USS Constitution by mtbediz - 1:76

[mtbediz]

8 minutes ago, Dr PR said:

Mustafa,

 

I thought your Pickle was an excellent build, but this one is a tour de force!

Thank you Phil. Pickle was a great rest stop for me after Essex.

[Der Alte Rentner]

On 2/3/2025 at 1:15 PM, mtbediz said:

I made the double eyebolts for the gun tackles out of 0.5 mm brass wire,blackened and installed them to the bulwarks.

I assume you used a 1 mm drill for mounting these double eye bolts into the bulwarks?

 

Edited March 10 by Der Alte Rentner

[mtbediz]

3 hours ago, Der Alte Rentner said:

I assume you used a 1 mm drill for mounting these double eye bolts into the bulwarks?

 

Yes Peter, I exactly drilled them with a 1 mm diameter drill bit.

[mtbediz]

All fife rails are complete. At this stage I decided to make the canopies. While making the canopies I will solder the connection points. I will not be able to make the cube shaped elements in the connection points on the real ship in this scale. The canopy in the photo is a prototype I made to design how to do the job. I will not use it. Now I am working on a jig that will do this job properly.

[Der Alte Rentner]

Ah!  The dreaded canopies..  Looking forward to seeing the final product.  I assume you'll be filing away excess solder and then painting them brass?

[mtbediz]

3 hours ago, Der Alte Rentner said:

I assume you'll be filing away excess solder and then painting them brass?

Yes Peter, that's the plan.

[JSGerson]

As we have all learned, there is no easy way to make the canopies due to the fragility of the brass rods to hold their shape and all the required connection points. For me, the hardest point was figuring out how to handle the center hub. If you stack the rods as they cross each other, the structure becomes distorted. If fabricating a center hub where the rods meet at the same level, a jig must be designed so that the multi-joint can be soldered, glued, or mechanically connected in such a way that it is aesthetically appealing as well as strong enough to survive the installation process. This requires patience, tenacity, ingenuity, and it helps if you are a bit eccentric. Builders like xKen (Ken Forman) have the skills to solder and manipulate brass pieces. I came up with a mechanical method which seems to be working for me. It’s a bit out of scale, but it works. It looks like your method will work for you. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

 

Jon

[mtbediz]

On 3/12/2025 at 5:32 PM, JSGerson said:

As we have all learned, there is no easy way to make the canopies due to the fragility of the brass rods to hold their shape and all the required connection points. For me, the hardest point was figuring out how to handle the center hub. If you stack the rods as they cross each other, the structure becomes distorted. If fabricating a center hub where the rods meet at the same level, a jig must be designed so that the multi-joint can be soldered, glued, or mechanically connected in such a way that it is aesthetically appealing as well as strong enough to survive the installation process. This requires patience, tenacity, ingenuity, and it helps if you are a bit eccentric. Builders like xKen (Ken Forman) have the skills to solder and manipulate brass pieces. I came up with a mechanical method which seems to be working for me. It’s a bit out of scale, but it works. It looks like your method will work for you. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

 

Jon

I admire Xken's metalwork, but there's no way I'll ever reach that level. I didn't try to join the rods together by making a central hub, I concentrated on joining them together by soldering neatly in the centre. Because I couldn't convince myself that I could make such a hub to scale. After a few unsuccessful attempts I found a method that gave me a satisfactory result. As can be seen in the photos I fixed the 0,7 mm diameter rods on a flat surface and soldered them all together in the centre. Here only the diagonal rods are in single piece, the other four are separate pieces. I then bent the rods using a jig and fixed it to a jig to solder the horizontal rods. I find the result satisfactory but the excess solders still need to be filed down.

Edited Friday at 03:36 AM by mtbediz

[mtbediz]

I completed two of the canopies. 

[Der Alte Rentner]

While zooming in really closely to examine the junctions of the canopies, I took another look at your carronades and noticed the unrigged pair of eyebolts.

I'm happy to see the example and fully intend to follow in your footstep, when I get that far.  

[mtbediz]

3 hours ago, Der Alte Rentner said:

While zooming in really closely to examine the junctions of the canopies, I took another look at your carronades and noticed the unrigged pair of eyebolts.

I'm happy to see the example and fully intend to follow in your footstep, when I get that far.  

