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

[GGibson]

39 minutes ago, JSGerson said:

I feel like I have built up an unwarranted reputation.

 

As long as you feel the reputation is unwarranted and not unwanted, we appreciate your input whenever there is a question, Jon!

 

39 minutes ago, JSGerson said:

...but the USS Constitution is an enigma and full of contradictions. I have yet to see a full set of plans for just one era. What I have reminds me of that old Johnny Cash song about building a car one piece at a time with parts from different years. That what I have, plans from different eras but not one complete set.

 

Which is why I continue to say that I will be striving for an "1812-ish" version of the Constitution... 🤷‍♂️👍

[Der Alte Rentner]

From Karl Heinz Marquardt's Anatomy of the Ship..

 

Note item 14 in the index - Wales.

 

 

Edited September 24 by Der Alte Rentner

[Marcus.K.]

Oh, Gentlemen, pls. be very careful with Karl-Heinz Marquardt´s Constitution. Marquardt did a lot of very interesting and excellent research in many fields of ancient sailing vessels. His AotS Constitution book is unfortunatly not a highlight - and I have the impression that its - unfortunatly - perfect presentation and the huge impact of the author´s name did damage a lot to the general view on the ship and caused a lot of errors to so many good model builders. 

 

Let me pls. try to help here. 

 

First of all: there is of course no doubt that the ship had wales - as I understood Haiko he is looking for how to shape the upper and lower edge of them: an invisible transition between the heavy wales and the thinner planking – achieved by gradually diminishing the thickness at the edges – or a sharp transition with a distinct arris or a chamfer. 

 

Second: that section cuts you showed, Haiko, are from one drawing - in which - in the gun deck level - two texts explain the content of each half:

Left side is "Port side - present construction and arrangement" - so this is what Lord found in 1925-26 from the 1906 renovation. 

Right side of the drawing: "Starboard side - proposed re-construction" ..

Above the header of that drawing #34535 is a text explaining that the drawing is based on "considerable research" and even if the text on gun deck says "Proposed reconstruction" we need to be careful - as the final result differed.

These are the two half section cuts to showed in your post, Haiko. And below you find the text right of that section cuts - above the drawings header. 

This next photo done in 1927 shows what Lord was finding from the 1906 renovation:

I believe we can not identify for sure which planks were the thicker wales - and which were just planks, can you?

 

But there is another drawing - #35208 - in which Lord seems to represent the "from Specifications .. Joshua Humphrey "as the note close to Lords signiture explains. 

Unfortunatly I can not read that text above the header. 

Does anyone of you have a copy of that drawing #35208 - with a readable "note" above the header?

 

This here is a copy of that drawing #35208 as it is represented in Magoun´s "Old Ironsides and other historic ships" - unfortunatly without that note and the header. 

And then there is this last section cut of the Lord Restaurtion (I know about)  #24472 - done in 1931 "as finished" - which represents what we would find in 1931 .. 

 

I did not (yet) find any represenation of the ship in which the wales would look like the britsh "puzzle" with these short "pentagon"-shaped pieces as Marquardt shows in his unfortunatly beautiful book. It is much more likely that the US Frigates had - from beginning until today - more simple but robust and long planks as wales as there never was lack of long wooden planks in the US - in contrary to their British cousins - which had to deal with shortage of wood in the 1800s. 

 

Looking through all the representation I collected of US Frigate Constitution or her sister ships I never could identify an "edge" of the wales. Either it was that tiny that it was not obvious enough - or it just wasn´t existing. Here an example for 1871:

The artist did show all kind of ugly things - like that ****-ramp on the bow or the tiny air vent in the quarter gallery. Many strange and ugly details. Would he miss distiguisable wales?

 

Or here: in 1857: 

No wales visible - which does not at all mean they were not existing.

Just: there is no edge notable. 

 

Another approach - from technical point of view:

an edge would make no sense - neither on top nor on bottom side of the wales.

On bottom side it would just increase friction in the water.

On top and on bottom side it also would be endangered to get damaged, while doint what wales have to do: being a bumper for any object floating against the ships hull. And if an edge was damaged, the wood would be in much more danger to start rotting. So high risk. 

And how to repair? You had to remove a plank out of the hull! 

 

What would be the benefit of a sharp edge? .. or even a chamfered edge? 

 

Technically it would make no sense to have the wales not smoothened to the planks. Any other feature to protect the hull from impacting objects like fender strakes for the loading or for the action with the boats - or billboards for protecting the hull from the ancres.. Those were added on top of the planks - and were easy to remove if demaged or rotten. 

 

In my opinion those planks being the wales were just thicker - but you would not be able to differentiate them - except maybe by a bit wider? - but I don´t see evidence for that either. I would not represent them in the ship as an extra layer or as thicker planks with a distinguishable edge. 

Edited September 25 by Marcus.K.

[JSGerson]

Here is what I have for 35208

 

Jon

[Marcus.K.]

