Rattlesnake 1782 by Gregory - Scale 1:48 - Plans from ModelShipways & NMM

[Gregory]

The Mamoli kit of Rattlesnake was my first wood ship kit over 25 years ago.

 

Here it is, not quite finished.  I gifted it to a relative, and the story of how I caught up with it later will be left for another time.

I have always wanted to do the Rattlesnake again, and now with the idea of seeing what 25 years of  experience, education and inspiration might bring I am launching this project.

 

I cannot begin to document all of the inspiration I have received from the members here at MSW, but I will try to point out specifics as they occur .

 

Bear with me as I jump around a lot and talk about  my resources and plans for this build.

 

I am using the plans from the Model Shipways kit, which I acquired apart from the kit.  These plans are drawn by George F. Campbell  and further refined by Ben Lankford .

All plans of Rattlesnake that I am aware of; Mamoli, Hahn and Model Shipways are derived from the drawings  from the NMM and are available at WIKI commons.  I purchased copies from the NMM several years ago, but the copies at Wiki are actually much better.  Chappelle also reproduced the lines in " The Search for Speed Under Sail ", and it is my understanding the plans

are available from The Smithsonian.

 

For the most part, I am using the plans from Model Shipways to create the skeleton and basic rigging, which I will cross reference with other sources.  I will use the NMM drawings for details.

 

I have decided to build at 1:48 in order to have more play room with details, and use some 3rd party add-ons such as the capstan kit from Syren.   I'm also  looking at the 1:48 18th Century Longboat from Model Shipways as an add on.

 

I have scanned the framework from the MS plans and am in the process of  upscaling from 1:64 to 1:48.  I use Adobe Photo Shop Elements 2020, and it is a simple matter of resizing the scanned images by a factor of 125%.

 

All comments and questions are welcomed..

 

 

 

Edited December 23, 2022 by Gregory

[Oldsalt1950]

I'm pulling up a chair to watch this. Should be quite impressive when completed.

[Dave_E]

Wahoo! I’m anything Rattlesnake and pulling up a chair. 👍😀

[Dr PR]

I saw the line drawings, perspective drawings and sail plan of the Rattlesnake in Chapelle's "The History of American Sailing Ships" back in the 1960s and immediately loved the lines. I started hand copying and enlarging the drawings (before photo copiers, computers and the Internet) and making plans to build it from scratch. Then I saw the Mamoli kit in the local hobby shop and bought it a few decades ago but haven't gotten around to building it yet.

 

I'll follow your build and maybe it will inspire me to start on my kit.

[Gregory]

I have started making saw dust and smoke with my laser.

 

 

Here is the skeleton backbone, as I like to call it, rather than the "false keel", since the false keel is a well defined part of a ship.  I will be adding the false keel later.

This gives a sense of the size compared to the 1:64 kits out there.

 

The frame is 5/32 plywood and I defined the rabbet with a 1/16 square strip.

I used a template to trace out the bearding line.

I use a drum sander on my mini Dremel to rough out the bearding area.  I follow up with sand paper.  Final shaping will be done during planking.

 

To create a built up stem and keel, I traced over the Campbell drawing

....and ended up with this for my design.  It pretty much matches the NMM drawings, but I'm open to any suggestions that would render it more realistic.

I'm thinking the bigger section might have been made of more pieces, but the headworks would hide any additional detail.

NMM lines.

 

 

Anyway, here is a test with some scrap..  I see a couple of tweaks I need to make, but it was a surprisingly good fit for a first burn.

I think I am going to go with cherry for my primary wood.

 

Edited May 16, 2022 by Gregory

[Oldsalt1950]

Nice work Gregory

[allanyed]

It is super to see a build with references from RMG to compare to the modern drawings which appear to be accurate as well.   Looking forward to your future entries.

Allan

[yvesvidal]

Very interesting conversion. Welcome to the 1/48th scale: it is a great scale.

 

Yves

[druxey]

You will need to cut away the 'nose' of the knee of the head to form a seat for the figure.

[Gregory]

Thanks..  I will keep that in mind..

 

I think the Hahn plans show a pretty good fit for the figurehead, and I will be leaning in that direction.

I'm a bit reluctant at this point to remove material until I'm sure .

Edited May 16, 2022 by Gregory

[Gregory]

Today I thought I would talk about my workflow for copying the plans and cutting out parts.

I use an Epson V39 scanner to scan the plans, which does a good enough job for my purposes.  I scan at 600 DPI, which is possibly a bit of overkill,  but gives me some wiggle room for moving between applications and ultimately gives me a finer laser cut, which wouldn't be a problem if were using a vectorized drawing, but that is for a discussion on another day and a different project.

I Use Corel PaintShop to trace the scans, because it has a pen tool I really like .

 

I then use Adobe PhotoShop Elements to create the templates for the laser.  I could probably do all the work in Corel, but I have been using PhotoShop a lot longer, am comfortable with the interface and don't feel like trying to mess with the learning curve at this point.  I only trace 1/2 of the scan, then copy and flip it to get a symmetrical part.  I found the MS drawings to be pretty accurate with some very small but negligible symmetry issues for my purposes.  Plus, only tracing half the template saves some time.

 

The completed template.  The blue outline of the slot is and adjustment to get it to the 5/32 of my stock.  Upsizing from 1:64 to 1:48 made the slot bigger, and had to be adjusted for.

 

I drive my laser with a program called LightBurn.  It is a very powerful laser controller which gives me virtually infinite control over the power output and speed of the laser, which is essential for different materials and thicknesses.  It also traces and vectorizes my images, further reducing any jaggies that may have been part of my drawing.

 

I cut out a cardboard test part to check for fit.

