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 January 4 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 January 4 by The Bitter End

[The Bitter End]

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

 

Edited January 3 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 January 4 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 January 4 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.   

 

 

[The Bitter End]

On 1/4/2025 at 10:15 PM, Der Alte Rentner said:

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.   

 

 

I know 😂 It is crazy. My thinking is that the kit is so bashed so far that it might as well be a scratch build anyway(I actually regret not just cutting the bulkheads and false keel myself, they are the only parts I have made use of from the kit. A little extra bashing shouldnt hurt. Also I did consider doing as you said and showing her with her gun ports closed but I felt it would have taken away from the feeling of her as a fighting ship and taken away from another little piece of information about her(her armament when she was launched). I am sure I will live to regret this as I now have to somehow make or buy her cannon but we will see what happens.

 

Haiko

[Der Alte Rentner]

19 hours ago, The Bitter End said:

I am sure I will live to regret this as I now have to somehow make or buy her cannon but we will see what happens.

Funny you should say that.  You should look at the discussion on cannons at Musafa's (mtbediz) build.  You'll need to buy replacements for the half barrels that came with the kit.  Furthermore, you probably won't like the carronades that came with the kit either.  At present the Syren Ship Model Company's (https://syrenshipmodelcompany.com/) cannon store is closed.  But I'm pretty sure that by the time you're ready to build the gun carriages, the site will be back in business.  Or you could see if Mustafa's friend will make some for you..😁

 

Do you have a lathe?

 

 

[The Bitter End]

On 1/8/2025 at 3:00 AM, Der Alte Rentner said:

Funny you should say that.  You should look at the discussion on cannons at Musafa's (mtbediz) build.  You'll need to buy replacements for the half barrels that came with the kit.  Furthermore, you probably won't like the carronades that came with the kit either.  At present the Syren Ship Model Company's (https://syrenshipmodelcompany.com/) cannon store is closed.  But I'm pretty sure that by the time you're ready to build the gun carriages, the site will be back in business.  Or you could see if Mustafa's friend will make some for you..😁

 

Do you have a lathe?

 

 

I believe you are right on all of the above. I am going to look into a number of options for accurate cannon. Marcus has given me dimensions for some of the cannon, and I am going to try to turn them on my lathe. I don't know how well this is going to go, my lathe options are a tiny, somewhat underpowered unimat3 and a Colchester with a 2-meter bed and a chuck that weighs more than 1000 of these canon will. so Neither is idea..

 

Thank you very much for the tip on Mustafa friend and syren, I will contact both.

 

[JSGerson]

I have the US Navy gun & carriage plans for the Conny should you want them. I have already submitted them to other builders as well.

 

Jon

[The Bitter End]

1 hour ago, JSGerson said:

I have the US Navy gun & carriage plans for the Conny should you want them. I have already submitted them to other builders as well.

 

Jon

Absolutely! that would be a great help, thank you

[JSGerson]

[The Bitter End]

On 1/9/2025 at 8:26 PM, JSGerson said:

Thank you Jon, these are great!

[The Bitter End]

Hello All,

 

I haven't achieved a huge amount due to work pressure, but I wanted to give a little update so that I don't fall too far behind again.

 

 

As said before I decided to put in the gun deck so that I could show the vessel with guns visible and no port lids to try and remain true to her launch configuration.

 

I began by measuring the distances between bulkheads and then again between bulkhead extensions and plotting them in Excel and on paper. The Excel was somewhat impractical because printing at the exact correct scale was almost impossible. I then reverted to the paper plan which I did in 2 pieces and taped together once they had been checked in place on the gun deck.

I did do a small amount of faring of the internal bulkhead extensions, but this was pretty basic work as they will not be visible once the spar deck is in place.

 

I then fitted this on the bulkheads to ensure that the plan was close enough to be acceptable under the circumstances.

 

This plan was then taped to a sheet of 0.5mm plywood which was cut to size and checked for fit..

 

Once this had been checked I started the layout by marking the center line and then checking the location of the kit positions for the masts against the Waldo deck plans from 1819 as shown below. I found them to be close enough that moving them seemed to be unnecessary. It appears that the model shipways plan was perhaps based directly on this Waldo deck plans or rather the deck plan is close enough to the current state that it fits well.

