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

[Guest Tim I.]

I don't know if this helps, but I took a picture of the cannon castings in my kit with the bag number. The bag on the left if you look closely, you can see the two long 24s.

 

 

- Tim

[robnbill]

Hey Tim. Is that a 10 spoke ship's wheel? I am trying to figure out what configuration to build to replace the metal one in the kit, 8 or 10.

[usedtosail]

Yep, I only looked at the two bags on the right, so I have the two long guns too. I thought there were more guns than just the carronades for the spar deck. The barrels in the add on cannons look about the same in quality to the ones supplied in the kit.

[Guest Tim I.]

Hey Tim. Is that a 10 spoke ship's wheel? I am trying to figure out what configuration to build to replace the metal one in the kit, 8 or 10.

 

 

Bill, it is a 10 spoke wheel. I also am not happy with the metal ships wheel.

 

- Tim

[Guest Tim I.]

Yep, I only looked at the two bags on the right, so I have the two long guns too. I thought there were more guns than just the carronades for the spar deck. The barrels in the add on cannons look about the same in quality to the ones supplied in the kit.

 

Well from time to time there were bow chasers. There are some points in the ships log from 1804 - 12 were brass 24 pounders are mentioned on the aft of the spar deck, but they were removed before the War of 1812 and moved to the USS Hornet if memory serves (I am too lazy to go look it up)  .

 

- Tim

[GLakie]

I've got the same in my kit Tim, with the 30 dummies, 20 carronades, and 2 long guns, but I'll look into trying to get the right dimensions for the 24 pounders in the right scale, then strike that against those of the ones Chuck has there and get back. Reasonably close would work for aesthetic purposes. 

 

Cheers

George

[usedtosail]

OK, as promised here is a picture of all the gun barrels we have been discussing:

 

 

The three on the right are the kit supplied barrels, from left to right are the carronade, dummy, and long gun barrels. The barrel on the left is one from the extra gun deck guns that can be ordered from Model Expo. As you can see they are all about the same quality and the long gun and gun deck gun barrels are the same.

 

I am still undecided about adding the two long guns to the spar deck.

[Guest Tim I.]

Tom,

 

I also am disappointed in the quality of the castings, but I think I am going to have to make the best of them. I think I will order the package of 30x 24 pound cannons and carriages from Model Expo. I would like to order Chuck's long 24 pounders but his are in 1:64 scale.

 

- Tim

[GLakie]

   Well, it looks like those Cannon from Model Expo ARE the 24 pounders, so the only thing left is the carriages and whether or not the ones from ME are the carronade carriages or the right ones for the 24's. Don't really care for the castings myself either, but maybe after some polishing with the wire wheel, they'll clean up decently.

   If those are 1/2" increments on the grid for that cutting mat in the picture, then it looks like they are about 1-1/2" long and one of the cannon Chuck has there is 1-29/64" which is real close to that so the carriage for that size barrel might be what we're looking for.  I'll tear mine open and measure it to be sure. The investigation begins.

 

Cheers

[GLakie]

I did some checking, and after taking a long hard look at Chuck's cannon and carriages, I think I'll go ahead and order the cannon kit from Model Expo, and get Chuck's carriages to put the cannon on. The brass ones sure are pretty, but I just can't justify spending $120 for brass cannon only to blacken them later. But the carriages are nicely detailed and would be the right size, or at least real close, as his 12 pounder is only 1.1mm shorter than Model Expo's 24 at 38mm, and actually, side by side, they look almost identical to each other. 

 

Cheers  

[Guest Tim I.]

I also would like to buy Chuck's cannons and I would, but alas he does not have carronades. I would prefer to have all match, not have half brass and half white metal.

Tom, sorry for taking the discussion away from your wonderful build.

 

- Tim

[usedtosail]

No worries, Tim. I am glad to host this kind of discussion and information sharing, which makes this site so valuable.

 

Some obligatory progress photos. I got the two rows of planks on below the gun port sills, so I can now start on the wale planks for this side. I apparently had not finished sanding the upper planks on this side before I turned the hull around to plank the port side wales, so I spent the last couple of days filling and sanding these upper planks. I still have to sand the two rows of planks I just put on before starting the wales.

