USS Constitution by robnbill (Bill) - FINISHED - Mamoli - 1:93 kit - First Build - Bashed

[robnbill]

I completed serving the lower fore mast shrouds. I fully served the forward most shroud on each side. I started attaching the shrouds to the lower mast. I find the middle of the shroud and if I did my serving correctly, the served portion is even on both sides. There is some leeway in the length so I can adjust a mall amount. Since I did not see anything addressing exactly how much should be served, I ended up serving 2 ¼ inches down each side.  thread the aft side shroud though the mast, then tie it off fairly close to the mast then serve the two together for about ¾". Once attached, I tape it to the bottom of the mast so it is out of the way as I attach the next set and work my way through. 

 

I used a steel guitar string to create 4 deadeye jigs. Hopefully these will be enough to allow me to set up a number of shrouds in tandem. I am doing all of the shroud work that I can before the mast get's stepped and they get attached to the ship. I will probably attach the upper shrouds as well prior to stepping. THen I will see if I want to attach the spars to the mast prior to stepping it.

 

My goal is to do as much as I can before it is on the ship without overstepping my experience and having to redo it all once it gets stepped.

 

Since I will be using Bentinck shrouds for the forward and Main Masts, I added 4 rings in the waterways 2 each side, just forward of the masts and with enough clearance to not impede the Cannons.

 

I have a couple of questions on serving. 

 

1) Is this enough or too much for each of the non-forward shrouds. 

2) Does the forward most upper shroud get served? When I reviewed the AOS, it looked as if they did not.

[robnbill]

I need to install the hammock cranes before the shrouding obstructs them. The Mamoli plans would shave had me install them mush earlier. The frames in the kit had a bar connecting the uprights across the top. The Connie's frames do not. SO I used my nippers and cut them off and ground them flush with my rotary tool. Then drilled the holes out with a 1mm drill. This seemed the correct size based on the uncleaned holes. 

 

I pulled off a length of the thread the plans called out for and used India Ink to dye both the netting and thread black. I counted the frames supplied in the kit and there are 51. I need at most 48 to complete the frames. The termination of the frames - at least forward, is on a board. So this will reduce the numbers by at least two unless I glue the board directly to a frame.

 

I hope to drill and install the frames into the rails next. I also have been holding off adding the ship's boat davits off the galleries. The stern davits were installed a long time ago. I still may just fit them to the ship and not install them since they are obstructive. 

[robnbill]

I drilled all the holes in the rails on both sides to add the hammock cranes to the railing. I need to get these done before I obstruct them with the shrouds. I installed the hammock frames on the port side and have almost completed the netting on the same side. The starboard has the lines run through the frames but no netting yet. Once the nets were installed and the glue fired, I rubbed the beeswax and turpentine mixture into the netting. 

I also installed the same netting on the main masts fighting platform's handrail. I also cleaned up and reviewed my workbook on rigging sizes for the Connie. I am going to use the rigging sizes called out during the 1927 restoration. During the last major restoration the lines were converted to polypropylene and the line diameters changed. For instance in 1927 the main mast lower shrouds were 12" in diameter. These are now 10" diameter shrouds. Since the 1812 configuration was Hemp, the 1927 diameters are probably the better ones to use.

[robnbill]

Today I completed the hammock crane installation. After completing the netting on all the frames I built and installed end boards. I also decided to try adding some hammocks to see how it looked. I had not planned on putting hammocks on the ship. I calculated the scaled down size of the hammocks, this ended up being 15mm x 10mm after rounding. I used the paper hand towels that are strong and cloth like. I dyed the cloth with a stain made up of tea and coffee. A minute in this solution and I could wring it out, rinse it and dry it. This gave me the color I was looking for. 

 

I cut a few hammocks out and rolled them using the beeswax/turpentine mixture to make it hold it's shape and cut down on fuzzies. After rolling a few, I tried them out on the ship. I did not want to lay them down. I tried standing them on end and did not like that. I bent them in a U and placed them in the rack with the bend up (or U upside down). This was a look I liked. So I started a batch process to cut, roll and roll all the hammocks I would need. This was approximately 260. I placed them from the forward and aft closed ends toward the waist. When I reached the waist, I bound the last hammock with thin thread and glued it in place. This makes the most visible hammocks look bound like the hammocks would have been. The beeswax/turpentine mixture will stiffen up the hammocks as the turpentine evaporates. They will also lighten up slightly as the dry.

