending to get a case for my Niagara, and that build was completed about 20 years ago. I'm going to have to work harder on getting around to it.  The good news is the Niagara has survived without a case remarkably well.

[GeneH]

Hello TomCulb. Thank you, thank you, thank you!  About two years ago, I bought this kit and immediately realized I was in WAY over my head.  Thankfully, though, I found your build log.  Without your wonderful explanations and beautiful photos, there’s no way I could’ve gotten as far as I have.

 

Thanks to your log, I’m on the home stretch - yardarms and rigging. The Royal’s rigged, and I’m almost done building the Topgallant.

 

While so much of this project is immensely tedious, it’s so rewarding when I finally complete a major assembly. Thank you again!