 

 

 

While I have been waiting for planks to dry, I have been working a couple of side projects, which I will show in the next couple of posts.

[Guest Tim I.]

Tom,

 

Looking great as always!!

 

I also use the smaller clamps you have there on the bottom. I used them for the Picket Boat build and they work well. Walmart sells them very cheaply so I bought several boxes of every size they had.

 

- Tim

[usedtosail]

In post #2 of this build log I showed how I have been storing the various wood strips for this project (in golf club tubes), as well as the storage bucket for the other wood strips I have in the workshop. I was not really happy with either of these methods so I started a little research project for a better way to sort and store wood strips. I wanted to store the wood on its side, not upright and be able to get at it easily. My constraints were space and cost. I cleared out a shelf I could use for the storage rack and I wanted to keep this project under $50. I came up with two options for something I could build - one using PVC pipe, something like this:

 

 

and the other a series of trays, sort of like a stack of 2 foot long draw inserts for silverware.

 

I priced out the PVC pipe I would need and it came out to $90, so that option was out. Then I thought of cardboard mailing tubes, so I priced them out and they did come in under $50, but I would still need to make a wood frame for them. I also was not sure if open ended tubes would be the best way to store these strips. For example, how would this work with partial strips that were less than a foot long? I kept coming back to the tray approach, but realized how much work that would be to make. While looking for the mailing tubes, I came across these 2" square by 25" long mailing boxes, and knew I had found the solution:

 

 

With a little modification, I had trays that would hold the 24" wood strips nicely:

 

 

 

I could get 50 of these for 69 cents each and just stack them on top of each other. I cut a portion of the top off each one, about 16 inches, which lets me get the full strips into the box. It can hold partial strips and I can use the end of the box to write the dimensions of the strips in the box. This was a problem with the PVD approach, as I could not figure out a good way to mark the tubes for contents.

 

I made up enough for the Constitution strips first, and in a few boxes there are multiple dimensions, where the kit only supplied a few strips for those sizes.. Others have only one size in them.

 

 

I then went ahead and built enough to hold all my surplus wood strips, and still have room on the shelf for more of these:

 

 

I still have a bunch of boxes left over for future expansion and since they are not folded yet they are easy to store too. I thought about gluing the boxes up into trays, but have left them as individual boxes as it is very easy to pull a single box from the bottom of the pile like a draw. I think this rack will work out nicely for me.

 

When I was finished i was reminded of the wand shop in the Harry Potter movies. I just hope these boxes don't start flying off the shelf by themselves.

 

[usedtosail]

Tim, I don't know who first came up with those clamps but when I first saw them I thought they were brilliant, and they do work so well. I made up some of the smaller size, but don't use them very often as the holding power is a lot less. I haven't tried the very large ones, but they could be useful in some situations too.

[Carlmb]

Tom, wood storage looks great. Where did you find the 2" square boxes? Thanks

[usedtosail]

OK, the other side project is more directly related to the build. To rig the guns on the gun and spar decks, I need small single and double blocks. I could have ordered really nice blocks from a few suppliers like Syren, whose blocks I will admit are works of art in themselves, and I haven't ruled these out for the spar deck, but the gun deck will be fairly hidden, so I decided to go with a more economical approach.

 

The smallest single blocks I could get in bulk from Model Expo were 2.5mm which will work fine, but the smallest double blocks are 3mm, which are too large for me. So I came up with this process for making the 3mm blocks closer to 2.5mm, while at the same time making them less boxy. I use a hemostat to hold the block while I work on it, but you have to be careful closing them so as not to crush the block:

 

 

I then sand the end away from the holes on a piece of rough sandpaper until the length is close to 2.5mm, then use a small file to round off the two edges on this side so the side profile will look rounder. 

 

 

 

I flip the block around in the hemostat and file the other two edges so the whole side profile is now rounder. I then use a small drill bit to open up the holes in case they closed from the hemostat.

 

 

I then use the side edge of a small file to make the groove below the holes more pronounced.