 

During breaks on the hammocks, I installed the netting on the remaining fighting tops.

 

At this point, I still need to build the three mast rings and mount the gallery ship's boat davits. Then I will return to the rigging in earnest. I will use breaks on the rigging to build the three remaining ship's boats. Thee are a few photos below showing the progress.

 

 

 

 

[robnbill]

Today I spent a bit of time building the wooden mast step rings. These are not on the Mamoli plans ( that I could find) but are on the ship and ironically are on the Mamoli Constitution cross section model of the same scale. Since I did not find anything in the AOS specifically around the sizing of the ring, I looked at the photos of the current ship. I only had photos of the mizzen mast ring. It appeared to be anywhere from 9 to 12". 9" would equate to 1.4 mm on this scale. So I took sheet of Bass wood and center punched points where I wanted the centers to be. Then I used a compass to lay out the rough circle. I put a thin coat of CA glue on one side to keep it fro splitting then drilled the correct size holes on the centers. I cut the rough pieces out on the band saw then cut the outer circles out on the scroll saw. The Mizzen mast was tear dropped shaped since I included spanker mast in the single ring. I may modify this tomorrow to keep the rings separate. I have to look at it more closely.

 

To round the rings outsides evenly, I placed them on a dowel the same size as the mast. I held the Foredom tool in the table vise with the sanding head 2.5 mm in from the edge. Then I was able to hold the dowel against the table edge and roll the ring against the sander to smooth the ring as I spun it. Sounds more complicated than it was and it worked well. Once these had a final clean up with some sand paper, I painted them white.

 

I also took some hardwood strips and made the bi-pod mast alignment jig Cap'n Rat Fink described so well in his post http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/1985-mast-alignment/page-2?hl=bipod . Now I am almost completely through with all the hull work. I still need to fit the gallery davits to the hull although I still do not plan on attaching them yet.

[HIPEXEC]

Beautiful build!

[robnbill]

So now I can say the rigging has officially started. I know I have been serving lines, and serving the shrouds to the mast, but I did not feel that I actually had started rigging until I had rigged my first shroud. Today I rigged the topgallant shrouds on the forward mast. The plan called for the lower set of deadeyes to be attached to a line threaded through the fighting top then attached to the lower shrouds. I will do this, but instead of using a line, I used blackened brass wire to create futtock plates. These I will attach to the lower shrouds with a combination of catharpins and Bentinck shrouds.

 

The lines are not yet glued/affixed. I will wait until later in the process. Currently the lines are terminated in two half hitches above the deadeyes. This will allow me to adjust them later.

 

 

 

 

[robnbill]

Geoff - Thanks.  I am sort of excited to start this new phase. Now that it is actually underway, it seems more doable. Before I started it, it was just so nebulous. Now it is a matter of chipping away at everything one step at a time. Just like all the other phases. Just new and different.

 

Rich - Thanks. I appreciate your looking at my build log.

[robnbill]

Today I rigged the top of the foremast shrouds. I tied these to the topgallant shrouds. I tightened the topgallant shrouds. If they are still tight tomorrow I plan on fixing the lines at the deadeyes. I still will have some play if I need to tighten them a bit since I can pull down on the futtock plates.

 

I also decided I liked the look of having the lower stunsail booms that are lashed to the hull stained the same color as the mast stain rather than black. So I removed them from the ship, sanded the black off, stained them and remounted them. I believe it looks better. It breaks up the black not he side of the ship a bit.

 

I think at this point, I will start working on performing the same operations on the other masts. Then I can start looking at actually stepping them and rigging the lower shrouds to the chainplates.

[robnbill]

Lot’s of grumbling today in the old shipyard.  QA did an inspection on the forward mast and rejected it due to a twist in the mast resulting in the mast caps not aligning. I removed the rigging and took the mast apart and used the opportunity to redo the cross trees. The Mamoli plans did not include the dimensions of the traverse members of the tree but supplied the fore and aft frames to put them in. Nor were the transverse members the correct curved shape. Originally I left them straight per the kit plans and guessed on the transverse members length. For the new effort I decided to use the AOS to draw up the correct cross trees.

 

I scanned the page from the AOS and pulled it into DeltaCAD to draw up each of the trees. There is still some confusion on the sizing of the mizzenmasts tree since the AOS is not clear on the dimensions (at least clear to me) for the mizzen's trees. The Mamoli plans called for a smaller one but there was confusion on part numbers resulting in nothing carrying over correctly between the part numbers shown in the plans, but the precut tree beams supplied in the kit (not the transverse members) were the same length on all the masts so that is what I did originally.

