Constellation 1856 by JerryTodd - 1:36 scale - RADIO - First Class Sloop of War

[JerryTodd]

The resolution is high enough to get a good finish, but since it prints in layers there's going to be some lines and that butterfly wing texture.
It's as much or more dependent on the 3D model.  The gun tube I made from a 64-sided cylinder then applied a "smooth" feature to it after getting the general shape, which made it 192 sided, I think.  More smaller smaller polygons looks smoother than fewer bigger ones.  The trucks are 32-sided, and you can see the facets on them. 

My models are mostly "low-poly" because it's a habit I got into making 3D models for a flight sim back in the early 90's when too many polygons would stop the sim dead in it's tracks.  It's akin to my programming from back then too when a 30 meg hard drive cast $700.

The pivot gun on the left is the "low-poly" tube I made years before I ever 3D printed anything.  The one on the right got a higher-poly tube which is much better visually.

 

These are 1:36 scale.  Scaling them down to say 1:48 or 1:76 might reduce the visibility of faceting on something like the trucks, but you'd still see it on the gun barrel.  Resin printing is very faithful to the 3D model that way.  

[JerryTodd]

I keep searching for photos or drawings of the Mendota's 9" pivot gun with no luck, so moved on to make the 24 pdr howitzers the Lane is said to have, and printed them at 1:96 scale.

 

On the pivot gun, I had to conjecture the unvisible bits to finish the model.  I then printed it at 1:96 scale.

None of that has anything to do with my list of Constellation's guns, but I'm getting to that.

Having the data at hand, and able to take some parts already made for other 3D models, like re-scaling the 10 inch shell-gun; I made Constellation's 8 inch shell-gun of 63cwt on a Naval truck carriage inside of a day.

It's not quite finished yet, but here's the model, and with the 10 inch pivot gun.

 

With that gun about to check off the list, I started looking for data on Parrott rifles.  The Lane and my list needs a 30 pounder on a pivot, and I also need a 20 pounder for the list.

Again, finding usable data was difficult.  I found a drawing for the 30, and then another so much like it I thought it was the same gun, till my eye caught one of them was missing a muzzle flair, and so was a drawing of the 20 pounder.

The version for the Lane will go on the "standard" chassis the IX Dahlgen pivot used, with a modified Naval truck carriage, because I can't find plan nor picture of a smallish Parrott pivot mount.
The versions for my list will probably get the same.  When I visited the ship years ago, they showed me drawings from the Archives of a wooden pivot mount for a 20/30 pounder Parrot, but claimed the ship got iron mounts.

They never said what source they got that from, and several other things they told me turned out to be wrong, so I going with the wooden mount.

The STL files for the Howitzer and IX Pivot are posted on Thingiverse, for those so inclined.  The 8 inch gun will join them as soon as it's finished.

[mtaylor]

Nice work, Jerry.  3D printing is beyond me but you seemed to have mastered it.  

[JerryTodd]

 

The 32 pdr gun has been next to done for a while, but the cascable needed to be modeled for it to be finished, so it's done at last.

There seems to have been a standard slide-chassis for nearly every Civil War period Naval pivot gun, and since making one for the 9" Dahlgren, a big part of the of the guns to follow is done as well.

 

IX Dahlgren on a pivot mount on shore and painted gray all over
I have an 11" Dahlgren on my list, but it's on an pivot iron carriage, according to a drawing showing how, in the 1870's, a gun port on either side was opened to 10' for the 11" Dahlgren and a 100pdr Parrot.

I made the tube for the 11" Dahlgren, and the slide for the 9", so I went ahead and made the wood carriage for the 11" for the heck of it.

Then it was back to the Parrotts

I was near completing the 100 and 150 pounders when someone sent me a chart of measurements, that included things like the trunnions.  I had been using photos only for these guns proportions.  I reworked the breaches on all the Parrotts and modeled the cascables.

100pdr or 8 inch Parrot

150pounder or 10 inch Parrott.  This one's for someone modeling the Susquehanna which carried two of them.

Here's the 150 Parrot with the XI Dahlgren for comparison

The Parrotts were narrower guns, generally, and had smaller diameter trunnions then the Dahlgrens.  This seems to have been compensated for with the full-cover cap-squares like this 30pounder on a Marsilly carriage has...

Years ago, the Constellation folks showed me a drawing from the Archives of a pivot carriage for the 20 & 30pdr Parrotts the ship carried during the Civil War.  I never got a copy myself, figuring I didn't need them.  Now I can't find them.  Now I do, and can't find them, nor can I find any drawings or photos on a 20 or 30pdr Parrot on a pivot mount

I conjectured this up for the 30pdr...