 

 

At this point the blocks looked pretty good to me and I was going to stop there. But, a few years ago I had purchased the Model Expo block tumbler, but was not very impressed with the results. Recently, in another build log, Chuck Pasaro showed his modification to the tumbler, so I thought I'd give it a try. I removed the hard wood paddles and replaced them with three pieces of 220 grit sandpaper at each of the four sides of the center spindle. I put these modified blocks in this new tumbler and ran it for only 45 seconds. I was amazed at the results, which looked so much better than what went in.

 

 

Here is a shot of how the blocks look after each step, from left to right, and the completed set of double blocks for the gun deck guns, plus some extras:

 

 

 

I admit they are not the same quality as the blocks I could have bought, especially since they only have one hole per sieve, but I am happy with them and I actually enjoyed modifying them. There are not too many jobs where I can pack all the tools and supplies in a plastic bag and take them with me to work on wherever I am, but this is one of them.

[usedtosail]

Carl, I found them on Amazon. They are  Aviditi M2225 Square Mailing Tubes, 2" x 2" x 25" (Pack of 50)

[Geoff Matson]

Tom  Nice job on the blocks.

 

I am into the Masting and Rigging part and found the kit blocks really need some modifications to help them along. Great job so far.

[pete48]

Hi Tom , Nice job on the blocks , I like the set up you have with the boxes for your strip lumber , ( gret Idea)

 

Best Regards,

Pete

[robnbill]

That is a LOT of wood. I can't wait to see the model you build with all of that. You are going to need a real dry dock!

In post #2 of this build log I showed how I have been storing the various wood strips for this project (in golf club tubes), as well as the storage bucket for the other wood strips I have in the workshop. I was not really happy with either of these methods so I started a little research project for a better way to sort and store wood strips. I wanted to store the wood on its side, not upright and be able to get at it easily. My constraints were space and cost. I cleared out a shelf I could use for the storage rack and I wanted to keep this project under $50. I came up with two options for something I could build - one using PVC pipe, something like this:

 

PVC Rack.jpg

 

and the other a series of trays, sort of like a stack of 2 foot long draw inserts for silverware.

 

I priced out the PVC pipe I would need and it came out to $90, so that option was out. Then I thought of cardboard mailing tubes, so I priced them out and they did come in under $50, but I would still need to make a wood frame for them. I also was not sure if open ended tubes would be the best way to store these strips. For example, how would this work with partial strips that were less than a foot long? I kept coming back to the tray approach, but realized how much work that would be to make. While looking for the mailing tubes, I came across these 2" square by 25" long mailing boxes, and knew I had found the solution:

 

DSC_0019-003.JPG

 

With a little modification, I had trays that would hold the 24" wood strips nicely:

 

DSC_0026.JPG

 

DSC_0001-028.JPG

 

I could get 50 of these for 69 cents each and just stack them on top of each other. I cut a portion of the top off each one, about 16 inches, which lets me get the full strips into the box. It can hold partial strips and I can use the end of the box to write the dimensions of the strips in the box. This was a problem with the PVD approach, as I could not figure out a good way to mark the tubes for contents.

 

I made up enough for the Constitution strips first, and in a few boxes there are multiple dimensions, where the kit only supplied a few strips for those sizes.. Others have only one size in them.

 

DSC_0002-031.JPG

 

I then went ahead and built enough to hold all my surplus wood strips, and still have room on the shelf for more of these:

 

DSC_0027.JPG

 

I still have a bunch of boxes left over for future expansion and since they are not folded yet they are easy to store too. I thought about gluing the boxes up into trays, but have left them as individual boxes as it is very easy to pull a single box from the bottom of the pile like a draw. I think this rack will work out nicely for me.

 

When I was finished i was reminded of the wand shop in the Harry Potter movies. I just hope these boxes don't start flying off the shelf by themselves.

Edited September 12, 2014 by robnbill

[GLakie]

   Nice job on your planking Tom. It's turning out great despite the temporary frustrations you've said you encountered. Woodworking can get frustrating sometimes, but when it happens to me, I find walking away for a while helps snap me out of that head-space. Those planking clamps are a fantastic idea, and a Walmart, Home Depot, and Office Max, is only about a mile away from me.