GREAT ! THANKS !!!

 

Would you agree the note says:

Quote

 

This plan has been drawn as a matter of record and comparsion with Navy Yard Boston Midship Section Plan No 34526 BU ?? No 130241 which has been approved by that bureau subject to ???? and revision to bring it in accord with additional data as may come to the attention fo the commandant before any work is authorized and (?) started.

Plan A ?? per original specification is not to be strictly followed in recognstruction. 

Some features will however be incorporated viz (?) height of main hatch coamings, diagonal riders chamfering edges of wales and black strakes installation of thick strakes etc.

 

So .. does that help us?

 

@JSGerson

What´s the source of that black-white-copy? Which book is it from, do you know?

THANKS for this!

Edited September 25 by Marcus.K.

[JSGerson]

I read it the same way but made some minor corrections (typos, different interpretation of words, & omissions) in red. Note the term "viz." means "in other words" (I had to look that up).

 

This plan has been drawn as a matter of record and comparison with Navy Yard Boston Midship Section Plan No 34526 BU C.S.A No 130241 which has been approved by that bureau subject to checking and revision to bring it in accord with additional data as may come to the attention of the commandant before any work is authorized and or started.

 

Plan A ?? per original specification is not to be strictly followed in reconstruction. 

Some features will however be incorporated viz.: height of main hatch coamings, diagonal risers chamfering edges of wales and black strakes installation of third strakes etc.

 

Whether this helps or not, 🫤 I don't know.

[The Bitter End]

On 9/23/2025 at 5:19 PM, Der Alte Rentner said:

I feel certain that you will be hearing shortly from our in-house historian, Jon.  

 

I checked with the AI assistant I use most frequently, Grok.  I asked him if he knew definitively whether or not the 1797 version of The Constitution had wales.

 

Here's his response:

 

 

"Yes, the original 1797 USS Constitution definitively included wales as a key structural element in its hull construction.

Wales—thick, longitudinal strakes of heavy planking—were standard in 18th-century warship design to reinforce the hull against stresses from guns, rigging, and sea conditions. For Constitution specifically, contemporary records from her builder, George Claghorn, and Secretary of War James McHenry confirm their installation during final assembly at Edmund Hartt's Boston shipyard. In a January 1797 progress report to Congress, McHenry noted: "The whole of the frame is raised, and is ready for planking; the wales are prepared, and it is expected will be on and fastened this month."ca2519 This places the wales' fastening just before her October 1797 launch.

As launched, the hull featured a broad yellow ocher band painted from near the hawse holes down to the top of the main wales, with the bends (lower hull) tarred black below and the upper works black above.6e94d2 Gun ports were positioned at the gun deck level and above the wales, with the original gun streak (a reinforced strake for port sills) running from just above the wales to the upper gun port sills.

Disagreements in model plans or historian interpretations might stem from later refits (e.g., 1803–1804 or 1812) that altered planking details, simplified diagrams in some drafts, or debates over exact thicknesses/locations. However, primary sources leave no doubt about their presence in the 1797 build. If you're referencing a specific thread on Model Ship World, feel free to share the link for more tailored advice!"

 

 

Hello Peter!

Thank you very much for this and for your reference to the work of Marquardt. All very interesting and another opportunity to learn. 

I think I am with you and monsieurs Grok and Marquardt that there were certainly wales comprised of heavy strakes. The question is now becoming more and more, how visible are these wales, somewhere between a totally smooth curve and a total step above and below. From a practical perspective, I would say that there was probably a thickened section with heavy chamfering on the corners to prevent tearout, so essentially a sort of hybrid between a curve and a step. 

 

It is so hard to really determine what to follow, in reality when trying to make an approximation of what the vessel really looked like. For one, I wont be painting her, so that is certainly wrong, but the subtleties of the choices made by the ship builders on the day are sadly impossible to know, but make a great opportunity for discussion and interpretation. 

 

Cheers!

Haiko

 

[The Bitter End]

On 9/23/2025 at 5:57 PM, Burgundy said:

Fantastic log, I'm impressed by your level of research and attention to detail. I have no doubt it will produce a beautiful looking ship.

Thank you very much my good man!

I hope I don't disappoint. It has been a great journey so far. 

 

[The Bitter End]

On 9/23/2025 at 8:59 PM, GGibson said:

 

As long as you feel the reputation is unwarranted and not unwanted, we appreciate your input whenever there is a question, Jon!

 

 

Which is why I continue to say that I will be striving for an "1812-ish" version of the Constitution... 🤷‍♂️👍

If only we could all have the confidence of Ericsson who has the rigging of the constitution nailed down to its exact configuration down to the hour! 

Its hard for my very OCD brain to accept that I have to make hundreds of compromises for me 1797(ish) guess at what she might have looked like. Infact the only thing I know for a fact is that it definitely wasn't exactly as I am building her.