 I used this layout as the plan for the hatch locations and initially marked only the hatches which I thought would be visible from above, but I think I will ultimately put all the hatches and fittings on the deck in case they can be seen from some strange angle. IN addition, I marked out the beam locations more or less as per the Waldo plans which some minor adjustments. The final marks made were the slightly curved line marking the inner edge of the inner set of joggled thick strakes. As per Joshua Humphrey's document on dimensions and sizes of materials for building a frigate of 44 guns drafted in 1794. This essentially meant that the lines were marked immediately next to the widest of the hatchways and then gradually curved toward the centreline at the bow and stern. It is hard to see the pencil line, but I assure you it is there. The run of the next strakes will be laid out once these are done

 

The matter of the dimensions of these thicker joggled strakes is one that has lead to a huge amount of head scratching. As in the text above the instruction is to use a plank not thinner than 10 inches and that is about all we have for instructions. This in itself causes issues, but I am assuming he means not thinner than 10 inches at the narrowest point.

A second issue is how long were these strakes. Tyron G. Martin (mentioned in previous posts) says that the "C" of the strakes was 40ft long in one of his versions of "Close up". Neither MarcusK (who has been a bottomless pit of knowledge) nor myself can figure out where he got this information from. A 40ft "C" would result in a plank 80 foot long. Research into the white oak trees that were used for this piece of timber tells me that it is theoretically possible as the tallest white oak recorded reached some 200ft. That being said I do have some concerns about finding 16 runs of flawless timber of this size and then the additional consideration of both transport and installation as well as future repairs with a spar deck above.

The final consideration on these strakes is how many "C"s per plank. Martin's comments make it obvious that only a single "C" per plank is possible and by making use of a single "C" construction would be far easier. I cannot really find much more on the subject, but I can point to a photo of a modern repair in progress which shows multiple notches on this strake (it obviously has limited value but seems worth sharing.)

Taking all this into consideration I opted to go with planks with a single "C" that would scale up to a total length of +-40ft. This was mostly because I really struggled to find straight runs of pear trees longer than 32cm as the trees I'm using were grown for fruit so they are heavily branched from very low on the trunk. I also decided to make the narrowest part of the plank scale to 10 inches. this left me with a plank of 158mm in length with a +-79mm "C" notch and +-39mm shoulder. The planks are 4.25mm at their widest point and 3.4mm at their narrowest part. I made a set of 16 of standard dimensions shown below. These will be tidied u and straightened as they are fitted. Please excuse the burn marks, the table saw blade clearly needs a clean. the remaining 16 will be cut to fit into these once they are in place.

That's all for now.

Be good

 

TBE

[Marcus.K.]

Why did I miss this? Excellent work. Looking forward to see them on deck!

[The Bitter End]

Hi Everyone

 

This post comes with a disclaimer....please don't judge too hard. What you are seeing is very much a work in progress. These thicker strakes still need to be sanded back to show only a nice neat caulking line and no saw marks as well as some shaping on the sides of the curve to correct the end and get everything to fit well. this will be done just before and after the remainder of the planking goes in.  This should produce a perfectly flat deck with neat even caulking.

I have also noticed a lot of colour variation because of the trees I am using for planks, so I am open to suggestions on a staining method which will make a nice even deck without hiding the wood.

A final point is that these thicker 2 plank strakes do look very wide. They are however exactly to the original spec mentioned. with a minimum width of 10 inches at full size. 

 

I began by cutting a suitable sized board of chipboard counter top from an old project which would produce a flat and sturdy surface to pin the carrier deck and guide pins to without damaging my desk. I then placed and tacked the "inboard" thick stake to the carrier deck while making sure it followed the curve of the line previously marked.

 

This initial plank was secured using normal elmers tite bond original. wherever 2 planks would meet at the edge or ends I would use the same glue but mixed with an ebony wood stain. this produced a thick black paste which offers a pretty nice scale caulking line that is quite subtle. I did this until all the inboard planks were run down the length of the deck with a subtle curve.

