First Class Sloop of War Constellation by Jerry Todd - 1:36 scale - Radio

[mtaylor]

It's great to see you back and on the Constellation again, Jerry.   

[yancovitch]

yea....nice to see some action......always looking forward........vc

[JerryTodd]

I have a blocked fairlead that some epoxy got into.  I put some acetone in it, but I haven't been able to clear it yet.  Mean while I set the sails, and brushed and vacuumed the winter shop dust off.

[yancovitch]

very impressive!!  with a full set of sails.....

Edited March 31, 2019 by yancovitch

[JerryTodd]

Working in fits and starts, as usual, I installed one of 6 pinrails on the bulwark.  This was made from 1/8" aircraft plywood.  I'll have to come back to that.

Then I put on the "iron" deck rings for the pivot guns.  They're made from 1/32nd styrene and CAed to the deck.

The pattern of these rings on Constellation is debatable.  The museum folks say it was just a single circle for each gun, but in tracking them down, I've found no data yet for Constelation and most other ships have something more than a single circle, especially larger vessels.  Since these tracks are often referred to as "gun circles," I think the museum folks interpreted that as a single circle.  I opted to model something a bit more complex along the lines of the diagram in the Navy's 1852 manual: Preparation of Vessels of War for Battle.

Bow circles...

   

Stern circles...

 

Edited April 23, 2019 by JerryTodd

[mtaylor]

Lovely work, Jerry. I ran into the same issue on my build.  One comment that came to me was "pick one as the ship was built in the transitional period".   Reality was they were removed (if I recall correctly) after her first cruise.  I never did find out why, though.

[JerryTodd]

She had the 10 inch pivots when she left Boston in 1859 to post to the Africa Station, but the captain decided she felt top heavy, so they took the guns off and took on more ballast.  No mention of taking off the circles.  She returned from Africa and got the 20 and 30 pound Parrots in place of the shell guns.   I doubt the circles were touched.  She went to the Med in 62 and the pivot guns are mentioned during that trip,   When she returned in 1864, she became a receiving ship in Norfolk and the pivots may have been removed then or her next refit in 1871.  The only spardeck drawing in the National Archives  is from the 1886 refit, and there's no trace of gun circles or any guns on it at all.

Edited April 25, 2019 by JerryTodd

[JerryTodd]

I rented a UHaul trailer to transport the model to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum on Saturday and Baltimore's Maritime Day Port Expo on Sunday.

Visitor turn out wasn't very good at either event despite the great weather.

There wasn't good access to the Miles River for a model like Constellation, but I gave it a go none-the-less...  The wind was all over the place because of the docked boats, and it was tight between the piers, but she sailed.

   

 

At Baltimore it was very windy, so the models just stayed on the tables.

 

 

Edited January 10 by JerryTodd

[yancovitch]

sad.....low visitor turnout.....romance, and respect for the past, has gone out of society....

[Gregory]

3 hours ago, yancovitch said:

sad.....low visitor turnout.....romance, and respect for the past, has gone out of society....

Not to mention no respect for craftsmanship..

[JerryTodd]

I can't say I've done anything for myself in the past year.  Aside from purchasing a 3D printer and making some guns for Macedonian I haven't touched a model since Constellation's sailing in May 19.
When I can find the time (and energy) to focus on it, I'm trying to find and learn some CAD software enough to make files to print; figures, parts, fittings, decorations, etc. 

Some aren't too difficult but some feel like they're beyond my skills.  In the case of Constellation, the items I'd like to 3D print include, stanchions for the pin rails at the base of the masts, new pivot gun carriages with all the details included, binnacles, some 30 figures or so of 1850's sailors, Marines, and officers, fittings for the ships boats, maybe some shells for rigging blocks, and the decorative carvings on the bow.
Using some old free software I used to make WWI aircraft with for an old flight sim/game called Anim8tor, I've been tediously trying my hand at the bow carvings.  It's not going as I hoped which is why I'm trying to find software a bit more capable than this.  Anim8tor is also difficult to get files scaled correctly as it's not really meant for that purpose.

 

Trying to get closer to this... (click the pics to see them in detail)  Obviously, I have a long long way to go.

 

Macedonian's bow, stern, and quarter galleries, by comparison, are covered in carvings, filigree, columns, and the like, so getting the knack of this will go a long way in getting the details for that model moving forward as well.  A big selling point for this, besides getting such detail I'm not able to get otherwise, is the reproducibility of the parts.  These being operating models, there's always a risk of Macedonian's figurehead being knocked off and lost to some Rock Fish while sailing in the Chesapeake, and this way I can simply print another to replace it.

 

If anyone has gone through this process and has some advise to offer, I'd appreciate not having to reinvent the wheel. 

[Jim Lad]

Good to see you're still hanging in there, jerry!

 

John

[JerryTodd]

While the head decorations may elude me for the moment, the pin rail stanchions didn't seem so complicated to do in Anim8or, so after posting the last entry, I gave these a shot...

I output the file to STL format and printed 15 of them (I need 13)

[JerryTodd]

I think it's starting to come back to me...

Anyway, a couple of days into it and I've made a bit of progress.  It's not done yet

 

 

There's a lot of variation in these guns; wooden wheels, irons wheels, 8, 10, 12, and 16 spoke wheels, different style hubs, with and without a bronze rack for limber boxes, and so forth; so mine's got a little of all of them to some degree.  This is the actual gun I'm basing the model on, as it's the best pic of an original I've found. 

[yancovitch]

super...good for you jerry............

[JerryTodd]

A few more details left.  I put some color on it so it can compare to the real one in the prior post.  There's the boat sled to be made yet, and the fittings for the boat where the pivot pins go.