[The Bitter End]

12 hours ago, Marcus.K. said:

Oh, Gentlemen, pls. be very careful with Karl-Heinz Marquardt´s Constitution. Marquardt did a lot of very interesting and excellent research in many fields of ancient sailing vessels. His AotS Constitution book is unfortunatly not a highlight - and I have the impression that its - unfortunatly - perfect presentation and the huge impact of the author´s name did damage a lot to the general view on the ship and caused a lot of errors to so many good model builders. 

 

Let me pls. try to help here. 

 

First of all: there is of course no doubt that the ship had wales - as I understood Haiko he is looking for how to shape the upper and lower edge of them: an invisible transition between the heavy wales and the thinner planking – achieved by gradually diminishing the thickness at the edges – or a sharp transition with a distinct arris or a chamfer. 

 

Second: that section cuts you showed, Haiko, are from one drawing - in which - in the gun deck level - two texts explain the content of each half:

Left side is "Port side - present construction and arrangement" - so this is what Lord found in 1925-26 from the 1906 renovation. 

Right side of the drawing: "Starboard side - proposed re-construction" ..

Above the header of that drawing #34535 is a text explaining that the drawing is based on "considerable research" and even if the text on gun deck says "Proposed reconstruction" we need to be careful - as the final result differed.

These are the two half section cuts to showed in your post, Haiko. And below you find the text right of that section cuts - above the drawings header. 

This next photo done in 1927 shows what Lord was finding from the 1906 renovation:

I believe we can not identify for sure which planks were the thicker wales - and which were just planks, can you?

 

But there is another drawing - #35208 - in which Lord seems to represent the "from Specifications .. Joshua Humphrey "as the note close to Lords signiture explains. 

Unfortunatly I can not read that text above the header. 

Does anyone of you have a copy of that drawing #35208 - with a readable "note" above the header?

 

This here is a copy of that drawing #35208 as it is represented in Magoun´s "Old Ironsides and other historic ships" - unfortunatly without that note and the header. 

And then there is this last section cut of the Lord Restaurtion (I know about)  #24472 - done in 1931 "as finished" - which represents what we would find in 1931 .. 

 

I did not (yet) find any represenation of the ship in which the wales would look like the britsh "puzzle" with these short "pentagon"-shaped pieces as Marquardt shows in his unfortunatly beautiful book. It is much more likely that the US Frigates had - from beginning until today - more simple but robust and long planks as wales as there never was lack of long wooden planks in the US - in contrary to their British cousins - which had to deal with shortage of wood in the 1800s. 

 

Looking through all the representation I collected of US Frigate Constitution or her sister ships I never could identify an "edge" of the wales. Either it was that tiny that it was not obvious enough - or it just wasn´t existing. Here an example for 1871:

The artist did show all kind of ugly things - like that ****-ramp on the bow or the tiny air vent in the quarter gallery. Many strange and ugly details. Would he miss distiguisable wales?

 

Or here: in 1857: 

No wales visible - which does not at all mean they were not existing.

Just: there is no edge notable. 

 

Another approach - from technical point of view:

an edge would make no sense - neither on top nor on bottom side of the wales.

On bottom side it would just increase friction in the water.

On top and on bottom side it also would be endangered to get damaged, while doint what wales have to do: being a bumper for any object floating against the ships hull. And if an edge was damaged, the wood would be in much more danger to start rotting. So high risk. 

And how to repair? You had to remove a plank out of the hull! 

 

What would be the benefit of a sharp edge? .. or even a chamfered edge? 

 

Technically it would make no sense to have the wales not smoothened to the planks. Any other feature to protect the hull from impacting objects like fender strakes for the loading or for the action with the boats - or billboards for protecting the hull from the ancres.. Those were added on top of the planks - and were easy to remove if demaged or rotten. 

 

In my opinion those planks being the wales were just thicker - but you would not be able to differentiate them - except maybe by a bit wider? - but I don´t see evidence for that either. I would not represent them in the ship as an extra layer or as thicker planks with a distinguishable edge. 

 

Marcus my friend

A woderful and well thought out response as always, I have wavered considerably during this investigation and I must say I tend to lean toward your thinking around the mechanics of the ship and the act that any sort of edge would be a structural flaw. 
As you point out this feature is not visible anywhere on any contemporary representation of the ship and only really appears on technical drawings made much later. 
I was considering doing the chamfer but I lean now far more toward an essentially smooth transition. to be fair a chamfer on a 0.5mm thick plank is basically going to look like a taper. 

thank you for your effort and research. It is nothing short of a joy to me,

Cheers

 

Haiko

[The Bitter End]

11 hours ago, JSGerson said:

Here is what I have for 35208

 

Jon

Thank you for this Jon

This drawing has been a great addition and I have pored over it for ages. For what its worth, I agree with your transcription. I wonder what they mean by chamfering of black strakes. If it had just said Wale I would have been less confused. 

