USS Constitution by g8rfan99 - BlueJacket Shipcrafters - 1/98

[g8rfan]

Hi Gregg,

I've annotated the plans for you here and indicated which rails are which. Jon, please correct me if I'm wrong

[g8rfan]

Actually, now that I look at this again, I believe the one I have marked as the Toprail is actually the Falserail and the other is the Secondrail (the one that becomes the support knee for the cathead). This plan has the toprail omitted. The Toprail is perfectly straight, whereas the falserail has that gentle "S" curve that Jon mentioned and is shown here

[g8rfan]

Hi Guys,

 

Sorry to keep flip flopping, but I have been pondering this thing all day and believe I need to make one more correction to my assignment of these rails. The "inside" rail with the slight "S" curve is definitely the False rail, although I may be mistaken in naming it. In the instruction from BJ, they refer to this rail as the second rail. To confuse things even more, in AOS, this rail is referred to as the Main rail and indicates the False rail as the planking or canvas that covers the space between the Main rail and the top. For now, I'm just going to keep calling this one the false rail. From the side, it is the one that is shaped like a stretched out "U" and terminates just in front of the catheads. The "outside" rail in the plan above I believe is the Top rail. In this plan it appears to have a bit of a curve on the aft end and seems to trail off with the hull. Everything I've seen everywhere shows this rail as being perfectly straight and it goes from the back side of the billethead to where the False rail meets the hull. Lastly is the rail that turns into a support for the catheads, or in the case of the Hull model and presumably how she looked in 1812, this rail just fairs into the hull. AOS calls this the Second rail and the BJ instructions refer to it as the Lower rail. Either way, it is not visible in the plan above.

 

That's my assessment of the whole thing. Would love to hear what you guys have to say.

 

[JSGerson]

Quote

I've annotated the plans for you here and indicated which rails are which. Jon, please correct me if I'm wrong

I checked my "library" and found this diagram. I hope this helps.

 

Jon

[g8rfan]

Thanks Jon, a big help as always. This nomenclature is basically the same as what is in AOS, except there is no middle or lower head rail, so it is simply called the second head rail. Also, the diagram above does not show or mention a false rail, but I guess the AOS is correct in referring to the covering between the main rail and the top. Anyway, thanks for the diagram, alot of other good terms to know as well.

 

[KurtH]

Sorry to be so late in answering your question.  I used the clunky Britannia Metal cast trailboard.  I did not have to remove wood from the stem knee to get a good fit at the end, but I regretted not having tapered the stem knee to a point before gluing them on.  I did encounter a host of other similar problems throughout the build.  It seemed that I was constantly fettlin things in order to make everything fit.  E, g, the main fife rail assembly was a nightmare.  Being inexperienced at building from wooden kits, I just thought that it was part of the process.

Edited Thursday at 04:30 AM by KurtH

[g8rfan]

Hey Kurt, thanks for getting back to me. Interesting that yours fit well. I tried both the metal cast trailboards and the molded ones I made and both had extra wood around the billethead. Anyway, I just trimmed down the extra once everything was in place. Thanks to you, I did thin down the knee before attaching everything. Speaking of getting things to fit, I was double checking the fit of the grating before i got started on the rails. Like you, the aft edge does not fit well against the hull. I know you mentioned that you trimmed yours to fit, but I was wondering about the stem. From what I understand, the Bowsprit is supposed to rest on the stem, but the grating is solid all the way to hull. Did you cut a slot to fit around the stem or does the Bowsprit actually rest on the grating, which is on top of the stem? Also, sis you bend the grating to give it a little upward curve or keep it perfectly straight?

 

Anyone else who has built this kit can chime in as well.

 

[KurtH]

First, some definitions.  The straight rail which extends from the cap rail to the billet head is what I call the false rail.  The rail below that is what I call the main rail.  The lowest one that curves upward to become the cathead knee is what I call the second rail.

Looking straight down on the bow of the carved hull provided in the kit, you can see that it is semicircular.  The provided PE grating is designed to fit this profile.  You can see in this photo of the actual ship that this design is wrong:

Accordingly, I altered the profile of the bow when I did the hull shaping.  It looks like you did the same.  Consequently I made major changes to the PE piece narrowing it quite a lot and adding Britannia metal strips on each side to replace the framing that I cut away:

I did not cut any additional notches out of the center.  I believe that it sits on top of the stem, but I cannot remember for sure.  As you can see, I had to shorten the seats of ease so that they would fit into the reduced space.

My intention was that the grating would curve to match the curve of the main rail.

As you can see, it sits slightly above the rail.  This defect was fortunately masked when I installed the carboard (canvas) covering:

The bowsprit sits a millimeter or so above the grating on my model, but I see no reason not to have it sit on the grating.   However, since the angle of the bowsprit is different than the grating the only contact would be at the aft edge of the grating.

[g8rfan]

Thanks Kurt. Greatly appreciated, I definitely feel a bit better about the whole thing now. My bow is not quite as sharp as yours, but definitely not semicircular. I'll have to see how everything fits once I get the main rail in place to see if I'm going to need to trim up the grating on the sides. The aft edge will of course have to be trimmed to fit the hull.  I may try to give it a little curve, but I'm not going to fret over it. As you pointed out, once the "canvas" is in place, you won't be able to see it. I did a quick test fit for the bowsprit with a 3/8" dowel and yes, it would only touch the very aft end of the grating once in place. However, the template for the stem had it such that it angles upward to follow the bowsprit. In order to get the grating in place on top of that, I'll need to trim it down a bit. That's what threw me off in the first place. I guess that's what I'm going to do since it seems the simplest solution.

 

I decided to use the cast metal strips for the rails since they are so easily bent into shape. I've got them all filed down to 1/16" square now, which I did using a little jig as a depth gauge. Next I plan to make up the bowhead timbers using the plans from the instruction manual and my laser engraver. Once I have those, I'll see how everything comes together