   All these tips and tricks I've been reading about here and from other builds is going to prove to be an invaluable resource when I start mine. Thanks for posting this one. Pretty motivating.

 

 

                   Cheers

                   George

[usedtosail]

Thanks George. Yes, walking away sometimes is the right thing to do and I don't stay away for long.

 

I finished sanding the starboard planks above the wales for now. These will get a final sanding when the whole hull is preped for painting.

 

 

 

I then started adding the wale planks. The first thing I did was measure the wales on the port side at each bulkhead using a tick strip, then transferred those measurements to the starboard side bulkheads. I also entered them into my spreadsheet to get the widths of the planks at each bulkhead, and I used a planking fan to mark these widths onto the bulkheads too. You can see these marks on the bulkheads in the above pictures.

 

I had also bought some of the 2mm ball bearings to use as cannon balls, so I spent a little time last night blackening them. Since these are stainless steel, I first heated them with a micro torch. I held them in a metal pipe cap on top of a few ceramic tiles. The first few I heated to red hot, but the rest I just heated them until they were hot. I then placed these into white vinegar to clean and pickle them, then into straight Blacken It solution for a minute or so. I took them out of the blackening solution and placed them on a paper towel to dry. They came out nice and black and it doesn’t seem to want to rub off. I'll take some pictures of these for the next instalment.

[cookster]

Very nice Tom, shes looking good!

[usedtosail]

Thanks Geoff. I used the product called Blacken It (http://www.modelexpo-online.com/product.asp?ITEMNO=AW2), which is not the Birchwood Casey. I used it full strength, which always seems to work well for me. I have bought a bottle of the Birchwood Casey product to use this runs out, but haven't tried it yet.

[Guest Tim I.]

Tom,

 

The Constitution is looking great as usual!   

As for the wood storage, I use a vertical assembly of PVC pipes cut off at various intervals to store my wood for an active build. As for the blocks in the kit, you are ahead of me. I just placed an order with Chuck earlier this week for some of his, to evaluate next to the ones that came in the kit. I have not decided if I will replace all or some of the blocks, or none at all. 

Looking forward to the next update.

 

- Tim

[usedtosail]

Thanks Tim. PVC pipe does make great wood storage too. That was my first thought until I saw how much pipe I would have to buy.

 

As promised, here is a picture of the cannon balls. I took this picture 24 hours after blackening them. They were much blacker when I first took them out of the solution. I think they rusted a bit, as some are now a little red. Any suggestions on how to get them black again? Maybe put them back into the solution and dry them off when I pull them out? The problem is they are so small and light I am afraid I would loose too many in the drying process. Were the real cannon balls made of iron and if so would they rust too? Maybe I can just leave them like this? What do people think?

 

 

And here is a progress shot of the starboard side wales going in. The strip clamped around the bow has been soaked and is drying into the rough shape for the next wale plank at the stem.

 

 

Tim, I am heading up your way this afternoon to get some stuff out of my father's house in Henrietta. Then its off to LI to drop them off to him tomorrow, and back to Boston on Sunday. I am calling it the New York tour, but at least my daughter volunteered to come with me to help with the driving.

[Guest Tim I.]

I also have purchased some ball bearings for my build. Because of the move, I am selectively buying some pieces to upgrade my kit bash. I have not tried blackening them. I noticed you mentioned you heated them first before you tried to blacken them. Is this a step that is needed?

 

Also purchased some of Chuck's cannons and blocks. I will post a picture later today on my Constitution build log if your curious. I am also expecting the Model Expo Cannon kit (30x 24 pounders) to arrive hopefully today. I am trying to determine what direction I want to go for armament on my gun deck.

 

- Tim

[usedtosail]

Yes, I read on another post that you had to heat them because they were stainless steel. I didn't try them without heating, but that would be a quick experiment, I think. Hey at least you can start messing around with the extras you will be adding. I am doing that as I wait for planks to dry.

[Guest Tim I.]

I got my cannon order from Chuck yesterday and promptly started assembling a carriage. I could not contain my excitement!   

I hope to get some time on my workbench tonight. I might throw some of my ball bearings in some Blacken-it and update you on the results.

 

- Tim