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 June 12 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

 

[g8rfan]

So, I've made alot of progress on the bow. @KurtH has stated a couple times that the first thing he looks at on a model ship is the bowhead. "if the heads are done well, the rest of the model is probably done well". With that in mind, I set out to make the best bow that my limited experience and skills would allow. To recap a little, I complicated the situation by deciding  to make the ship as she was in 1812, during the battle with Guerriere, my main reference being the Isacc Hull model and the Revell plastic model. This meant that I had no real plans for the head rail timbers, or the rails themselves. The Revell model has one integral piece for the rails, and I used this extensively to decide on positioning everything. When placed on my model, the part fit perfectly. This is the part:

I first made a template of the canvas cover to establish the shape of the main rail. From that template, I made a jig to shape the cast metal rails that I had filed down earlier. Prior to shaping them, I tapered the ends where they meet at the billet head. Here's where things got difficult for me. Although the piece fit perfectly between the billet head and the catheads, I wasn't sure how to position them laterally. Since the grating is supposed to fit just inside the main rail, I used this as my guide. Using the photoetched grating supplied in the kit, I made a template from cardstock. This was easily bent to follow the contours of the main rail and this allowed for the accurate placement of the main rails. Since at this point, these were just "hanging out in the wind" and only attached at their ends, I decided to beef up the connection. I drilled small holes in each end and using 28 ga wire made pins to reinforce the attachment. To ensure a strong bond, I used JB Weld to make the attachment. Once both were in place, I remembered that the back side of the grating needed a support along the hull. This was made from 1/16x1/16th stock and preshaped to fit the hull. Fortunately, I still had the jig I used to shape the planks at the bow.

Her's what I ended up with

 

So far so good. Now for the bowhead timbers. The Hull model has only three bowhead timbers instead of the current five. One of these is obviously the one attached to the hull on the current ship. I assumed to other was the one furthest forward. With that in mind, I looked to the Navy plans provided in the kit. (I think these are also available on the museum website). Excluding the first and last timber, I fashioned mine based on sections 6,7, &8. Of course the initial pieces did not fit, they were tall enough, but did not reach out to the rails. After some back and forth, measuring and cutting, I finally got some pieces that fit. Before installing, they were painted and the initial white pinstriping was applied

 

Since I wasn't quite sure where the second rail was going to be positioned, I didn't yet make the notches for these. After thinking for quite a while about how to do that, I came up with a plan. Using the fabricated timbers, I made copies from card stock. These were lightly glued in place (easy to remove). I then made up the second rail. This was tapered quite a bit more at the end to fit in just under the main rail. Again using the Revell model as a guide, I bent the rail so as to fit against the timbers and meet up with the hull in the appropriate position. This is where I realized that the main rail was dipping down just a little too low. Based on the Revell model, the second rail should fair into the hull at the top of the gun stripe. If I positioned it there, the gap between the second and main rail would be very narrow and not look right. I had to settle for positioning the second rail a little lower. Since most folks don't see this version often and certainly anyone at my house would not know that difference, I figured I could live with this tiny discrepancy. Once in position, I marked the paper timbers. After removing the paper timbers, these were used to correctly position the notches for the second rail. After using a square file to make the notches in these tiny pieces, they were glued in place, fitting perfectly against the main rail. 

The second rails were then double checked to make sure they fit properly against the bow head timbers and met the hull where they were supposed to.  Before attaching, they were painted and the pinstriping added. After getting both sides attached, here is what I ended up with

 

It may not be the best looking bow ever made, but for me, I was very happy. It's pretty symmetrical and everything fit together.

Now to put the grating in and all the other details.

 

[KurtH]

Wow!!  What a great job you have done with the bowheads!  Yours is the only bowheads with this configuration I have seen on any wooden model build other than the one by Herb Ebson a photo of which which I posted above.

Congrats!!

[g8rfan]

Thanks Kurt, glad you like it, and thanks again for all your help and input.

[g8rfan]

Got the gratings finished. I thought about using the PE piece that came in the kit, but I didn't think that I could do a very good job painting brass to look like wood, so decided to try to make the grating using my laser engraver. I made a photocopy of the brass grating to use as a template and from that I made the image to use with the engraver using Office - Paint. The grating was cut from 1/32 basswood sheet. Wasn't sure how the holes were going to come out, but I was satisfied with the final outcome. To make the grating follow the curve of the mainrail a little better, I used my fine razor saw and cut the grating in sections where the grating supports were. I also decided to cut out the back to wrap around the stem instead of cutting the stem down. The plans in the museum files definitely show the bowsprit resting on the stem. Here's what I ended up with

 

I put the cross pieces in where the rail supports were. These lined up nicely with the sections. After staining, I glued the gratings in place. Although still slightly above the mainrail, this did provide a nice gentle curve

 

The angle of this photo makes the back section look tilted, but it is actually almost horizontal. The seats of ease provided in the kit were alos PE brass. Once again, I thought they would look better in real wood. Instead of making in pieces, I used a piece 1/8x7/16 stock. I used the plans provided in the kit for the dimensions. These were adapted from the Navy plan 452302. They showed a trough for the section alongside the hull, but made mine with seats. After photocopying the plan and sizing it to scale, I used a printed copy as a template. Carving the pieces out was a little tricky, as it wants to break when carving out the inside corner. A file was used for the final shaping. Holes were drilled in the appropriate places and after cleaning these up a little with a small rat tail file, the back end of a drill bit was used to make a small depressioin around each hole. I wanted the stain for these to be a little lighter than the grating, actually more of a yellow color, but I can't find anything close to that. In the end, they came out essentially the same color as the grating

 

If anyone knows a good wood stain that has more of a yellow color, I would love to hear as it would be useful for all the fittings that should have a "bright" finish. I managed to cut out the gammoning hole where it was located on the trailboards. Wish I had done that prior to attaching everything, since as you can imagine, they were not perfectly aligned. I also started opening up the hawse holes. The kit does not supply anything for these, so I plan to plan to purchase some very small grommets. They are the perfect shape and come in many sizes. I know the anchor cable was 7" in diameter (22" in circumference). Based on that, I am presuming the openings were about 12", which would mean 1/8" grommets. if anyone can confirm that, it would be great, because I have not been able to find the actual dimensions.