[mtaylor]

Looks like you're approaching the finsh line, Jerry.    I take that the gun(s) you're showing were for landing parties?

[JerryTodd]

Pretty much.  They got as big as 24 pounders, and down to 18 pounder, but launches in the 20-35 foot range carried the 12's.  Still it's a howitzer, and doesn't equate to say a 12pdr Napoleon light artillery piece.  This is meant mainly for lobbing case (shells) in high arc trajectories, almost like a mortar and doesn't have the power of a field piece.

Still, it lives in the bow of the launch with the field carriage in the stern sheets, so it's a visible item on the model and needs to be made.

[mtaylor]

Thanks, I haven't seen one with that metal carriage before and it threw me for a loop.  

[JerryTodd]

I modeled the boat sled and test printing it all find there's more work to do.  I left some details out of the model, for instance, since I was going to print the sled with the barrel attached, I didn't model a hole for the trunnion pin (my name for it).  The test print brought out some issues with printing, such as the elevation screw and wheel spokes not coming out.  Basically it's all about supports and the angle the model's in as it prints, all of which is still rather new to me.

 

 

Some details also need to be exaggerated a bit to show up at this size, like the supports on the ammo-box rail, and the iron plates under the nuts and the barrel supports.

 

 

 

[JerryTodd]

The howitzer's pretty much done, I'm just revisiting some details and fixing some surfaces that were the wrong way out.

I started reworking my model of the 10" shell guns and their slides, correcting some things, fixing more backwards and missing surfaces, and mainly adding details; I want to print these in one piece if possible as they serve as handles for opening the hatches they're attached to.

I also started modeling the boarding steps but don't have anything I care to show yet, these things are oddly elusive, and also hard to find anything about online.

[yancovitch]

cool!!

[JerryTodd]

Continuing to detail the pivot gun 3D model; all that's left is the elevation wedge and associated hardware.

 

The plans used are from the National Archives for a Pivot carriage for a 10" shell gun of 86 CWT for the US steam frigate Mississippi - June 23 1855. drawn in 1/10th scale, scanned and resized to 1:36 scale for Constellation.  (click the pics to see them full size)

[Roger Pellett]

Jerry,

 

Here is a picture of some Civil War era US Navy figures that I painted. Material is lead alloy.  Size is 52mm, a standard military miniature modeling scale, which would be close to your 1:36.  I believe that they were sculpted and cast by a company named Kramer Miniatures.  Although these date from the 1980’s, some recently show up on   EBay.  I recently bought one with the all blue uniform.

 

The second picture is a plan set for the 12 pounder light boat howitzer that was used in launches of Sloops of War.  I bought mine from Dixie Gun Works but suppliers of Civil War reinactment gear also sell them.  At one time they published a plan set for the 12 pounder heavy boat howitzer but it seems to be out of print and I have not found a used copy.

 

BTW, what is the overall length of Constellation’s launch?  I have been trying to read it from the National Archive drawing but can’t make it out.

 

Roger

 

[JerryTodd]

I'm aiming for the ship in 1856, so the crew figures, especially the Marines, will look different than Civil War period figures would.  Think John Brown at Harpers Ferry time frame...

 

 

I'm just gonna have to learn to do 3D model figures.

[JerryTodd]

The 3D model of the pivot gun is complete I think, I'll inspect it again to make sure.  Now to see if I can manage to print it in one piece.

 

[mtaylor]

The 3d views look great, Jerry.  I'll keep my fingers crossed on the printing for you.

[JerryTodd]

Here's the first attempt to print the pivot gun.  I stopped it when I saw the gun had come loose and was becoming a blob.  (I was tempted to let it finish, to see how it would turn out, but that would be a waste of resin.)  There were definite issues with the end corner of the slide and the trucks of the carriage didn't come out at all, while the wrench and other details were perfect.  I went back into the model and tweeked some things; raised some details to print better, made the barrel attach better to the elevation wedge, and some little things I over-looked.

 

Two more tries weren't any better.  Both pulled loose of the supports and basically nothing printed, except the supports, which came out beautifully.

 

That odd shaped layer that looks like a base is the first few layers that are printed and are attached to the build plate that raises out of the resin vat as each layer is printed.  Each layer is printed in what is basically a contour map of the model.  If a part of the model, like say the fingers on a figures hand, start printing unconnected to a previously printed layer, there's nothing attaching them to the build plate to pull them up out of the resin; that's what the supports do, connect these otherwise floating bits, or "islands" to the rest of the model and/or the build plate.

My problem seems to be the supports, and how they connect to the model as it prints, aren't strong enough against the suction of the part in the bottom of the resin vat, and the model separates from the supports as it's lifted, so all I get is supports and no gun.

 

If I can get a handle on this, and get a full print, I can tell from that partial first try, it'll be a beauty of a model pivot gun.

 

Here's the model in the software that the supports are added in, and that slices it into the layers that are printed.  It's angle like that so it will fit into the space the printer has available, and the bottom of the pic is the end attached to the build plate, so it essentially prints upside down, mainly so liquid resin can escape from the bore of the gun.

[JerryTodd]

Too tired from the checker-board pattern at work this week (off,  on, off, on, etc) to clean up the last failed print and try again, I opted to make another 3D model, the anchors.  Well, 1 model, but the ship gets 4 of them.  The shackles I'll make from brass.

[JerryTodd]

After making the anchor I went on to make the boarding steps which will be about 2cm wide

 

 

With that success, I set up to print an anchor overnight...

 

That didn't turn out so well.  Again, the supports didn't hold and in pulling loose, the fluke end of the anchor didn't print right.

 

I'll get this support thing sorted eventually.