USS Constitution by The Bitter End - Model Shipways - 1:76

[The Bitter End]

Thanks to some additional inspiration by @Der Alte Rentner and some research, I finally came up with a design for a thicknesser of sorts. It's mostly from a design stolen from this site with some slight modifications.

 

 

Essentially just a board with a piece of aluminium channel on a pivot point bolted to my drill press. I added a set screw and a tension spring, and the results are surprisingly consistent and neat. It's not quite a Byrnes, but it's a hang of a lot better than doing it by hand.

 

TBE

Edited yesterday at 04:48 AM by The Bitter End

[mtbediz]

Good idea Haiko, glad it worked. I will try it when I need it.

[Der Alte Rentner]

Wow!  Very ingenious. And it looks like it'll work.

[The Bitter End]

Hello Boys and Girls!

 

After a long delay due to the festive season, harvesting and research, I finally have some time for a bit of an update.

 

I have been having some very interesting conversations with the very kind and well-informed, @Marcus.K.and he has inspired me to really go with a model that is as close to the 1797 launch design as possible. This of course brings up a whole array of challenges and questions, but I have found it adds an element to the model that I am really enjoying. I will try to justify my choices as much as possible as I post here. If anyone is interested in further detail, please let me know. Marcus is being as patient and helpful as any human could be, and I look forward to building a model that both of us can be happy with. I welcome any and all input on choices made here, both historical and practical.

 

To the build.

 

Having completed the plankshear I began the bulwark component.

 

I settled quite early on a layout with 20 gun ports on the spar deck, as per the Doughty drawing (Humphrey's). I felt fairly happy with this choice as it matches both the earliest drawings from 1794 and the paintings of Corne from 1803. Looking at the repair record of the 1801 shipyard, there is no mention of moving gun ports, so I am more than happy with this configuration.  I got the gun port and waist spacing by scaling up the doughty drawing and converted the measurements. I can give the exact distances to anyone who happens to care. Initially I also opted for a raised stern bulwark (as reflected in the corne paintings), an open waist and a slightly raised section forward of the waist followed by an open forecastle with just a 2 plank bulwark(+-40cm at full size).

 

I achieved this by first planking the inner bulwark with 4 strakes of 2.8mm pear planking. I ended up needing to have joints in the planks because of the limitations of the material I am using, but I simply made sure that this joint fell on a gun port so would be cut away at a later stage. Once these had been installed, I trimmed back the bulwark extensions. Then realised I had actually put in too many strakes. Removed a strake and roughly sanded the planking back. I then put a thin film of wood filler over the whole area and redid final sanding. I find it is best to do this sanding before bringing the bulwarks to height or length to prevent rounding of the edges.

At this point, I also rounded over the plankshear slightly to create a more natural finish.

 

Next was to add the gun ports as per the doughty measurements. This was done by measuring and marking from the stern forward. This resulted in gun ports landing over bulkhead extensions. To remedy this, I first cut away a narrow slot in the extension so that I could install the horizontal gun port beam at the level of the plankshear while the extension still held the upper portion of the internal bulwark in place. I then added the 2 vertical parts of the gun port opening. Then I did this I only worried about the visible faces of the framing, which also meant in certain cases the bulkhead extensions needed to be trimmed back and faced with pear wood so that only the pear wood would be visible when the gun port was complete. The rest would be hidden by the outer bulwark planking and the thickness would be corrected during faring.

These framing pieces were then fared back so that once the two additional layers of planking were in place, the top of the bulwark would be 5mm thick to match the correct dimensions of the ship (21 inches at deck level and 15 inches at the top of the bulwark.)

 

I then began cutting out the gun ports. I did this by using a jewelers saw to cut a small relief slot down the centre of each gun port and then clipping back the excess until it was almost flush with the gun port frame. Furthermore, I then used a scalpel, sanding stick and files to square everything off.

Next up was installing the 4 lime wood strakes on the outside of the bulkhead extensions. This had to be done as I am double planking this hull, but I actually made a mistake here. This method resulted in a thin strip of lime wood being visible inside the gun ports, but I can live with that. The procedure was the same as above...glue on planks, rough sand, wood fill, final sanding then cutting out the gun ports...