Just today, someone asked if I planned on doing other guns with a wink for a 7" Blakley Rifle and the 10" Columbiad.

I guess this little side project isn't just about Constellation's guns any more and I should snip this out into it's own thread/log?

 

[JerryTodd]

Digging around the hard-drive, I found photos I took of the aforementioned drawings of a 30pdr Parrott on a pivot carriage.

Not the best photos of a st of plans, but I took them for interest, not figuring I'd need to use them.

I immediately rebuilt my model, though there's still some work to be done.

Here's the 30 alongside the 150

[Jsk]

Jerry,

 

First off, Hi! Took me awhile to make the association but you and I used to fly together in RB3D when I went by the nom de guerre Kugelfang. There's a trip down nostalgia road!

 

If you don't already have it Warren Ripley's 'Artillery and Ammunition of The Civil  War' needs to be in your library. I see a couple copies on ABE books. On page 218 there is a photograph of Mendota's 9" on a pivot carriage. Just below that is a line drawing of what appears to be the same carriage. There's an appendix of statistics covering a lot of carriages but I don't see Navy carriages specifically identified there.

 

Sadly, my scanner is kaput, but I could take a photo of the Mendota photo if it would be helpful.

 

--jeff

[JerryTodd]

I got a copy of the book, and that drawing below the Mendota/Miami photo on page 218 is from the Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy and is the carriage and slide designed for the XI Dahlgren.

I put all those images on one page, plus my interpretation of the IX carriage

The other carriage shown in any detail is the "Traversing carriage" for Columbiads.

The only other pivot carriage in shown OIUSN is a top-down view of the Traversing Carriage in the diagrams for the positions of gunners for an 8" pivot gun, bow and stern.

As for my Guns of Constellation project, the IX pivot isn't on the list, and though the XI is, it's on an iron carriage, which I'm assuming will be this sort of thing...

Here's a resized and cropped version of the best resolution image of the Mendota photo I've found.

Edited March 13 by JerryTodd

[Jsk]

Wow, the Mendota photo is great at high resolution. Details that strike me is that the gun carriage appears unpainted, natural wood and how bright the metal work is. I also notice that the inside of the vent appears unpainted. (Only model builders and war gamers notice these types of things!)

[JerryTodd]

The "Mendota" image is actually probably on the Miami as the Mendota mounted a 100# Parrot and did not have a IX Dahlgren pivot forward.  (In the good photos of the 100# Parrott you can see "Mendota" on the sailor's hat bands.)  Things being misidentified isn't unusual, Constellation's been miss-IDed as a frigate for decades 

The Navy had taken to painting everything black in the 1850's; hatch combings; waterways; fixtures, like scuttles and vents; and gun carriages.  In my sailing days things were generally painted white so you can see them at night, like white circles around deck-pads and eye-bolts;  So I found this blackness thing a bit odd.  Oak also doesn't take paint well, and in the most detailed images, carriages don't look painted; there's no chips, peeling, runs, globs in checks or seams, etc

This colorized image of the "Powder Monkey" on the New Hampshire is the best colorization of this particular image I know.  If you look closely at the carriage, there's no evidence of paint on the wood anywhere and the color's probably pretty close to how it actually appeared.

In fact, the carriage looks just like the unpainted oak on these items on Pride of Baltimore, water casks and gun carriages.  note the sloppy paint job on the barrel bands.

 

Edited March 15 by JerryTodd

[JerryTodd]

I started a "build log" just for this Naval Gun project, here as well as on my website, mainly to not clutter Constellation's log with all this non-pertinent gun stuff.

But one gun I'm working on brings me back here, as it may mean a change to the Constellation model.

 

I'm modeling a 10 inch Dahlgren on a pivot carriage and it got me thinking about Constellation's "10 inch guns on pivot carriages."

The Mississippi plan, dated June 23 1855 shows a 10" gun of 86cwt (8600 pounds).  The ship's restoration folks presume that Constellation got the same thing because they looked for a 10" pivot gun at the Archives, and that's the plan they found.

Constellation was launched on August 26 1854, and commissioned on July 28 1855.

Dahlgren's drawing, on-the-other-hand, is from July 31 1850, 5 years prior, and refers to the pivot gun simply as a "10 inch gun on pivot carriage."

Without any documentation stating exactly which 10 inch pivot gun the ship was issued, how do I know?

Furthermore, a 10 inch Dahlgren tube weighed 12,000 pounds, 3,400 pounds more than the Mississippi gun.  When the ship was leaving for the African Station on July 15 1859, her captain felt the pivot guns were too heavy, too high, and made the ship "crank," so had them taken off.  I can't help but think that would be a concern regarding a pair of 12,000 pound guns compared to a pair of 8,600 pound guns.

