USS Constitution by g8rfan99 - BlueJacket Shipcrafters - 1/98

[rvchima]

Frank,

I just skimmed your build log. First, I am surprised what all you have had to rebuild/replace on an expensive kit. But second, I am amazed at the clever things you have come up with do do so.

[g8rfan]

Hi Rod,

Thanks for looking in on my build and I definitely appreciate the compliment. Wanting to put in alot of details, I'm sure I make it hard on myself, especially at our scale. If nothing else, it keeps me busy. Good luck with yours

[g8rfan]

I've started working on the deck furniture. I still haven't had a lot of luck finding out what was in place of the large iron anchor bitts currently on the ship. I contacted the museum and they referred me to the Naval History and Heritage Command. They couldn't give me a definitive answer but provided several good references. The first was The Young Sea Officers Sheet Anchor (1819). It's a kind of text on seamanship and fortunately is available online. In it, they mention the securing of anchor cable to the anchor bitts and gave the following diagram

 

This seems to be pretty standard for ships of the time. I presume in addition to the anchor bitts on the ship now, that a cross piece like this would also have been at the end of the cable riders. I'll probably go with something similar unless I hear something better from anyone out there.

I go started with the anchor bitts just in front of the foremast. I used 1/8 squarestock to make these. As mentioned by Jon in his build, there are no dimensions to be found, so everything was pretty much eyeballed and based on comparison to some known dimensions of other items in photos. The height was easy enough since it is based on where the spardeck is to be. The little support knees were spaced to accommodate the height of the deck beams. The cross pieces are a single piece. To get these in place, I first drilled an appropriately sized holed and then squared that up using a square rat-tail file. Lastly the sheave was made from 3/32 dowel that I sliced a tiny piece off of. The hole was created by drilling three small hole and then carefully carving out the remaining wood and finally cleaning up the hole with a flat file

 

 

Next came the grate for the scuttle that I apparently missed when constructing all the other grates on the deck. This was made similarly to the others using the persimmon wood I still had and the laser engraver. The coamings are slightly different than the other grates. Here's everything after staining and painting but before installation. Note the little tabs on the sides for the rollers that will be put in place once on the deck

 

Next up was the bowsprit bitts. These are pretty stout timbers. Again, I couldn't find any actual dimensions, so I just guessed again comparing to everything around it. From what you can see on the virtual tour and  looking at Lord's 1927 deckplan, the timbers are square, with space in between for the bowsprit notch being the same dimensions. So I just took the width of the scuttle and divided it by three. Lord's 1931 deck plan indicate this hatch was three feet wide, so 12 inch timbers (1/8"). The height again was simply based on fitting the spardeck and the support knees positioned to accept the height of the deck beams. The crosspiece in the middle makes a hole to receive the notch of the bowsprit. Instead of making this square, I used a 3/8 dremel sander to curve the bottom. That way, I only need to cut the sides of the bowsprit to make the notch.

The coamings around the botttom were made from some hull planking I had left over that I thinned down a little bit, probably to about 1/64"". The wholle thing was secured to the deck using wooden dowels I made from thinned down toothpicks. I notched a 3/8" dowel to be used for the bowsprit so that it would fit the bitts and used that to make sure it was positioned perfectly to accept the bowsprit later and be straight.

When installing the scuttle and anchor bitts, I first installed the side rollers. These were made from a 3/32" dowel that I thinned down further. Holes were drilled into the deck to accept the rollers and the bitts were placed on top.

Everything was secured with 5 minute epoxy. Here's the final view looking forward

 

 

[g8rfan]

I forgot to mention the other text references provided by the Navy Historical Command. They were

  HMS Victory: Her Construction, Career and Restoration – Alan McGowan (Naval Institute Press, 1999) 

  Seamanship in the Age of Sail – John Harland (Naval Institute Press

 

She said the second one should be particularly useful and contained alot of illustrations. Unfortunately, neither of these is available online and the ones I have found for sale are a bit pricey. If anyone out there has this book I would be interested to hear what it has to say about the anchor bitts.