 

The next step was to interlock the next set of planks with the first. I achieved this by marking the center of each of the first planks so that the butt joint of the interlocking plank would land in the middle of the plank it locks with. I then just transferred the location of the joggling points and cut to size with a ruler and scalpel. I did make an attempt to soften the wood with surgical spirits but this definitely made things worse. this resulted in planks which were set out in this configuration(a big thank you to @Marcus.K. for the drawing below) This would make for a strong structure that offered support in both compression and tension.

 

 

Once this had been done I measured halfway between the outside of the first strake of thick planks and the edge of the deck and marked a line at this point as per the Humphrey's instructions. Initially I Used this method to mark the line right up to the very forward edge of the carrier deck, but this produced an unreasonably sharp curve so I ended up making a more gradual curve from the 4th deck beam onward. Below is the rough planking result. Next up will be the remainder of the deck planks.

 

Cheers

 

TBE

[JSGerson]

I can't help but thinking that you are going to a lot of trouble to get accurate planking for the gun deck. The situation as I see it is that the gun deck planking will be unviewable through the open gun ports because the guns themself will be blocking them up, reducing the gun deck viewing angle to almost nothing. If the spar deck is to be fully planked, you will have no light to illuminate the gun deck to see any of its detailed planking. In order to get viewing light, that means something must be opened on the spar deck. If that happens, now you will have to at least partially furnish the gun deck that is to be viewed. My build doesn't have any spar deck planks installed yet, and already the gun deck is getting difficult to see the detail I've added. So, what are your plan?

 

I love what you are attempting to do, but as you are already aware, what you do in the very early stages of the build, will have repercussions as you move forward.

 

Jon

[Der Alte Rentner]

Very interesting and unique approach!

 

I look forward to seeing the end result.

 

As far as the discoloration in the materials you're using, I personally would opt for character, leaving the natural color alone, and covering it with a matte finish. 

[The Bitter End]

2 minutes ago, JSGerson said:

I can't help but thinking that you are going to a lot of trouble to get accurate planking for the gun deck. The situation as I see it is that the gun deck planking will be unviewable through the open gun ports because the guns themself will be blocking them up, reducing the gun deck viewing angle to almost nothing. If the spar deck is to be fully planked, you will have no light to illuminate the gun deck to see any of its detailed planking. In order to get viewing light, that means something must be opened on the spar deck. If that happens, now you will have to at least partially furnish the gun deck that is to be viewed. My build doesn't have any spar deck planks installed yet, and already the gun deck is getting difficult to see the detail I've added. So, what are your plan?

 

I love what you are attempting to do, but as you are already aware, what you do in the very early stages of the build, will have repercussions as you move forward.

 

Jon

Hi Jon

 

This very thought is occupying a vast amount of mental real estate for me, and you are totally right!(It's basically an act of madness). I am torn between the balance between accuracy and effort. I am coming to accept that I will certainly have to put a lot of the deck furniture in for this gun deck, a lot of which will also never really be seen. I can't really argue with you as you make a very good point but I sort of justify it in the following ways.

 

1. Firstly (and most importantly) I am really enjoying the process of historical research to get an accurate idea of what she really looked like. In a small way the process of actually building these features has lessons about construction woven into it. I am not sure how far I would go with this but for now I'm quite liking aiming for as close to perfection as I can manage.

2. This deck has been a learning curve for me. this is only my second build and my last deck is but a distant memory. It has been a good opportunity to figure out what works and what doesn't without anyone actually seeing the results too plainly (the stained glue for example was an experiment which needed testing). It has also provided some much-needed practice in planking.

3. I try to view each step in the model as something worth doing in and of itself. I am not in a rush to build this model and when it's done I will just build another. A big part of this hobby is an opportunity to do things simply for the joy of it and not for the result. I have a job which is very much goal driven and this is a form of meditation. there is something about making a great effort for something which will never be seen which adds to this.

4. I do intend to leave at least some of the hatches open (possibly like the Antczak model) this means that the most curious of observers MIGHT notice the ludicrous decisions I made on the deck below.

5. I think it might provide a bit of information or help for someone who is building a more open decked model, and it is nice to share this process with the good people of this forum. Even your question has made me think a little more about why I am doing this, and it has added something of value.

