USS Constitution by Boatsinc2000 (Jeff Hayes) - Model Shipways MS2040 + Hunt Practicum - 1:76 scale

[Boatsinc2000]

Thanks for the likes!

 

Jon, I had missed xKen's log...thanks for the link as that will be a great reference as well as humbling.

 

Jeff, I've already forgotten them!

[Trussben]

Nice to see you building again Jeff, you had a long enough vacation from it.

Connie is looking very good - getting those gallery angles right is always really difficult for us all, but keep moving forward mate.

 

Ben

[Bill Morrison]

On 6/29/2021 at 11:32 AM, Boatsinc2000 said:

First some background...  I started this build in 2004 using Bob Hunt's practicum so my build will continue to use the practicum.  About 6 months into the build Bob was looking for someone to mill wood for his new kit business and that was the start of HobbyMill.  So the kit has laid idle for 17 years while I did HobbyMill and eventually relocated to Phoenix from Cincinnati.

 

This is also my first build so I'm making all of the typical mistakes of a newbie.   Over the years I've had the privilege to observe so many great builds and learn from the commentary on this site so I was a little intimidated to post a log.  However, after spending some time lurking here recently and the wealth of information that I have received, I decided to try to give something back...even if its just all of the mistakes that I'm making.

 

Lessons Learned:

• Modeling is a lot harder than milling wood
• Don't wait 17 years between steps in a build

 

Once I figure out how to upload some pics, I'll start my build.  Unfortunately I must have deleted some of my early pics from 2004 so we'll start from where we are today.

 

Jeff  

What is Bob Hunt's Practicum, and where can I get a copy?  Nice job so far!

 

Bill

[Gregory]

Bob Hunt was once a respected contributor to the ship modeling community, but he has chosen to go over to the dark side and support the theft of intellectual property..

 

https://modelshipworld.com/forum/149-our-stance-on-piracy-in-the-hobby/

 

I would not recommend supporting his business..

 

It's ironic in that he has often complained of people stealing his  intellectual and real property..

[JSGerson]

Robert (Bob) Hunt runs the lauckstreetshipyard.com website. He has has written many practicums which help the novice builder immensely. However, they are not cheap when they are not on sale. My first one was for the Rattlesnake which I used religiously. I could not have built that model without it. I am using my second one for my Conny more as a guide in specific areas. I gain a lot of knowledge from the build logs of dozens of members of this website, picking and choosing methods suitable to my skills. Still, as an overall step by step guide, I rely on Bob's practicum. I hope this helps

 

Jon

 

I noticed Gregory's response which was posted just before mine. Yes, Bob can be cranky, but I don't know anything about sealing other people's intellectual property, so that will have to be a choice you make on your own.

Edited July 29, 2021 by JSGerson

[Landlubber Mike]

Jeff, I see you have triumphantly returned in full former glory!  Your Constitution looks fantastic, great job!  I see you are as good a modeler as you are a miller of wood.  Looking forward to following along.   

Edited July 29, 2021 by Landlubber Mike

[Boatsinc2000]

Thanks to everyone for the likes!

 

Hey Ben,

Thanks for the encouragement!  Hope you had a good vacation!  Miss your trips to my shop...if only I still had a shop. 😒

 

Bill, thanks for the inquiry and for looking in.  Jon's summary is pretty accurate and I agree with his sentiments.  I probably knew Bob better than most folks as I was the wood supplier for all of his kits for around 10 years.  His customer service is well documented on this site, but as his sole supplier of wood he treated me a little differently.  His practicums are very detailed and as a novice builder myself I've found them invaluable.  There are some issues in some areas of his practicums but the build logs on MSW help you get over those rough spots.  I have all of his kits, except one, so you will probably see more builds from me using his kits.  I haven't been in touch or followed any of Bob's work for a very long time so I was not aware that he had started to do a practicum on a Chinese kit.

 

Hi Mike...one of my all-time favorite customers!  Thanks for stopping by and for the compliment.  My work will never be as good as yours and you always made my wood look wonderful, thanks.  I will say that you always gave me a few things to ponder and that made my milling more interesting.  If I recall at one time we were thinking about doing a lot of ebony on your Morgan?  That's really tough stuff to work with!!

 

Cheers,

[glbarlow]

5 hours ago, Gregory said:

support the theft of intellectual property..

What is your source for that statement? I haven’t been in contact with Bob in years but it doesn’t sound like him. 