Keep these drawings coming whenever the urge hits you, I love them.

[Marcus.K.]

17 hours ago, JSGerson said:

This plan has been drawn as a matter of record and comparison with Navy Yard Boston Midship Section Plan No 34526 BU C.S.A No 130241 which has been approved by that bureau subject to checking and revision to bring it in accord with additional data as may come to the attention of the commandant before any work is authorized and or started.

 

Plan A ?? per original specification is not to be strictly followed in reconstruction. 

Some features will however be incorporated viz.: height of main hatch coamings, diagonal riders chamfering edges of wales and black strakes installation of third strakes etc.

Hey Jon, Gentlemen, Ladies (still hope there are some reading and participating in this)

 

thanks for the correction. I have to admit that my typos are based on my lack of precision and concentration. I am sorry for that. I should be much more careful when writing in public spaces. I know mistakes like that are often seen as lack of respect ( and I assure : that isn´t the issue here ! ) - and I wished my statement would not sound that much as a cheap excuse. But this was and still is my main issue: not being patient enough - not being precise enough. That too prevents me from doing modeling myself. I just can not be as good, as I want to be ! I am never satisfied with my result !

 

But the one thing I believed to have translated correct is the "diagonal riders" which Humphreys intended to get  - and got at least in Constitution. Diagonal stiffeners were known before - and later. Beside other inventiones and improvements (later Sir) Robert Sepping was using and improved them until he later even used iron knees to increase the stiffness and robustness of wooden ships for the Royal Navy:

see here: "longitudinal Binders & Iron Riders

https://warhistory.org/@msw/article/seppings-truss-system

 

But in general - to come back to Haiko´s need - it is hard to guestimate the right detail design for Old Ironsides in its earlier appearance. As we have only the verbal descriptions and main dimensions of most main components (and it is very likely that those dimensions were the "delivery dimensions") in Humphreys 1794 "specifications" and only rare and not very precise paintings in her earlier years. As Haiko pointed out already: the 1803 and 1804-05 Cornè paintings are too tiny to show a detail like edges on wales. The 1803 Roux paintings do not show distinguisalbe thicker planks. The earliest serious source is the Isaac Hull model which the crew did build for their beloved captain in 1812. And beside some odd details it turns out that someone tried hard to represent a lot of tiny little details which may not be too important - but caused for sure efforts for the builders. That they did NOT represent wales or black streaks with edges might have to tell something. 

 

Or course there is still a certain uncertainty - and I guess there still will be one for a very long time. 

 

I am not sure - as Royal or any other Navy is not my field - but I would not be surprised if the represenation of wales with "sharp egdes" in British Admirality Models or even drawings might be a way to point on an important feature - which in real life would be smoothened. As they were an important feature to stablize the framing and protect the hull I would not be surprised if Admirality wanted to be able to exactly see their position and shape. I think we are all used to "see" them .. and this may be misleading due to my above mentioned arguments. 

[JSGerson]

Marcus,K.: I took another look at 35208 and you are correct, it is "risers." I stand corrected.🤔

[The Bitter End]

A brief update on second planking progress.

I have decided to buy myself a little extra time before I have to make a final decision on the wales by planking down to where the Wale should begin and rough-sanding this back. This will give me the option to have a thicker squared, smooth or chamfered wale depending on what I decide. 
For those that care I am leaning in the direction of doing a chamfered wale mostly because I would like the colour scheme to match that of the admiralty models and the Antczak model. This can be done with a smooth wale but I believe the paint effect will be better if the paint is applied to a slightly raised wale as opposed to a smooth hull. Below a photo of the scheme for referenc e. I realise this is a strange deviation for this drive for historical accuracy but I cannot bring myself to paint over the hand-cut pear planks. 

 

Due to my lack of skill and the fact that I am cutting these planks on a 20-year-old 2kW table saw I really struggled to get consistent plank thicknesses. I therefore started very rough and over-thick and sanded back. The first planking allows for very effective pinning of the planks together to eliminate some of the smaller gaps. 

 

A very rough result:

 

Which was largely remedied by rough sanding with 80 grit sandpaper. The finish is still rough-sanded and will later be sanded down to a far finer grit and sealed.
Any defects will also be filled with a sawdust and glue filler and the imperfections in the upper edge of the bulwark painted over as in the antczak model above and hidden under the planksheer strip so I am not too concerned about minor defects in these areas, 

I hope to produce a far nicer result once this is all cleaned up properly so please don't judge too hard. 

 

For those interested in the minutiae of my decision making process my planking was chosen as follows. 

The average width was in the region of 10inches, there was some variation according to lords drawings but these are minor enough to not be worth replicating. This translated to a 3.3mm wide strip. 