I'm trying to find out where any records regarding what guns were issued to what ships would be, and if I can access them, but at the moment, I'm personally leaning toward replacing Constellation's pivot guns with 10 inch Dahlgren pivots.

Here's the 3D models of the 10 inch Dahlgren (still a WIP), the Mississippi gun, and both together.

 

Edited March 30 by JerryTodd
apparently I can't type to save my life

[JerryTodd]

I finished the 10 inch Dahlgren.  I didn't model the gun's breech as it was in Dahlgrens drawing.  It looked like he left the breech of the Columbiad from the Traverse Carriage drawing and made the rest of it look like his 10" gun.  I know Rodman guns were made with that sort of breech, but I can't find drawings of a Dahlgren like that.  Dahlgren's patent drawings don't show that sort of breech either.

The slide, while just like the one in the Mississippi plan, is shorter and wider; this will mean reworking the deck tracks on Constellation; but It also means it'll fits the space better, with more room for moving the gun about, as well as fitting on my hatches better.

The print came out great except for one wheel on the back-left of the slide.  I can replace that, and fix the pallet around it easily enough, so it's not a "failed print."

 

The second gun printed better, it didn't lose any wheels

Edited April 1 by JerryTodd

[JerryTodd]

The slides for the new guns are shorter than what was on the model, so new tracks had to be modeled, printed, and reprinted a little.

The old tracks had to be removed and the scars sanded off the deck.  Then the finish reapplied.  Meantime the guns and tracks were primed.

[BANYAN]

Nice work Jerry, looks great.  I like the printed 'races'/tracks.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[JerryTodd]

It's all just sitting there, nothing's glued down yet, until it's actually painted.  A pic with, and without flash.  I need to watch those white-balance videos someone posted here at MSW.

[JerryTodd]

April 8th: The new pivot gun tracks were primed, painted, glued down (had to order a bottle of CA), painted some more.  The guns barrels are painted, detailed, and clear-coated (no pic of that yet).  The carriages are primed, but not painted yet.  They'll be painted olive like the previous set of gun carriages.

The new field carriage for the boat-howitzer also got painted, and after some clear-coat, will go to it's home in the stern-sheets of the launch.

(sorry for the poor images)

[JerryTodd]

It's gotten too cold to pick up where I left off on Pride of Baltimore back in June, or even hang-out in the unheated shop for more than a few minutes; so I worked on 3D models for an item that's kind-of holding up starting on Constellation's rigging - pin-rails.

 

Here' the first attempt at the aft-most rails, which printed pretty fairly, though the left end of the upper one, and one of it's pins didn't do so well.
While that's repairable, when I modeled it, I forgot the bulwark it attaches to leans inboard a bit and forgot to model that angle on the back surface. Sanding that angle in would make the rail too narrow, so I'm fixing the 3D model and will reprint it.

The rails will be pinned to the bulwark where the wood blocks are inside it.
This pic shows how the bulwarks are constructed, as well as that inboard lean I mentioned.

[JerryTodd]

Half-an-hour-ish, and I've fFixed the pin-rail model to have the proper angle back-side, and set it to printing.

Five hours and some change later it came out perfectly.  See the angle?  Well there it is siting somewhere near where it will live.

While that was printing I started making the midships pin-rail; the one closest in this screen capture.

In this picture from the 1890's, I originally though there was a caval at the aft end, but it actually appears to be a pair of meat tenderizers.

This wasn't going to fit in the printer, even at an angle, so I made each side in two parts, and angled them (not to fit, but make them more likely to print properly)

As I type here, this one is on the printer with about 4 hours to go

Keeping with that workflow I should be making the forward pin-rails while the others print, but it's almost 3am, so, later...

[JerryTodd]

The midships pin-rail printed perfecly, and awaited the gloms of primer, paint, and clear-coat that will protect from UV while sailing in the Chesapeake Bay.  The forward pin-rails are on the printer as I type this...

And here's the forward pin-rail

Edited December 10 by JerryTodd

[JerryTodd]

The best image of the bow pin-rails is one from 1926 when the ship was in Newport Rhode Island

These were modeled the same for each side, but the angle on the back was reversed because the bulwark leans outboard here.

And her they sit where they eventually get installed

[JerryTodd]

While looking for other possible pin-rails to make, noticed the aft pin-rails also had one of those big mallet pins, and also had more pins closer together than I had modeled.

Follow the red arrow in this portion of an 1890s photo

So, I fixed the 3D model and printed it, again