USS Constitution by usedtosail - FINISHED - Model Shipways - scale 1/76

[Geoff Matson]

Great build.

 

For me the bow section with all the rails was by far the hardest part of the kit to build. You really have to think in 3-D to picture what you want to build. 

[HIPEXEC]

Very nice work!

[usedtosail]

Thanks Geoff and Rich. At least all of the information is there on the plans, it is just a matter to tease it all out and visualize each part in three dimensions, like you say.

 

I have started assembling the head rails to the hull. I started by gluing the two trail boards in place, since these set the locations of the cheek rails. I very carefully placed the clamps so I did not mess up the paint on these.

 

 

I glued each cheek rail in place and clamped it with clothes pins until it dried, then glued the next one until all four were added. I used wood glue along the stem and a combination of wood glue with a few drops of CA glue along the hull, since I didn't have a good way to clamp that part of the rails.

 

 

 

I then finished the hawse boards by fitting them between the cheek rails on the hull and thinning them down a bit. I also curved them to match the hull curvature by soaking them in water for a few minutes, then clamping them to the jig that came with my plank bender, using a piece of wood over them so the clamp wouldn't mar them. This worked really well, as I let them dry overnight and they retained the shape when I took them out of the jig.

 

 

I used them as templates to drill the holes in the hull for the hawse pipes.

 

 

 

I painted the supplied white metal hawse pipes with black paint around the outside, leaving the inside unpainted.

 

 

While they were drying I attached the two middle rails to the hull. Before I attached them, I drilled a small hole through the rail where it attaches at the hull, then continued that hole into the hull. I used medium CA to glue the rails to the hull with a piece of wire in the holes to provide some additional support. Once the head timbers are added they will be more secure but I wanted more support now so they would be stable while I fitted the head timbers. After they dried, I used some clippers to snip off the wire flush with the rail.

 

 

 

 

I was able to attach the hawse boards to the hull last night and used a round file to open up the holes so the hawse pipes would fit in. I will have pictures of those in the next post. I have a little paint touching up to do around the rails and the hawse boards, which I will do before I go too much further. Now it is on to the head timbers, but again the plans show these pretty well.

 

 

[NenadM]

Nice. And clean. And precise. And I like it

Edited December 7, 2015 by Nenad

[Jparsley]

Looking great I love the contrasting whit and black

[Burroak]

Tom your really coming along with your Conny. Got a question. Did you decide not to open the bridal port openings that are at the very front of the gun port openings? You may have addressed this already. I apologize if you have.

 

 

Thanks

Greg H.

[usedtosail]

Thank you Nenad, JIm and Greg.

 

Nenad - I love what you are doing with your Cutty, especially all the details at that small scale.

 

Jim - me too. I think that is one of the reasons I wanted to build this model. Your Constellation is coming along nicely.

 

Greg -  am going for an Aug 1812 era version of the Conny and in Baimbridge's book A Most Fortunate Ship I found this - 21 SEP 1812 – Bridle ports cut about midway between #1 gun ports and stem.  So I left them off this model, even though I had framed them before planking.

[Guest Tim I.]

Tom,

 

Getting caught up on your log. You did a stellar job on those head timbers!

 

- Tim

[usedtosail]

Thanks Tim. I am not out of the woods yet, as fitting the head timbers and the middle rail is proving to be quite a challenge.

[Burroak]

Tom I was working on my Conny and was framing the bridal ports and I looked at your build and realized it was a little different. I'm not experienced enough to build to a specific era. I'm just trying to build a ship. Thanks for answering.

 

Greg H.

[usedtosail]

Greg, I understand. There are many parts of this kit, like the head frames, where I am going with the current version because it is what I have. It is not too hard bashing a kit but it is sometimes hard to keep all the changes straight. Your question actually had me second guessing myself until I looked up my notes, so I do appreciate the questions to keep me thinking straight.

[usedtosail]

As promised, here are some photos of the hawse pipes.

 

 

 

I finished up the head timbers and gave them a few coats of black paint. I used medium CA to glue them in place because there was no good way to clamp them.