 

I can't guarantee I will be able to continue this way, but I hope that I can. Please keep the comments coming. They are always welcome

 

Cheers

 

Haiko

[The Bitter End]

16 minutes ago, Der Alte Rentner said:

Very interesting and unique approach!

 

I look forward to seeing the end result.

 

As far as the discoloration in the materials you're using, I personally would opt for character, leaving the natural color alone, and covering it with a matte finish. 

Thank you good sir!

 

I am leaning in a similar direction now that I have cleaned the planking a little more. I will post the completed deck before I make a final decision.

 

Cheers

 

Haiko

[BANYAN]

Hi Haiko, I'm a bit of a late comer to your build party, apologies mate.  

 

Your build to date looks great, a nicely aligned skeleton and the planking is going on very well.  Look forward to seeing you progress.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Marcus.K.]

Hey Haiko,

I very much like your approach. And the way you prepare that gun deck with these interlocking strikes will be very close to what Tyrone Martin found as her earlier layout. Your deck planking matches his sketch pretty close and the more I look at it, the more I like it. 

Do you manage to generate the 6 feet white oak from hull inwards (as Humphrey specified)? Or is that outer strake too close?

Edited January 16 by Marcus.K.

[The Bitter End]

On 1/16/2025 at 9:01 AM, Marcus.K. said:

Hey Haiko,

I very much like your approach. And the way you prepare that gun deck with these interlocking strikes will be very close to what Tyrone Martin found as her earlier layout. Your deck planking matches his sketch pretty close and the more I look at it, the more I like it. 

Do you manage to generate the 6 feet white oak from hull inwards (as Humphrey specified)? Or is that outer strake too close?

Hi Marcus

 

Thank you very much for your encouragement.

 

I just took my vernier to the gun deck and this tells me that the distance between the outer strake and the outer edge of the deck is an acceptable 6ft and 3 inches. I am pretty happy with this as I didn't even consider the white Oak decking when I laid out the thick strakes but rather followed the other parts of Humphrey criteria. There are 3 possible explanations for the extra 3 inches...1. My measurements were slightly out (the most likely, three inches are only 1mm at scale). 2, I made the thick strakes 30 inches too narrow (only 12 inches at the widest point instead of 15inches...maybe there is a clue there if we look at the exact measurements). 3. when Humphrey said 6ft it wasn't an exact measurement (the least likely option)

 

Regardless, another interesting little piece of information.

 

Cheers

 

Haiko

[Marcus.K.]

Hello Haiko,

 

Humphreys specification was done in 1794 or 1795 as far as I remember. And the 6 shipyards did not follow them 1:1 - as they had to deal with what was available and how they interpreted his specifications. And I guess nobody expected them to follow them 100%.  Ship building in those days is not comparable with todays way of work. The specification weren´t that precise and the shipbuilders had a huge amount of freedom in interpretation - especially compared to today, where we have 3D CAD data of the vehicles to be build. And even today: deviations in the scale of several inches or centimeters is not a rare thing in todays bigger ships. They had to deal with wood! And they made it fit to where it had to fit! Individually for each plank and each component. No ship was the same as another - even if it had the same "concept" or "architecure".

 

• Even if we consider the fact that the young United States had huge amount of high quality wood (especially compared to the British Royal Navy which by then had exhaused British forests and had to purchase wood from everywhere);
• and even if we consider that the shipwrights did their very best to provide the highest quality (the most important specification by Humphreys: as his idea was to have rather a smaller fleet of best possible and durable ships than a bigger fleet with poor build vehicles):
• we need to respect the fact that pracmatical solutions to the acutal situation in the shipyard had to be done.

 

We know the "deviations" vs. the "specifications" and / or "typcial habits" the scientists found in the VASA compared to any shipbuilding tradition involved in her build. The sometimes "improvised" pattern of planking, differences and unsymmetries between left and right bulwarks, etc.. Sometimes it was build as it worked out best. So a deviation of several inches compared to Humphreys design would not at all thrill and bother me.

 

In addition of course to the fact that the model is build in a scale which does rarely allow that accuracy - and any observer would not be able to differentiate "correct" from "wrong" ..

 

Have fun!

Marcus

Edited January 19 by Marcus.K.