 

I added one additional strake below the bulwark to help with the alignment of the waist capping rail. At this point in my discussions with Marcus, I felt that I needed to make a change to my layout choices. It appears that the vessel probably had lowered bulwarks from the waist forward. I say this for a number of reasons.

 

1. The Gillmer drawing (based on the doughty drawing) shows a low bulwark and rail forward of the waist - From Old Ironsides -the rise, decline, and resurrection  -Thomas Charles Gillmer

2. The doughty drawing (available on the USS constitution museum website) shows a raised section forward of the waist but just a bit lower. That being said he also shows a far lower bulwark in the stern which seems to have been raised in the building in my opinion as the stern bulwark is raised in the corne paintings, but there is no record of the bulwark being raised during the 1801 refit, although it is possible (as Marcus pointed out) that this was simply done at sea without any mention because it is essentially a simple task to clad the railings

3. Tyrone martin is adamant that the bulwark was open forward of the waist and closed in the stern. I cannot imagine that he would have made these very specific changes to the doughty plan without good reason - Mentioned in "Constitution - Close up - Tyrone G. Martin" and "Tyrone G. Martin - A Most Fortunate Ship - A Narrative History of Old Ironsides" and again quoted below in "The Artist, the Historian, and the USS "Constitution" - William Gilkerson, Tyrone G. Martin"

4. The corne painting appears to show an open bulwark forward with hammock netting. "Michele Felice Corné -  1803

This resulted in me cutting back the bulwark once the second planking had been done and ending up with this final layout. I wish I had realised that I preferred this configuration earlier, but there is nothing a little steam can't fix.:

 

The final layer of planking was added, sanded filled and cut back with this as the result.(See next post)

 

TTBE

 

 

Edited yesterday at 04:51 AM by The Bitter End

[The Bitter End]

Continued from post 94: final spar deck bulwark layout sanded and complete.

 

Edited Friday at 07:25 PM by The Bitter End

[The Bitter End]

Two quick posts coming up.

 

This is the approach I went with for the capping rail for the waist. I made it wide enough that it sits flush with the outer planking and thick enough that it is the same height as the plankshear which I cut out and replaced. I don't know that I love the appearance of it, but I had to choose between having the cap not align with the plankshear or having a thick cap. Furthermore, I suspect that the dimensions given for the plankshear on the model shipways plans are a bit too big(I would make it narrower f I started again). I am very much open to suggestions on how to improve this. I can easily remove and redo it.

TBE

Edited yesterday at 04:50 AM by The Bitter End

[The Bitter End]

Last post for today.

 

Originally, I planned to show the model with split and closed gun ports. Research (and Marcus) have told me that the gun deck probably didn't have gun port lids when she was first launched. Or rather had fully removable lids instead of the split lids provided in the kit. This means that if I wish to show her guns (open lids) then I need to do a gun deck of sorts inside. I will probably do a fairly basic deck that only shows the details that will be visible when the model is complete, but we shall see. Regardless, this means that I need to now install a gun deck at this very awkward stage. My solution for this was to glue 5x5mm alignment blocks on the bulkhead deck beams with a small spot of glue so that if I cut the deck beams they could be used as reference points for reinstalling the beams later.

 

 

Once these were glued in, I cut the beams with a Stanley knife blade and cut the vertical support with a dremel.

 

This opened the space for gun deck installation. Unfortunately, when I put my bracing blocks between the bulkheads I hadn't planned to do a gun deck and the work was a bit sloppy, so I butchered out the blocks where they protruded above deck level. Not a pretty result, but they will be hidden under the deck

TBE

Edited yesterday at 04:52 AM by The Bitter End

[Der Alte Rentner]

Hmm,  forcing yourself into a "kit bash" just because you wanted to go for open gun port lids.  That was an interesting decision.  I might have given more weight to "or rather had fully removable lids instead of the split lids provided in the kit", and opted to install closed lids, skipping the gun deck guns all together.   Nice workmanship and attention to detail so far.