 

 

 

 

Since I took those pictures, I have sanded the tops of the timbers to be flush with the top of the middle rail, so I will need to do some paint touch up tonight. Then I need to fit the main rail onto these head timbers.

[GLakie]

Nice work Tom! 

[Burroak]

All I can say is daaaaang! That is perfection. Beautiful job Tom!

 

Greg H.

[Jparsley]

Lovely job

[_SalD_]

Tom, Having done this for the first time myself on the Syren I can better appreciate all the work that goes into doing the head rails, great job.

[usedtosail]

Thank you George, Greg, Jay, and Sal. And also the likes. Last night I added the main rails, but tonight I need to do some clean up of the paint around the rails. The main fix I need to make is that when I added the main rails, there is a very noticeable difference in the gap between the rail and the top of the white stripe on the port and starboard sides. In the last picture you can see that the white strip is actually thinner on the port side than the starboard side on the end, so I am going to attempt to correct that tonight with some white paint and masking tape. I will have pictures of how it turns out either way.

[usedtosail]

Here are the pictures of the main rail installed and the cross beams to hold the gratings. I was able to fix the white stripe on the port side by painting white above the stripe, then masking it off and repainting the black. Now the gaps on both sides are the same.

 

 

 

 

 

I have the gratings all cleaned up and I am in the process of staining them. I also made the seats of ease and stained them too. After I install them, I will add the rest of the top rail and the knee at the front of the stem, then plank the area between the middle rail and top rail. 

[usedtosail]

Oh yes, this is part of her history, and not a very good part to me.

[usedtosail]

Both kids were home for the holidays but I did have a little time in the shop too. I cleaned up the head gratings and made the seats of ease. I finished these in oak stain and glued them in place, along with the solid pieces that flank the openings to the head.

 

 

 

I made the two top rail pieces, painted them black and glued them to the openings left in the bow rail.

 

 

 

While waiting for the paint to dry, I finally filled the holes in the sides of the hull. I drilled out the holes for the air ports and scuppers and glued them in place, then touched up the black paint on them.

 

 

 

I made the supports for the planking between the top rail and the middle rail. I painted the bottom half of these black so I don't have to paint up to the white rail, and will paint the rest of them after I plank over them.

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest Tim I.]

Tom,

 

It is a real joy to follow along as your Constitution takes shape. I hope to get back to mine at some point once the Essex is complete.

 

- Tim

[usedtosail]

Thanks Tim. Despite your current setback with the Essex I am really enjoying following your progress. 

[GLakie]

Really nice work Tom!  This is sure to be one of the staples on this site for future Connie builds. 

[usedtosail]

Thank you George. I hope this build will be as useful to future Conny builders as those logs that I have been using are to me.

 

Thanks for the likes too.

 

It is exactly 2 years since I started this log, and I probably have another year to go at least. With my current job situation I will either end up with a lot more time for modeling or I may be starting a new job right away, which will cut into the modeling time I have now. Financially I am hoping for the latter but deep inside I would rather spend more time modeling. I can't tell the Admiral that though.

 

I am still working the planks along the head area. I was able to add a few to each side, but now I have to do each one separately since I have to have the previous one glued in to fit the next one. I started at the top rail and am working my way down to the middle rail. I did paint the rest of the plank supports inside the planks after I glued in the first batch, so now it is just getting those last planks cut, fit, painted and glued in.

 

 

 

 

 

In between planks, I have started making the gun port lids for the gun deck guns. I am going with the latest developments from the Constitution research team on how they think the gun port lids looked in the past. Here is the conclusions I am building too (mostly).