 

As for planking pattern and length, I went with a 4 butt shift pattern with the additional element of not allowing and butt to fall directly above or below a gun port it it was within 2 strakes of a gunport. The offset between butts was 6ft which I achieved by marking out the butt lines on the first planking at 24mm intervals and having butts land on these marks. This is a planking style which I got from HMS victory reconstruction specifications, I appreciate that this is not necessarily what wouldhave been used across the pond but its good enough for me in the absence of other information.


The records show that average hull plank length was around 40ft(159mm). I used this length as my baseline but always went upwards in plank length not downwards when a deviation from the 4 butt pattern was required. I chose to do this as a minor nod to the fact that American ship builders had access to far better timber resources than their European counterparts so I guessed they would have access to longer planks. 

If anyone happens to want a copy of the planking spec I used feel free to give me a shout and ill send it over. 

T.B.E.

PS. I just realised that I messed up the 4 butt shift. The last plank is incorrect and its butt advances 2 beams to the bow instead of moving 3 beams back. Luckily it is only one incorrect strake before I can "reset" the pattern below the wale planking. but I don't think I can justify removing that strake. If anyone has a way to justify my mistake please let me know. i know this error, no matter how invisible to most views, will bother me forever. 

[The Bitter End]

Hello Everyone, 

So after a little more than a month of various challenges to get the second hull planking done I am finally finished(besides the actual finishing which I will probably be doing with Osmo Polyx as suggested by @Mike Y)

The first decision I had to make was of course the wale. I used a combination of the specification of Joshua Humphreys from 1794 and the Painting for Corne from 1803 for most of the process as there is very little other information about the wale available. The Lord drawings from 1926 largely just added confusion and I mostly disregarded these. 

 

1. Height of wale

 

Humphreys specifies 2 critical pieces of information to determine how to position the upper edge of the wale. 
Firstly: Height from top of the whale to port sill 3 – 3 ½(3ft 3 1/2inches) = 39 inches

Secondly: Black Streaks 5 in number the first & second 5 ½ inch thick 3rd 5 ¼ in, 4th 5 inch and the 5th 4 ½ inch thick
by 10 inch wide at the upper edge of the black streak to be mitered down to a level in order to
carry the water out of the seam plank between the black streak & string to be 3 ½ inch thick

This is slightly confusing and contradictory. 5 streaks of 10 inches would equate to a distance of 50 inches between the lower sill of the gun port and the top of the wale. Based on the spacing shown in the Corne painting from 1803 and the possibility that the upper most black streak was cut by the gun port I decided to go with 4 planks of 10 inches below the wale(4x3.3mm at scale)

 

2. Projection and width of wale.

 

Humphreys goes on to specify as follows:

Main wales Six streaks on each side 7 inch thick & 10 inch wide

 

and 

 

Thick stuff under the wale 1st streak 6 inch thick 2nd 5 ½ inch 3rd 5 inch and 4th 4 ½ inch running plank in
the bottom 4 inch thick to be not less than 6 feet scarph nor less than 4 strakes between every
two bolts on the same timber.

 

From this(and the reference to the thickest black streak above the wale being 5 1/2inches) we can easily conclude that the wale must be 6 strakes with an upper projection of 1 1/2inches(0.5mm at scale) and a lower projection of 1inch(0.3mm at scale).

 

This was achieved by first sanding back the upper portion of the bulwarks slightly more than needed  and then beginning the planking again to be sanded later. The wale planking was done with planking of uniform width, tapering only began on planking below the wale. The desired effect can be seen below


Before commencing with planking of the wale I did both layers of stern planking below the transom, this allowed for the top planking to be laid over the stern planks producing a reasonably neat finish. I neglected to take photos as I should have but both layers can be seen in the following photos:




Once my undocumented wale planking had been done I began with the tapered planks. These were calculated using the standard method which I used in my deck plaking where the available space for planking is divided by the number of planks which must fit in a given space to determine plank widths. there are many excellent guides on this so I wont bore you with my cumbersome attempts to explain this process. The tapering was achieved with this simple bolt together jid made from aluminium mounting rails. The narrowest and widest point of each plank is marked and these 2 points are then aligned with the straight edge of the aluminium, they are then tightened down with a home made hand wrench and cut back to the aluminium with a hand plane. 



Here are a few overview shots of my planking progress, nothing much to share here except for the fact that the first planking and a million push pins allowed me to avoid all pre bending and limited my bending work to a simple steam with a cheap Chinese steamer before pinning each plank to the hull. 

 

My issues came right at the end of my planking, where I realised that I had not been as accurate with my measurements and cutting as I should have been. This required some drop strakes which would have made many a naval architect turn in their graves. I was happy to accept this failure as it is very hidden from sight and was an interesting little expedition into drop strakes and how they (don't) work.


This was followed by lots and lots of planing and sanding.


Gaps were filled with a 3 part mixture of oak coloured water based wood filler, wood glue and the sawdust from sanding to create a filling medium which matched the planking fairly closely. 

