USS Constitution by mtbediz - 1:76

[Thukydides]

Fantastic work Mustafa. She is really coming together now.

[Der Alte Rentner]

I had a thought about your spar deck planking.  Since you want to show off the gun decks, but still need some sort of surface, on parts of the spar deck, for other stuff, why not use plexiglass or acrylic in place of wood planks for those areas?  Put some decorative lighting in between decks, and that ship would ROCK!

[woodartist]

this is absolutely beautiful.

[JSGerson]

You have set the standards!

 

Jon

[mtbediz]

12 hours ago, Der Alte Rentner said:

I had a thought about your spar deck planking.  Since you want to show off the gun decks, but still need some sort of surface, on parts of the spar deck, for other stuff, why not use plexiglass or acrylic in place of wood planks for those areas?  Put some decorative lighting in between decks, and that ship would ROCK!

Thank you Peter. I really like the idea of a transparent plexiglass/acrylic deck. I never thought about doing this because I had never heard or seen it before, but I loved the idea. Later on another model I will use this idea, it would be really interesting.

Edited Wednesday at 03:54 AM by mtbediz

[mtbediz]

Dear friends, thank you all so much for the encouraging comments.

[Unegawahya]

Using the plexiglass for the spar deck sounds like I great way to show off all the work you put into your wonderful gun deck! My question is, would you cut it into planks and plank it like a normal deck just clear. Or would you try to make it in just one peace. 
I was also thinking of the admiralty models where they leave sections of the deck with no fittings open. You could use the plexiglass there instead of leaving it open and that may reduce some of the dust falling into the gun deck. It would also give a good surface for the fittings and guns to rest on.

[mtbediz]

14 hours ago, Unegawahya said:

Using the plexiglass for the spar deck sounds like I great way to show off all the work you put into your wonderful gun deck! My question is, would you cut it into planks and plank it like a normal deck just clear. Or would you try to make it in just one peace. 
I was also thinking of the admiralty models where they leave sections of the deck with no fittings open. You could use the plexiglass there instead of leaving it open and that may reduce some of the dust falling into the gun deck. It would also give a good surface for the fittings and guns to rest on.

I've never worked with plexiglass. I had dreamed of cutting the deck as a whole from plexiglass. Of course, cutting it into strips and gluing them can also be considered. But since the plexiglass is transparent, I do not know whether the adhesive layer to be applied will cause a bad appearance. I think that if we cut and glue the deck as a whole, we can more easily camouflage the stains that will arise from the glue.

Edited Wednesday at 07:05 PM by mtbediz

[GGibson]

58 minutes ago, mtbediz said:

I've never worked with plexiglass. I had dreamed of cutting the deck as a whole from plexiglass. Of course, cutting it into strips and gluing them can also be considered. But since the plexiglass is transparent, I do not know whether the adhesive layer to be applied will cause a bad appearance. I think that if we cut and glue the deck as a whole, we can more easily camouflage the stains that will arise from the glue.

 

When this discussion of using plexiglass for the spar deck planking was raised as an idea, I thought it had some merit, but I, too, was curious whether one would cut it as one full sheet or as individual planks.  And, as Mustafa questioned, as well, if cut as individual planks, how would they be secured and would any visible adhesive (once dried) have any effect on the appearance?  How would that also affect any faux-caulking applications between planks and its appearance? Very cool idea, but not sure it's ever been done for deck planking before.  Doing a search for plexiglass on MSW, and you get 19 pages of posts regarding display cases, but none of the posts deal with deck planking.  But, visualizing how it would look, I have to admit I'm intrigued.

[Der Alte Rentner]

If the intent is to be able to view Mustafa's masterful craftsmanship on the gun deck from above, a single sheet of plexiglass or acrylic, or possibly multiple smaller panels (call them windows?) would seem to adequately suffice.

 

It makes no sense, in my view, to try to make plexiglass strakes.  There's absolutely no way that that could be made to look good. And it would most likely simply muddy the "window pane". 

 

I say, go for one large panel or several small strategically placed windows.

 

Edited Wednesday at 08:40 PM by Der Alte Rentner
Typo

[mtbediz]

It is time to prepare the carronades that will be placed at the aft of the ship. I painted and varnished the carronades. I cut the capsquares from brass sheet, shaped them with the help of a simple tool I made, drilled the necessary holes and blackened them. The next job will be to secure the carronades to the carriages.

 

When everything is put together it will look like in the last photo.

 

I produce the breeching ropes myself with my homemade ropewalk.

Edited 5 hours ago by mtbediz