 

From Gun Port Lids/Half Ports, a pdf on the Constitution web site, Researched and written by M.M. Desy, Historian

Naval History & Heritage Command Detachment Boston February, 2013:

 

 

Here is the painting they used to justify the 90 degree lower lids:

 

 

The first two gun ports have dummy cannon barrels in them on my model, so I am going to just make full size port lids and have them closed, with hinges on the top and lines to open them going into the hull above them. No dummy barrels will be needed in those ports. For the next gun ports that have full cannons in them, I am making half lids for the bottoms, which I will show open at 90 degrees from the hull. They will have hinges on the bottoms, but no lines to open them, as the crew could just reach out to open and close them. I will not show any of the upper lids, as these would be stowed inside with the guns run out. All the remaining gun ports, which are to the rear of the ones with full cannons, have dummy cannon barrels in them. I will make both upper and lower port lids for these and show them with the dummy barrels sticking out through the hole. I will show hinges on only the bottom half, as the top half would not have them. I am not going to try to make canvas looking fillers in the last two gun ports, though, although I may change my mind on that point. I am not sure how I could make them look realistic, so I am going to make closed ports for now but try my hand at making canvas covers before using them.

 

More on how I am making these lids in the next post.

 

Finally, I want to wish you all a belated Happy New Year. For me, this is going to be an interesting year.

 

 

 

[JSGerson]

 

From Gun Port Lids/Half Ports, a pdf on the Constitution web site, Researched and written by M.M. Desy, Historian

Naval History & Heritage Command Detachment Boston February, 2013:

I went looking for your reference and had no luck. And where can I find the full image of the painting they used as justification? The Constitution is next for construction some time in the future and I'm trying to get all my reference together now.

 

Thanks

[usedtosail]

As promised, here is the progress on the gun port lids. I started with the four full size lids for the front two ports on each side. I first had to thin down some sheet stock to the 3/64" width from 1/16". I used the Byrnes thickness sander for the first time and it worked great for this. I cut out pieces to fit snugly in each gun port, then used the back of an X-Acto blade to score plank lines into them to match the hull planking. I drilled holes in the bottom for the pull lines and glued etched hinges to the front. I am in the process of painting these white.

 

 

 

For the half lids under the full cannon ports, I cut a strip of the thinned sheet that was the height of the half lid, then cut individual pieces from this for each gun port (starboard side only for now). I stacked these together and clamped them in my vise, then used a round file to make the round notches in them, all at the same time. I sanded these for the final fit.

 

 

The only problem with this picture is that I have the lid inside the recess around the gun port. I think that these would really hinge so that they were below the recess when open, otherwise there would be nothing to stop them from opening all the way. This means I need to have some sort of physical support for these, like pins into the hull, but they are very thin so drilling holes for pins could be a problem. I think I might be able to make static hinges for these that will act like shelf supports and hold them in place, providing some support for them. I need to do some experimentation for these.

 

For the closed half lids which will be around the dummy cannon barrels, I first thought I could use two half lids, but they did not meet up well in the center. So, I started with a single piece that fit into the gun port opening, like the full size lids. Once I had a good fit, I marked the center by connecting diagonal lines from the corners, then used the drill press to drill out a hole that the canon barrel will fit through.

 

 

 

 

I then used the razor knife (with apparently a very rusty blade!) to split that piece in half, cutting with the grain of the wood to get a nice even line. I then fit both pieces in place, and they are ready for the hinges to be added.

 

 

 

Lots of work left to do on these but a I am happy with the start I have made.

 

[usedtosail]

Sorry, JS, that pdf is on the Constitution CD. The files on the CD used to be available from the web site, but the Navy took them down. Send me a PM with your email and I'll send it to you. I could not find an image of the full picture, but that piece came from the pdf document.

[billt]

Tom,  Speaking of the CD,  they must have published different versions along the way.  My copy does not include the curved rail that you found.  Mine has the usual straight  fife rail.  I had hoped for a more complete set of  drawings to be included. 

 

Bill.

[usedtosail]

Bill, you are correct as there seems to be different versions of the CD. I actually downloaded the files from the web site before they were taken down, so I don't really know what is on the CD or what versions are out there. I also renamed all the files to make them easier for me to find stuff. I will go back and find the file that shows the curved fife rail and you can see if you have it.

 

From now on I will stop referring to the files I have as from the CD, because my assumption that the files I have were all on the CD looks to be incorrect.

[usedtosail]

OK, I found the file that shows the curved fife rail. It is file 49805001_1.pdf on the set of files that I have. If that is not on the CD, I can send you the pdf file in a PM.