It was at this point that I actually decided to show the lower edge of the wale too. This was achieved by gluing a long strip of lime wood to the hull at the appropriate position and then sanding away the required 0.3mm step before using steam to remove this strip. The result was acceptable considering I will in all likelihood, be painting this wale. 






The final step was to cut a small moulding to cover the join between the planking of the stern counter and the hull. This was achieved by cutting the profile into a scalpel blade and clamping my workpiece in the aluminium plank clamp. This was then scraped to reveal a suitable profile.



I apologise for the confusing and poorly structured nature of this post, if anyone has any questions I am more than happy to answer. I plan to do a video on how I turned pear trees into model planks in the near future. Please view the next post for the final planking before finishing with Osmo PolyX.

One final thing, I must yet again thank @Marcus.K. for his incredible passion for this ship and his patience with my questions. He is a bottomless pit of knowledge and support.

Cheers!

Haiko 

Edited November 4 by The Bitter End

[The Bitter End]

A couple of final photos, a little more sanding needed and a coat of osmo and I think the result should be acceptable. The wale and above will be painted at a later stage. Please let me know if anyone has any pointers for this process or how to get the most out of the current state of affairs. 

Cheers

 

Haiko

[Ronald-V]

Lovely planking!

[Der Alte Rentner]

Very nicely done.  Amazing result, especially given that you had to manufacture your own planks on a table saw.  Even more impressive is the that you didn't ruin your plane blades on that aluminum plank plaining jig.  I never in a million years would have considered using the plan to level and shape the planks once they were on the hull.  (Fishtail chisel would have been my choice).  Kudos to you Haiko!

[The Bitter End]

6 hours ago, Der Alte Rentner said:

Very nicely done.  Amazing result, especially given that you had to manufacture your own planks on a table saw.  Even more impressive is the that you didn't ruin your plane blades on that aluminum plank plaining jig.  I never in a million years would have considered using the plan to level and shape the planks once they were on the hull.  (Fishtail chisel would have been my choice).  Kudos to you Haiko!

Good morning Peter, 

 

Thanks for your kind comment, it was an interesting learning curve. 

 

I actually thought that this aluminium jig may damage the plane, especially when it started taking small slivers of metal off the jig with the first few planks. Unbelievably once the jig had settled this stopped happening and I managed to shape all 460+ planks without even adjusting or sharpening the blade a single time. I suspect the dragging motion on the return stroke redressed the blade every time... Also that was a real cheap little plane so I didn't feel too bad about risking it.

 

Aa for shaping on the hull, this was only the very rough shaping, some of my planks were way over thickness, maybe 2.5mm or even more. Most of the shaping was done with 80 grit sandpaper.

 

Now for decisions about finishing! 

 

Have a great day 

 

Haiko 

[mtbediz]

Excellent planking, congratulations. 

[g8rfan]

Absolutely beautiful work. Your use of the aluminum jig was very clever

[Mike Y]

It's incredible what a bit of sanding can do! If only you could have that magic wand in other areas, not just woodworking  

Very nicely done, waiting in suspense for the post-finish photos  

[The Bitter End]

Good evening all

Firstly thank you to everyone for all their kind comments, its a great help when the going gets tough. I addressed a few small items when I had the free time and I have opted to show them in a few separate posts for simplicity sake. 

Starting off with the controversial air vents. 

Tyrone Martin and many other constitution experts disagree on the exact nature of the small unidentified squares shown on the Felice corner 1803 painting of the constitution. There are essentially 2 main theories as far as I can tell, the first being air vents(and the theory which I am most drawn to and the second being that they are the ends of reinforcing bars inside the vessel. 
Beginning with the latte, it seems that these bars only came into use around 1850 and there is no mention of them in any documentation relating to the constitution before that time period. 
There is also the matter of design, it is hard for me to imagine that a reinforcing plate of this nature would be designed to fall on a single strake of planking when simply making the plate marginally wider would result in a significant increase in stress distribution. 
In terms of an argument for these bein air vents we can look to 3 somewhat circumstantial pieces of evidence. 

It is mentioned in the ships logs that air vents were added, the language isn't definitive but it implies that there were already air vents prior to 1810. See below from "Close up"  referring to ships logs

It is well documented that ships of this period employed air vents and it would be surprising if constitution didn't have some ventilation. 

 And finally, there is a painting of the Frigate President(Sister ship to Constitution) by an unknown member of the Roux family which clearly shows very similarly positioned rectangles as air vents in the open position(below channels)



In our Corne painting we see a very similar article. 


The rectangles in question can be seen in the upper portion of the wale, I therefore positioned them in the same strake along the entire length of the wale, 1 strake below the top of the wale. Another matter of interest is the fact that these air vents are not equally spaced along the length of the wale. When we alight the drawings of the deck beams with knees made by C.F. Waldo in 1819 we can immediately see why. The deck beams below are not evenly spaces and all aft facing knees are at an angle. Taking this into consideration allows air vent placement which matches the irregular spacing on the Corne painting with surprising fidelity. Below is the placement of vents what I went with. 



