USS Constitution by T. Alex - Revell - 1/96 - PLASTIC

[T. Alex]

Hello. This is my third experience with the iconic Revell kit, counting myself as a youngster watching my Dad build his back in '69 - '70. 

I've spent about two years off and on working on it to this point. 

When finished it will be a waterline display, with sails furled at anchor. 

First photos of this build log start at the point where I had the gun deck airbrushed and installed. 

 

[T. Alex]

Adding the Captain's quarters and gun deck cannons.

[T. Alex]

I treated the top deck installation differently than the gun deck. The notorious three piece design wasn't going to work for me so I decided to glue them up and drop it in as one unit after painting. A lot of sanding,filing and dry fitting was done to insure everything would go as smooth as possible. At this point I also dry fitted the mast's to make sure they would be straight and at the right rakes when added. I'm glad I did because they weren't even close. 

[T. Alex]

Painting the hull. All of the painting was done by airbrushing using Vallejo colors. With the exception of the Gallery and billet. 

[T. Alex]

The kit's top deck guns were replaced with the excellent 3d printed carronades from Model Monkey. I regret not fully rigging them now.

Edited December 25, 2022 by T. Alex

[T. Alex]

Pretty much finished up with the top deck. 

[T. Alex]

Adding a little detail to the ship's boat's.

Edited December 23, 2022 by T. Alex

[Kenneth Powell]

Looks great, really good paint job.

 - Kenneth

[T. Alex]

The mast's. I decided to make the jib boom, and upper masts out of basswood as the kit's plastic ones are pretty flimsy.  

Edited December 23, 2022 by T. Alex

[T. Alex]

After insuring that all of the masts fit together well I finally glue in the lowers. 

Edited December 23, 2022 by T. Alex

[T. Alex]

Time for the standing rigging. I decided to not use a lot of the kit's parts for the rigging of the model. Mainly the moulded shrouds, deadeyes. 

I did use the kit's channels by modifying them. The chainplates were horrible however so those were discarded. I copped out and went with the later chain plate design for the sake of sanity. The deadeyes I used are 3.5 mm (probably to big) but I don't think they look to way out of scale.  

[T. Alex]

I apologize for the double upload of some of the pics. I'm not sure what I'm doing to cause it?

[T. Alex]

Rigging the lower and upper shrouds. 

[T. Alex]

Backstays

[T. Alex]

The lower main and fore stays.

I replicated these the best I could from photos I've looked at. I've since added thicker saddle rope.  

[T. Alex]

Mizzen stays.  

[T. Alex]

Bowsprit rigging.

[T. Alex]

All of the standing rigging is done. 

[T. Alex]

The lower and top mast yards test fitted. 

[T. Alex]

On to the upper ratlines. Ugh!

I'm going to hold off on doing the lowers untill a lot of the running rigging is done. I've had to modify my workbench to do the upper ratlines. This is so I can rest my elbows on a surface for steadiness. 

This catches things up to where I'm at on this build presently. 

I apologize for rushing this log up to this point. There was a lot of things done to the kit to fix things that I haven't mentioned. But we're up to speed now. 

 

[T. Alex]

Last year for my birthday my wife surprised me with the Heller 1/100 Victory kit. I guess she wants to just keep me in the workroom forever! Lol. 

I couldn't stand it any longer and had to pull out the hull. The Victory next to Constitution. 

[T. Alex]

2 hours ago, Kenneth Powell said:

Looks great, really good paint job.

 - Kenneth

Thanks Kenneth.

[T. Alex]

Backtracking with some more photos of the build over the last couple of years. 

[T. Alex]

While doing a bit of research I read that there's good argument  Constitution not having hinged gun port lids originally.  Also that the practice was to sail with the guns run out, except in adverse weather. I don't know, but that bit of info was all I needed to make the decision to eliminate the lids. I filled in the moulded notches for them. I also filled in the bridle ports. 

Edited December 24, 2022 by T. Alex

[T. Alex]

On my kit the decks were very poor fitting to the hull. I spent a lot of time trimming, sanding and tweaking the decks before glueing them in. As a result clamps were only needed amid ship. I was happy with that. 

Edited December 24, 2022 by T. Alex

[T. Alex]

How I fixed the poorly fitting masts. The mast's rakes were way off on my kit. I made new "steps" from styrene and glued them over the moulded ones on the gun deck. Then it was a matter of tweaking the holes till I was satisfied with how the masts looked before glueing on the top deck. 

Edited December 25, 2022 by T. Alex

[T. Alex]

A bit of added detail for the kit's charlie noble. 

[T. Alex]

Airbrushing the Model Monkey 3D printed carronades. I used these for all 24 ports. 

[T. Alex]

How I'm modifying the kit's rigging blocks. 

 

[T. Alex]

Uh oh. Wife said captain Hull might have scurvy...lol.