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.

[g8rfan]

Moving right along, I decided that even though the ship did not use chains at this time, there must have been some sort of cable stop in the manger.  I could not find anything to support that, but it seemed logical and it's a nice feature. I modeled the stopper after the one currently on the ship and again used known dimensions of surrounding items to determine the dimensions of the stopper. It was actually a complex little assembly. Everything was made from wood except the crossbar, which is 24 ga wire. The little balls on the end of the crossbar were made from epoxy putty

 

The stoppers on the ship currently do not have anything on the outsides, however, the messenger cable has to run around these and so there must have been something there for the cable to ride along. I decided to put rollers similar to those on the side of the anchor bitts. These were made from styrene. The notch in the front of the base is there to fit over the top of the manger rail.

In addition to these, there is also the stopper bill pulley for the messenger cable. The timbers this pulley rests on were of course wod. The pulley and the bracket to hold it were cut from flat stock styrene. Sorry for the dark photo.

That was about it for the manger area

 

[g8rfan]

After failing to find any additional info one rider bitts, I decided to go with the wooden cross style bitts I mentioned above.  In trying to establish exactly where the riders would be positioned on the deck, I first was looking at Lord's deck plans from 1927. I have this printed and hanging on the wall, covering the gun deck plan provided by BJ. I had gotten out of the habit of looking at the BJ plans, mostly relying on Lord's, but for what ever reason, I took a look at the BJ plan and wouldn't you know it, they show the wooden cross style bitts. I guess I should pay more attention to the plans supplied in the kit. I will say, it would be nice if the instructions didn't just say "the anchor chain cables and large iron bitts currently on the Constitution date from a later period", but would go on to say that these bitts were constructed of wood "as shown on the gundeck plan". Better yet, have an actual illustration of what they looked like and perhaps some dimensions.

In any event, it confirmed that this is what should be in place. As I made my measurements to see where these would be placed on the deck, I quickly realized that the "pan" for the camboose was too wide. The aft riders are right next to the camboose, and with it as wide as it was, the riders would also be too far outward. Fortunately, I had not yet glued this assembly down on the deck. The camboose was easily separated from the pan, which I then modified to fit the camboose tightly instead of having a gap on either side.

The riders were made from 1/8x1/4 stock. The plans indicate that the forward rider extended the length of the scuttle, but on the current ship, it stops just in front of the scuttle. I chose to make mine so it stopped in front. The aft riders are just slightly longer than the pan for the camboose. On the plans, both of these bitts show the cross piece extending from one post to the other. Hoever, if I did this on the aft rider bitts it would be right in front of the camboose "oven" area and I didn't think that would be very practial. So the aft bitts I made as crosses and the forward bitts are all the way across.

here they are with stain and ring bolts in place

 

 

 

[GGibson]

Looking really good, Frank!  Excellent work!  And thanks for the research work, since I will need this when getting to this point on my 1:76.8 scale Constitution shooting for the same "1812-ish" period.  I knew there was rope instead of chain but was unclear on the other parts affecting this area.  Thanks!  Keep up the great work, sir! 

[g8rfan]

Thanks alot Gregg, I really do appreciate the support and glad to know that I can actually help someone out.

[mtbediz]

The details look fantastic, Frank. It's a great stroke of luck for us Conny builders that Conny is still with us today and that countless images of her exist online.

[g8rfan]

Thanks Mustafa, glad you liked them, and yes, we are all very fortunate to have the real ship to look at and even more so now that the internet allows us to see it from lots of different perspectives without actually being there.

With the galley and everything in place, I decided to add a few more totally unnecessary details. From the beginning, I planned on having a good number of crew on the model. Naturally the galley is a good place to start. I made up a few small barrels, some burlap sacks (flour, beans, etc) and of course a cook. I also made up the chest that sits just in front of the camboose