The actual modeling of the vents was pretty basic and I am not entirely happy with the result. The average size shown appears to be around 10inches by 12-14inches and I therefore makes this out in position with pencil, I then scribed the outer edges of the vent with a vernier set to the correct width and then outlined the frame with a chisel. There is no obvious latching or hinge visible on any of the available artwork and I therefore decided to leave the vents as a simple rectangle. Here you can see a marked vent as well as a completed one.



And a slightly wider shot of the completed vents. The final effect with the painted wale can be seen in the upcoming posts.

 

Thats about it for air vents, next up scuppers.

Cheers

Haiko

 

Edited yesterday at 06:53 PM by The Bitter End

[The Bitter End]

Scuppers!

Another intersting little feature is the ships scuppers, there is almost no evidence for the existence of scuppers on the constitution except for the fact that clearly ships needed these and some references to  scuppers in the ships logs such as 

 “a Ball came through the scupper hole of the ships side which is lined with lead &
the particles of lead wounded him in innumerable places.” (Surgeon Amos Evans Medical Day Book, March 16, 1812 – August 27, 1812,
Amos A. Evans Collection, vol. 1, William L. Clements Library, The University of Michigan).

I decided to go for 8 scuppers per side in total. Firstly because @Marcus.K. found a reference to 16 cast scuppers(I don't have this reference and I apologise if I got this wrong) and the paintings by Antoine Roux of the president where he shows 3 round scuppers on the spar deck and 5 oval or race track shaped scuppers on the gun deck. In the absence of any other evidence I decided that this layout was as good as any and essentially copied this placement. There were also some teltale signs from corner 1803 which I used for placement but I would be lying if I were to pretend this was anything other than a slightly educated guess. The scuppers can be identified by the faint streaks of dirt below them.



In terms of scupper height I went with what Roux shows(1 strake above air vents, along with a logical placement relative to the deck above based on standard designs for the time as seen in this beautiful drawing(in the drawing it can be seen that the scupper mouth is flush, I chose to show the flange protruding as it is a nice way to show their presence and the flared lead mouth may well have been so in certain designs):



To create the scuppers I rough cut some pair wood into rectangles and squares of the right size, I then shaped the outer edge and drilled holes into their centres and filed to shape. This yielded a pretty decent result withminimal effort. 

 
Ther positions were then marked on the hulle and appropriate holes drilled and filed to accommodate them.



Thats about it for scuppers. Next up stern counter ports.

Cheers

 

Haiko

[The Bitter End]

Stern Ports. 

The stern ports on the model are pretty simple. They appear in may contemporary paintings but interestingly do not appear on the 1812 Isaac Hull model. Here we can see them clearly in the Corne Tripoli bombardment painting.



For exact placement I chose to use the design offered up by David steel for a frigate of this size. It seemed to be the best and most accurate way to position them on the stern. 



There is also a photo from the 1870s(I believe) which shows them, and here we can see that the sizing seems to be fairly close to the sizing shown in steel:

 

To show the ports I just parked them in pencil and then etched their outline with a chisel and placed 2 shortened hinges left over from my Pegasus build on each hatch. 


 

At this point I stopped to do some painting and oiling but the final result was achieved after painting by drilling a hole for the retraction rope to come from and a hole for its anchor point to go into. I used 0.2mm rope and reduced the size of the eye bolt given with the kit to get the desired scale. not perfect but this is quite out the way so I can accept the result.

 

Next up coating.

Cheers

Haiko

[The Bitter End]

Adding some colour and protection.

I began with the wale, this I masked off and spray painted with rustoleum matte black paint followed by tamiya matt sealer. The hull was protected using tamiya masking tape for the details and standard masking tape for the hull. the deck was simply covered with tin foil.

The upper part of the bulwarks will be painted at a later stage to allow gluing without the need for paint removal.

Cheers

Haiko

[JSGerson]

It is fascinating to watch you assemble the historical pieces you have accumulated and translate them into your model. I can't wait for more posts.

 

Jon

[Marcus.K.]

Wow, I saw some of the photos before in WhatsApp - but here on the PC things look so much better. 

 

I have to thank Haiko a lot: accompaning his build is a huge pleasure and his questions are challanging and motivating to digg deeper and think further. More than once his questions forced me to cross check my interpretation of things and due to his hints - partly caused by issues in building the model, partly because he had found historical evidence I did not recognize before - we managed to have a better understanding of what might have been, and what may be not that much likely. One of the most interesting experiences is, that in adding discussed features on the model, the technical interpretation seems to shape a more balanced and more likely representation of the ship than we believed when we theoretically discussed these features. That is a fascinating process. 

 

Lets start with the "air vents".