[The Bitter End]

20 hours ago, Marcus.K. said:

Hello Haiko,

 

Humphreys specification was done in 1794 or 1795 as far as I remember. And the 6 shipyards did not follow them 1:1 - as they had to deal with what was available and how they interpreted his specifications. And I guess nobody expected them to follow them 100%.  Ship building in those days is not comparable with todays way of work. The specification weren´t that precise and the shipbuilders had a huge amount of freedom in interpretation - especially compared to today, where we have 3D CAD data of the vehicles to be build. And even today: deviations in the scale of several inches or centimeters is not a rare thing in todays bigger ships. They had to deal with wood! And they made it fit to where it had to fit! Individually for each plank and each component. No ship was the same as another - even if it had the same "concept" or "architecure".

 

• Even if we consider the fact that the young United States had huge amount of high quality wood (especially compared to the British Royal Navy which by then had exhaused British forests and had to purchase wood from everywhere);
• and even if we consider that the shipwrights did their very best to provide the highest quality (the most important specification by Humphreys: as his idea was to have rather a smaller fleet of best possible and durable ships than a bigger fleet with poor build vehicles):
• we need to respect the fact that pracmatical solutions to the acutal situation in the shipyard had to be done.

 

We know the "deviations" vs. the "specifications" and / or "typcial habits" the scientists found in the VASA compared to any shipbuilding tradition involved in her build. The sometimes "improvised" pattern of planking, differences and unsymmetries between left and right bulwarks, etc.. Sometimes it was build as it worked out best. So a deviation of several inches compared to Humphreys design would not at all thrill and bother me.

 

In addition of course to the fact that the model is build in a scale which does rarely allow that accuracy - and any observer would not be able to differentiate "correct" from "wrong" ..

 

Have fun!

Marcus

Well said Marcus! I think we can be glad that they built this way or all the adventure of the build would be lost. I am quite happy with that amount of deviation, I think it shows we are quite close to what was intended.

 

Thanks for the input as always

 

Haiko

[The Bitter End]

Hello again everyone

 

Finally, some time to do a post, it is silly season for me, so the Constitution has taken a back seat. If there is anyone I havent responded to on private message, this thread or any other, please accept my apologies, I will get to it once things calm down and the harvest is over.

 

 

During the last few weeks I have gradually chipped away at the planking a strake or two at a time. This deck will largely be hidden by the bulwark and the deck above so I can live with the issues. I am however glad that I went through this laborious process as I learned a lot from it. Knowledge which I hope to transfer to the building of the far more visible spar deck.

 

On plank width I settled on a maximum width of about 10 inches at full scale(3.1mm)I decided to taper the deck planking as this appears to be the most historically accurate method of planking for 1797(i think, but please correct me if I am wrong). I tried to avoid tapering any plank to less than half its original thickness and staggered the planking as per the following drawing which came off another post on the site, I will find it and reference it shortly. This was actually slightly confusing due to the varying distance between deck beams and having to work around the thick strakes. but I got an acceptable result.

 

 

Lessons Learned

1. It is almost certainly better to work from the center outward instead of laying the thick strakes first and then laying the standard planking between them. It became very difficult to get a perfect fit of planks between the thick strakes.

2. The planking must be totally dry before laying. This wood was cut from pear trees which were lying on my firewood pile, and they appear to not have been totally dry, this means that once the deck was assembled it began to curve severely. I could address this by heating the whole deck with steam, but that resulted in opening of seams when the deck was pressed flat.

3. The caulking between decks created using glue and wood stain produced unimpressive results, I believe I can live with this as the planking is quite varied already, but it is worth consideration.

 

The process.

 

Once I had rough ripped the planks and then thicknessed them back to 3.1mm x1.5mm(roughly) I began the process of getting the planks fitted and tapered.

 

1. I numbered every beam on the carrier deck so as to have a reference number to return to when logging the spacing in deck sections

2. I then measured the width of the section that needed planking at every beam using a vernier

3. I then transferred these values into Excel

4. Next I calculated how many planks would fit into that section at the widest part of that section

5. divided each measurement at each beam by that number(this gave me a value of around 3.1mm to 1.6mm depending on which beam)

6. wrote the value onto the carrier at its beam.(here is a terrible photo of how the values were transcribed onto the carrier deck) If you look very closely you can see the values written on the planking, these are the widths that the planks need to be at that point.