If you mean the eyebolts on the gun beds, then yes, I won't be adding tackless to them. Because I added a tackle to a carronade to try it out and I didn't like the look because it looked too crowded. After all, the model is ours, we can do whatever we want.

Edited Sunday at 03:20 AM by mtbediz

[Der Alte Rentner]

This morning I spent a solid hour trying to fabricate a single double eye bolt. I'm ready to start considering using two single eyeballs and just shoving them into a 1 mm hole.

 

I know you've shown the pictures of the finished product above, but can you tell me what tools you used to make your double eye bolts?

[mtbediz]

15 hours ago, Der Alte Rentner said:

This morning I spent a solid hour trying to fabricate a single double eye bolt. I'm ready to start considering using two single eyeballs and just shoving them into a 1 mm hole.

 

I know you've shown the pictures of the finished product above, but can you tell me what tools you used to make your double eye bolts?

Hi Peter, I used a round nose pliers, needle-nose pliers and side cutter. I will tell you how I made the double eye bolts with photos tomorrow morning. It's not so difficult.

Edited yesterday at 06:30 AM by mtbediz

[mtbediz]

All the canopies are complete. I will paint them.
 

[GGibson]

Awesome work on these canopies, Mustafa!  Very interesting and ingenious how you made and used the jigs to shape the rods.  I apologize if you stated previously, but what size of brass rods did you use for these canopies?  I currently have a supply of 0.51mm, 0.81mm and 1mm brass rods that could be used... once I get to this point in 6-7 years! Hahaha...  Great details, sir! 

[mtbediz]

5 hours ago, GGibson said:

Awesome work on these canopies, Mustafa!  Very interesting and ingenious how you made and used the jigs to shape the rods.  I apologize if you stated previously, but what size of brass rods did you use for these canopies?  I currently have a supply of 0.51mm, 0.81mm and 1mm brass rods that could be used... once I get to this point in 6-7 years! Hahaha...  Great details, sir! 

Hi Greg, I used 0,7 mm brass wire. 

[mtbediz]

I began fabricating the ship's wheel. I started with the fellies Photos tell everything

Edited 17 hours ago by mtbediz

[Der Alte Rentner]

The tool you used in the second photo, is that a hole saw?

[mtbediz]

11 minutes ago, Der Alte Rentner said:

The tool you used in the second photo, is that a hole saw?

Nope, that's just sandpaper attached to a round stick with double-sided tape.

[JSGerson]

As usual, you blew right past me with the canopy frames. I am not a soldering wiz. I thought about using solder, but I have never done anything that complicated with it. You seemed to have figured it out.  You didn't fabricate the frame's central ornament so that simplifies things. I'm still playing footsie's with my glued joints. Until the whole structure is assembled, one wrong move and I break a glued joint and it's one step forward and two back. This slows down my normal slow pace even further, but I'll persevere.

 

Now that you are starting the ship's wheel, are you following anyone's method or are you "reinventing the wheel"😁? Sorry, I couldn't resist that quip. I don't know if you have any plan's for the wheel, so I have attached the US Navy plans for your convenience should you want to refer to them.

 

Jon

[mtbediz]

4 hours ago, JSGerson said:

I'm still playing footsie's with my glued joints. Until the whole structure is assembled, one wrong move and I break a glued joint and it's one step forward and two back

 I didn't want to go down that path because I foresaw that this would happen to me I chose a path that I felt safe in. Also, I wasn't an expert in soldering, but I learned quickly while doing it. Thanks for the steering wheel plans Jon, they will come in handy.

[GGibson]

Watching and (hopefully) learning from the challenges and successes that each of you gentlemen have faced in your individual builds has truly been instructional and inspirational.  You all will still be hanging around here in the next five or so years (plus or minus) to be entertained by my Constitution challenges, right?!? 🤷‍♂️🤔🤣

[Der Alte Rentner]

6 hours ago, mtbediz said:

Nope, that's just sandpaper attached to a round stick with double-sided tape.

Makes sense, if you didn't have a hole saw or forstner bit in the diameter of the inside circle. 

 

Since you're already done, I won't bother digging out the photos of the process I used to create a perfectly round base for my poker chip tray using (you guessed it) a fixture and drum sander.  

 

It's always interesting to see how people come up with different solutions for the same problem.  Kudos to your skill in obtaining a perfectly round wheel with the disk sander.