 

While Bob is/was a bit cantankerous on his forum I too got my start in this hobby with his AVS practicum which are still available Here   I would never have built my first model without it. My POF Fair American is from another of his practicums and is one of my best models. Unfortunately I heard he sold the rights to his several nice models to a plastic models company that never did anything with them. 
 

I recommend his practicums. 

[Gregory]

He had a build log for the ZHL Royal Caroline, a knock off of the Mantua/Panart kit, over at another forum.

Edited July 30, 2021 by Gregory

[Landlubber Mike]

6 hours ago, Boatsinc2000 said:

If I recall at one time we were thinking about doing a lot of ebony on your Morgan?  That's really tough stuff to work with!!

 

If you can believe it, I managed to get it to work pretty nicely.  I got stuck trying to figure out how to do the lettering (but have a solution as someone is making me custom decals), but the ebony went on beautifully.  You can see it in my build log linked in my signature.  Also used a lot of the yellowheart which looks fantastic as well.  I'm looking forward to working with the holly for the white trim and masts!

 

[Boatsinc2000]

Was able to spend some time on the stern, so here's an update.

 

Continued adding the styrene trim to the lower portion of the quarter galleries.  The more trim that I add the better they seem to look:

 

 

Then I moved to the transom.  The practicum had suggested using the outline of the laser cut transom trim to pencil in locations for the styrene.

 

 

Used a scrap piece of pear for the spacer to align the lower strips with each other and with the ones on the quarter galleries.

 

 

 

That worked well for the two lower trim pieces, but decided on a different approach for the upper curved pieces as it was difficult to see the pencil and manage the curve of the styrene.  Made a template out of a sheet of 1/16 scrap boxwood.  Wanted to use boxwood instead of basswood as I was afraid that the basswood would act as a sponge for the CA.  This way I could press the strips up against the template as I was gluing them in place.

 

 

Continued to add the columns, stars, eagle, and towing rings.

 

 

Finally got the starboard side of the hull painted black after some more filling that showed up in the pics.

 

 

 

One rookie note is that the stern ports are too small.  Didn't notice this until I was looking at the stern template and adding the columns.  I even had to trim the lower port lids to fit and didn't think about it.  I now vaguely remembering that this was an issue 14 years ago, but thought that I would fix it down the road.  There's something in the practicum but I didn't understand at the time that having an interior support beam in the wrong place was going to make the correction difficult.  Decided to chalk that up to a learning issue and moved on as I would need to do major surgery on the stern to fix.

 

I've been reading a lot about the coppering process and received an education.  Seems like using a ponce wheel is way out of scale and several builders recommended omitting that step.  Another concern are builders who have trouble with the copper coming off or where fingerprints or other coloring issues appear months after doing the hull.  Really raises some concerns?

 

At sometime I need to build a display stand as I did not add the screws for the pedestals.  This is a piece of pear from my inventory in case I decide not to copper and then use pear for the stand.  Any input on coppering and / or using pear for the stand?

 

Thanks for looking in!

 

Edited August 1, 2021 by Boatsinc2000

[Boatsinc2000]

While I was working on the styrene, I decided to take a break and work on some wood milling.  So far, aside from the pear hatch combings, everything in this build has used the kit supplied basswood.  One of the objects of this build is to gain some more experience so that I can use traditional modeling woods...box, pear, and holly, in the future.  Probably should have used boxwood to plank the 2nd side of the hull.  In any case, while I was doing HobbyMill I tended to save some of the very best stock for my own use and I have a huge stash of wood.  So from now on my plan is to mill the remaining portions of this build from some of that wood.

 

Pulled out a piece of boxwood that was an end cut-off and started to mill the carriages for my carronades.  Hard to believe, but there was a time when I couldn't give these end pieces away.  Also hard to believe how far a small piece goes.

 

 

Only needed less than 1" off of this 2x2 piece of stock.  Milled into some 1/4x1/2x2 pieces on my Byrnes and scroll saws.  Cut the pieces into some smaller ones so that I could drill through them and then mated them into pairs.  Finally used the height adjustment on the saw to mill the steps in the carriages.  I'm looking into getting some chisels so that I can cut the radius's or leave the step pattern.  Eventually will just slice 1/16" pieces off of the blocks to make the carriages.  Each small block will yield 6 pcs or 3 carriages which is about 2x's as many as I need.

 

 

 

 

 

It was enjoyable to begin making my own parts from my wood stash.