 

7. placed the plank I was working with at its position and cut to length to establish which thickness corrections were relevant

8. used a vernier to score the width of the first and last beam that the plank would land on onto the plank(for example the forward aft end of the plank would have a line scored onto it at 2.7mm and the forward end would have a line scored into it at 1.6mm.)

 

9. I then did 1 of three things.

9.1 for very slight tapering I have a offcut piece of square aluminium tube with 180 grit sandpaper glued to it, I would use this to just sand away until I get to where I need to be.

 

9.2 I would just hold a flat metal ruler onto the 2 marks and then take a very shark surgical scalpel and gradually cut through the plank in several passes by gently dragging the blade along the straight edge over and over until it cut through the plank(low pressure is the key) I purchased a pack of 200 number 11 surgical scalpels and a blade holder for something like 5 euro

 

9.3 A method that I sometimes used is to take 2 strong clamps and clamp the ruler onto the plank that I am cutting before cutting. this would be stronger and more consistent than my hands but takes some effort to align and clamp. This can be further improved(but again it is more fiddly to align) by first placing a ruler flat on your cutting mat, then you put your plank against that ruler so that you know it is not warped or bent in any way and then camping a second metal ruler on top of the plank you want to cut in position on top of the marks you made before cutting.

10. When this is done I pass the plank over the sanding block or scrape it with a blade a few times to square off any edges that are not as straight as they should be.

A final tip is to spray the plank with alcohol based hand sanitiser. This softens the wood and may help. I have had mixed results depending on the application but it is worth a shot.

11. I then took this tapered plank, applied the stained glue and held it in place until it set. I found the tite bond and wood stain combo had very good holding properties and 30 seconds was generally enough to keep the planks in place. I did initially use little spacers to jam the plank into position but it was not needed.

 

When planking I did the outside planking first and then worked toward the middle finally leaving a single strake out down the center of the deck to allow me to cut and fit the carrier in its position on the gun deck. I did roughly mark the positions of the masts and hatches so that the planks did not have joints between deck penetrations.

 

 

 

This deck was then sanded back to remove all glue and unevenness

 

and split down the center to allow fitment.

 

 Once the deck was cut it was shaped and adjusted to fit and then before final fitment I marked out the final locations for all the hatches and masts as per the Waldo deck plans available on the USS constitution museum website and cut them into the deck. based on all the evidence available i beleive these plans to be accurate.

 

Note the center strake is not yet installed and the deck curving as mentioned before.

This was finally then steamed to flatten, installed and clamped into place. The final center strake was then added and the worst of the imperfections patched. The deck was then sanded a final time producing the following result.

 

 

Wolf cub for scale...

 

 

It can clearly be see how the seams opened when the deck was flattened producing uneven caulking...a lesson learned

 

The deck does however look a lot better when it is wet(i sprayed it down with surgical spirits to pick up the fibres before final sanding.) So i hope then when I get to the varnishing stage the appearance will be similarly improved and not look like a dull grey situation with poor caulking...anyway, live and learn.

 

Next up I need to figure out how to make cannon so that I can align the gun ports. This is my chosen next step so that I have a clearer idea of which details to include and exclude from the gun deck based on what is visible through the gun ports.

 

Any tips on how to improve the next deck..or anything else for that matter would be swell!

 

Also, any views on how to improve the appearance of this deck would be great, I dont know if a slight stain would add or detract from the appearance but I do kind of like how this very varied pear wood hi lights the individual planks.

 

One final word of warning, if one is very interested in historical accuracy I think that the level of the gun deck beams on the model shipways kid is too flat. The gun deck should not quite run parallel to the curve of the spar deck but there should be a slight curve to the bow and stern. Hogging, sagging, errors and time makes it very difficult to truly say how it should look but I feel comfortable with a slight curve on the gun deck which is not entirely parallel to the spar deck.

 

Cheers

 

TBE

 

Edited Wednesday at 05:47 AM by The Bitter End

[Marcus.K.]

TBE - that looks awesome!

[Thukydides]

Great job