 

William Bass in his beautiful book "Constitution - Superfrigate of many Faces" did investigate the ships "2nd phase" - between 1803 and 1808 by analyzing Cornè´s 1803 and 1804 paintings .. Especially in the 1803 sideview - a painting which was done purely to show the ship under sail. He obviously saw and tried to represent these "squared things" - as Bass called them later - on the ships hull in this painting. Bass discussed those with Cmd. Tyrone Martin - and as the former captain of the ship did not believe in Air Vents - due to their "too high" position and due to the several times mentioned actions of adding more air vents (although their numbers and places are not very good specified) in the ships logs Bass proposed this idea of seeing here squared "washers" and a centering bolt & nut which might be iron stiffners crossing the hull. Cmd. Martin did not believe in this theory either. But he did not propose any better interpretation.

 

Antoine Roux, a well known french artist, did generate - beside hunderts of other maritime paintings - several representations of US Frigate President. Beautiful paintings showing so many detailed features! And here we clearly see Air Vents - some of them even opened - in about the same height as what we believe to see in Corne's tiny painting.

 

And if we make use of a Lord Section cut and compare the postion in Cornè´s painting with some of Roux´ USS President paintings, we might assume the position as shown here:

                     

The yellow marked thing being the lid - and the opening being just below the Gun Deck ceiling. That would - in our opinion fit pretty good with what we see in Cornè´s painting - at least for the height.

 

The positioning of those possible air vents is a different story. One of Cmd. Martins doubts may be caused by the densed place in Berth deck due to so many knees - which would interfere with possible openings.

 

This photo from USS Constitution´s facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10158391010821741&set=pcb.10158391011666741) gives an impression of the room at the ships hull in berth deck level - as there are vertical ("hanging"), diagonal and even longitudinal knees along and below the gun deck beams.  The only thinkable room is above that diagional knee, right? So we needed to figure out: where might those have been positioned?

 

There are 3 drawings existing which help to understand the position of deck beams and even the knees in the early ship.

Two of them are drawings by a Samuel Pook - done in 1847 and one in 1849 - profile inboard drawings - showing clearly the deck beams. .. and even older: Waldo´s 1817 deck plan. 

 

A comparision of both showed, the deck beam position did not change (at least not much of them) and the deviation between both in the foreship is most likely to be explained by distortions due the several times copying and possible issues in digitalization. For us that is evidenve, that we might trust all three of those plans - at least for the position of the beams.

 

The Waldo Deckplan revealed even more: you can see the horizontal or "longitudinal" knees and the diagonal ones - and if you compare all that, you can estimate where there is room for possible air vents:

if you place the air vent opening always below the horizontal knee - just in front of the beam behind that, you should be fine. The orange squares should show that.

 

An odd thing we noticed: nearly all longitudinal knees in Waldo´s drawing are pointing forward. No switch in the center? 

 

And: those positions match with Cornè ... Well, they match in a degree which seems plausible. If we place all those views together, we notice that Cornè seems to have had a problem in perspective - but .. the deviation of the gun ports match with the expected deviation of the air vents:

 

It is interesting to note: in non of the paintings - especially in the very detailed Roux representations - we see a feature as a hinge or an opening mechanism. A hinge it must be, as in the french painting the open air vents open like a door - sideways. But obviosly the mechanism was hidden from view - maybe because any outside visible metal feature might be endangered as to position is within the most critical area of the wales, where you can expect contact with other objects.. An extruding feature would be damaged soon!

 

 

We may be wrong with all this .. but for now we can not see a major "no-go". And even the several times described addition of more air vents in the ships log is still possible. As the above status of 1803 still has gaps in the ships forecastle.  

 

We saw that the deck beams are represented in the same positions in 3 drawings in 3 different years. Those seem to be a fact. The function of this "feature" visible in Corne's painting seems to match with something in another artists interpretation on a sistership. The vertical position seems to fit in function and needs (as far up as possible in berth deck to avoid as much as possible accidential entry of water). The longitudinal position in Corne's painting is traceable into the drawings.

 

In our opinion it is more likely to follow this logic, based on observations, comparisons and evidence and therefore generating a certain likelihood, than beliving in any other purely guessed number, position or interpretation of those "squared things" as Bass called them.

 

                             

Edited 17 hours ago by Marcus.K.

[The Bitter End]

@Marcus.K. 

Thank you for taking the time to give this detailed breakdown of your findings and our discussions. This process of trying to find the most plausible historical truth brings me easily as much joy as the building of the model itself and I look forward to the rest of our journey.

Please keep these more posts coming, you do a far better job than I of painting the full picture!

Cheers

Haiko

[The Bitter End]

8 hours ago, JSGerson said:

It is fascinating to watch you assemble the historical pieces you have accumulated and translate them into your model. I can't wait for more posts.

 

Jon

Thanks for your message, Im glad you are enjoying it! There is lots more to come and I look forward to having you along for the ride. 

Cheers

Haiko