 

Thanks for checking in!

Edited August 2, 2021 by Boatsinc2000

[JSGerson]

Jeff, I haven’t reached the point where the I’m installing things like the trim and decorations yet. If you’ve been following my build log, you may have observed that I like the little details. So, I haven’t read or planned for those yet, but I noticed the very nice eagle on the stern of your model. How did you apply the colors to the eagle’s shield? Does the practicum provide the process? If I were to do it today without any outside instruction, my first attempt would be to make a decal using my inkjet printer. I can’t tell from the photographs, but did you make the stern stars or were they provided in the kit? I should know what’s in the kit, but I concentrate on one thing at a time and constantly have to refresh myself when I move on to a new task.

 

The coppering concerns you raised is something I must contend with as well, obviously. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I looked at models built before the last restoration and noticed a majority of them did the copper nailing wrong, They made the coppering look like boiler plate rivets with oversized “rivet” bumps proud of the copper surface. Looking at the images of the restoration, it was obvious there should be fine dimples into the surface of the copper, which I may add is a long and tedious process. Some builders used a fine ponce wheel on the plate edges only, others a pressure stamp with multiple needle points for the whole plate. I plan on doing a few trial processes to figure out what I’ll do. One thing is clear to me though, there will be copper plates and not just copper paint on the hull.

 

Jon

[Gregory]

14 hours ago, Boatsinc2000 said:

  Any input on coppering and / or using pear for the stand?

I think the pear would be great for a custom base/cradle/pedestals.

 

You can get some good ideas from the models at NMM

 

 

 

[Boatsinc2000]

Thanks to all for the likes!

 

Gregory, those are really helpful.   Thank you so much. 

 

Jon, eagle is supplied with kit and Bob includes shield with practicum.  Start at 72% when printing.   Sealed with polyacrylic.  Stars cut from styrene using #18 x-acto.  Star pattern in practicum.

 

Attached the copper piece to the transom.  Can't believe how fragile that stuff is.  My tweezers scratched it just picking it up.  

 

Glad to hear that you liked the transom.

 

Thanks for looking in.

[Gregory]

13 hours ago, Boatsinc2000 said:

Gregory, those are really helpful.   Thank you so much. 

While we are at it:

 

I just came across this in my browsing.

 

 

An America model by Loyd McCaffery

 

I can see myself using a similar design on a future project..  Simple but very elegant.

[cookster]

Hello Jeff, I too bought your wood kit for the Conny a few years ago, plus other wood as well,  You were the inspiration for me to start milling my own wood, when I saw it could be done I figured I could do it too.  Which I do, lol.  I  had started my Conny build (also using Bob's practicum) and then fell to the dark side a started a scratch build.  My Conny now sits alone waiting for me to return.  I must say looking at your log has rekindled my interest in my own build.

Your build looks great, I look forward to watching you progress.

Good luck and happy building!

[Boatsinc2000]

Hi Wes,

I remembered you right away as soon as I saw your user name. Thanks for stopping by.   Just hoped over to see both your Conny and Essex builds.  Great job on both of them.  Looks like you learned a great deal about milling wood.  I know what you mean about putting the Conny away for a while.  It's a long and arduous build.  Not sure if after your Essex build that you will have the interest to resume your Conny as they are so different builds.  I've got all of Bob's kits along with a Naiad package waiting for me and my plan is to work through the Conny before I start the others.  Hope I make it. 

 

Been working on the bow rails and trailboards for the past few weeks and hope to post an update soon.  Seems as though each portion brings on a host of new challenges.  I'm almost looking forward to coppering...but I know better.

Cheers,

[cookster]

Thanks Jeff.  I built furniture as a hobby for years so all I had to do was scale down...  As far as my Conny, I've got a 3d printer now and I've already got many ideas of things I could print to make that build better and easier.  Can you say quarter galleries?

[bthoe]

Jeff,

Nice work on your Constitution thus far.  I'll be starting my own soon.  Hope you don't mind me following along on yours for ideas on how to get past the tough spots 🙂 - Bob

[Nirvana]

On 8/3/2021 at 9:01 AM, Gregory said:

While we are at it:

 

I just came across this in my browsing.

 

 

An America model by Loyd McCaffery

 

I can see myself using a similar design on a future project..  Simple but very elegant.

75000 dollars?!
Amazing and beautiful built with all the details... but I will pass on that one and concentrate on my own America.

[Trussben]

Any Progress Jeff?