 

Fit at the rabbet is particularly  important. I can make any adjustments before wasting my production material.

That's about it for workflow at this point.  I hope to make some progress on the skeleton this weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

[Gregory]

All of the bulkheads are cut.

 

The dry fit is very tight.  I did a lot of test cuts with the slots and it paid off..    They all slid right in with no forcing and virtually no wiggle.

 

Another angle.  There are some slight adjustments to be made for the rabbet and bearding lines..

 

Here is the skeleton next to the 1:48 NMM drawings.

...and the MS 1:64 plans.

 

I do plan to do some filling between bulkheads.  I will be experimenting to see what it takes to get a fair run of the planking, which I hope to be one layer..

My hat's off to the MS builders who are expected to plank with bass in one layer..

[Dave_E]

Very nice! My hat is off to you guys with the equipment and the knowledge to do what your doing! 👍😀

[Edwardkenway]

Chair pulled up and sitting comfortably. 

 

[Gregory]

1 hour ago, Dave_E said:

Very nice! My hat is off to you guys with the equipment and the knowledge to do what your doing! 👍😀

You should see the size of my scrap pile..😁

[Strelok]

Looking nice.

 

Let me ask you something, I've read some time ago and couldn't really believe about the Rattlesnake: It was said, that her decks were so low, that were mounted under the quarterdeck and forecastle could really not be fired, not to mention to be reloaded. That would have been the reason, the British reduced her armament from 20 to 18 4pdr guns "of the shortest construction". Is this true?

[Gregory]

3 hours ago, Strelok said:

Is this true?

I really don't know..

Harold Hahn says the following in an article about his model:

 

Quote

The Model Shipways plans credit Rattlesnake
with twenty guns. Chapelle says that the ship,
when taken into the British Navy and renamed
Cormorant, was rated for fourteen guns. Another
British source allowed sixteen guns. The
twenty-gun rating undoubtedly resulted from
the fact that there are twenty gunports. After
building the model, I question the usefulness of
the two forward gunports. Although occasional,
limited use for bow chasers might have been
anticipated, the space is just too confining to
permit guns to be handled in the usual way.
Therefore, my installation of ten guns on the
starboard side might well be questioned.

 

[mtaylor]

5 hours ago, Gregory said:

You should see the size of my scrap pile..😁

Well, don't feel bad as I believe everyone who does scratch ends up a nice size pile of kindling wood for the fire place.

[allanyed]

Gregory

Is the knee of the head solid wood or plywood?  The reason I ask is that when  you taper it from the stem to the forward edge, if it is plywood, the laminations will show big time. I'm not sure the amount of taper, but for Rattlesnake, am I correct that it will taper from about 7.5 inches at the stem to about 4 inches at the forward edge of the bobstay?  The following is based on the RMG plan view drawing from the Wiki site.  The knee of the head is added to the RMG plan view drawing.

Allan

 

[Gregory]

 

Thanks for the reminder...  No exposed plywood edges in my world..

 

I will be adding a built up stem and keel..

 

 

This is a test cut from some thin scrap..  I  tentatively plan on using cherry..

 

 

[Gregory]

A tale of two rudders.

 

I cut out some pieces to build the rudder.

Glued it up and did some preliminary finishing while contemplating cutting out the slots for the pintles..  And thought, 'why didn't I do that with the laser?'.

Then came my Uh-Oh moment..  I didn't realize when I traced the parts that the shaded area was part of that section of the rudder, and where the pintles would go.

 

Fallback, regroup and make some new parts..  Should be able to go forward with this

 

( Looking at the picture now, I'm not sure I can live with the fit of those parts.  It may look better on the other side.  I'll have to

think about it. )

 

Ooops.  Just noticed I wrote ' gudgeons ' when I meant pintles.  Fixed.

 

Edited May 31, 2022 by Gregory

[Oldsalt1950]

We all have those moments, Gregory. Some of us more often than others.

[mtaylor]

Looks good but that shaded area is rounded a bit I believe.  Looks like you did in the last pic but thought I bring it up in case it wasn't.

[Gregory]

Yes, thanks Mark. 

I also realized I needed to cut those pintle slots a little deeper..  Version 3 is in the wings.

 

I'm sure the average kit model will never have the details as they should be, and Model Shipways is usually better than most.

 

I have this problem that I cant leave well enough alone..😄

 

 

 

 

[mtaylor]

36 minutes ago, Gregory said:

I have this problem that I cant leave well enough alone..😄

 

Seems to be a common trait among us model builders.

[Gregory]

Another small update.

I cut the stem pieces out of cherry.

 

Cleaned up but not glued up.. Still need to make a seat for the figurehead, but that will come later.

[Gregory]

Doing a lot of prepping & planning in the background, wondering how helpful or informative it might be to include it in the log.

 

Does the MS kit provide any pre-shaped fillers?

I took the plans and made several 1/4" pieces to build up the counter filler.

Glued them up..

 

Did some early finishing off the frame. Have a pretty good match to the plans so far.   Will see how  things fair up as the build progresses.

Edited June 19, 2022 by Gregory

[Dave_E]

My .02… include it all in the build. Your bigger version build log will go a long way to helping me when I start. 👍😀

[Oldsalt1950]

No pre shaped fillers , you have a block of wood you must shape yourself. Your solution looks very good.

[Gregory]

Final version of the stem I plan to go with.

 

I changed the scarf pattern a little compared to the earlier work I posted.  The upper stem was probably constructed of more pieces, but I decided to not

go to any additional work that would be obscured by the cheeks and other head work

  I added a seat for the figurehead.

Just for fun and practice, here is an AYC stem I made.  I'm going to have to base a project on that stuff some day.