 

After drafting up the drawings I tried some rough cuts and came up with a method to shape them and replace them.  I will cut and shape the new cross trees tomorrow.  Perhaps this has been corrected in the newer kits, however, I have attached a printable PDF of my new trees drawings, if anyone wants to use it. If you print this out full size it should be exactly what you need for the Mamoli scale. 

 

Edit: I used the Navy Plans for calculating the size of the Mizzen's cross tree. I updated the attached pdf to include all the cross trees. I also added reference lines for assistance in lining up the top and side silhouettes.  If this is printed out full size it can be used as a template for cutting and shaping all of the cross trees.

Constitution Cross Trees.pdf

Edited July 10, 2014 by robnbill

[robnbill]

I completed the fore mast cross trees and reassembled the mast and corrected the twist. I like the way they have come out. I touched up the paint and tomorrow once the paint has had a chance to dry sufficiently, I will reinstall the rigging. Below are photos of both the old and new cross trees. The old are square and flat, the new ones are curved and based upon the dimensions and shapes from the AOS and Navy plans.

 

Rather than take the remaining masters totally apart, my plan is to cut the old cross trees from them and install the new ones around the masts.

 

 

[robnbill]

Update: I used a cut off disk in the Foredom tool to cut the cross tree from the Main Mast. I was able to get the pieces off easily. When I did, the mast cap also came off so the top of the mast came loose. This made it easier to change the cross trees.  So instead of building the tree on the mast, I glued it up off the mast and then placed it when I glued the assembly back together. I will need to touch up the paint now but the Main Mast is now completed. 

 

Tomorrow I plan on fabricating and installing the mizzen tree. This one is a bit smaller so it might be a bit more of a challenge. Hopefully, the top of the mizzen will also come loose as easily as the Main's did.

[HIPEXEC]

How did you make the actual hammocks you put into the hammock nets? They look great.

[robnbill]

Thanks. I am happy the way they turned out. The process I used was to take some white disposable guest towels, the kind that are paper, but hold up to water. I took one of those and stained it using a coffee/tea mixture. I played with ti a bit to see how long it took to get the color I wanted. Then I rinsed it and dried simulate the  it in the microwave. After that I calculated the size a 6' x 4' hammock would be. Since I was rolling them, neither dimension was critical as long as I was in the ball park. 

 

After testing it a bit, I found I could cut a strip that was as wide as the 4' section would be at that scale and as long as about 6 hammocks. Again since they were being rolled and shaped into a U with the ends down, I did not have to be exact. To roll the hammocks, I would take the cloth, dip my fingers in my beeswax/turpentine mix and roll them up. Then I used the nipper to cut the length more or less to the 6' length. I took each small piece and rolled it through my fingers a bit to get the final rolled dimension I was looking for and bent it into a U and placed it in the hammock rack netting. Since only the end hammocks could possibly be seen ( and this only through a magnifying glass), I only wrapped the end most hammock with cording to simulate the binding that each sailor did with his hammock prior to inserting it into the rack. 

 

Using this method the real critical dimension was the thickness of the rolled hammock. This was easily taken care of my how tightly I rolled the hammock as long as they were all cut to roughly the same dimension.

 

I used tweezers to place them and do all the final shaping once I had a rack fully stuffed. Then it was just a matter of letting the turpentine evaporate. This made the hammocks stiffen up and stick to each other and locking them into the netting.

[HIPEXEC]

Well, they look great!

[Landlubber Mike]

Very nice work Bill.  Amazing progress given that the build was dormant for 21 years

[robnbill]

Rich - Thanks. As I had mentioned, I had not planned on putting the hammocks on the ship, but once I saw the look I could not resist.

 

Mike - Thank you. The ship is coming together. Slowly but surely. What part of DC are you from. We are out near Dulles.

[HIPEXEC]

I was going to leave them off also until I found out that that were an important part of the ship's defense during battle. They made bulwarks against shrapnel, splinters and small arms

Edited July 15, 2014 by Hipexec

[robnbill]

Equally important for the painted version of the model, they add a great deal of interest in what would be a black area of the hull. There is a lot of black on the Connie! I originally had the lower studding sail booms black and recently stripped them and stained them for the same reason. They just blended into the black.

[robnbill]

So today I started re-rigging the forward mast.  I was able to create and install all of the reformed cross trees based upon the drawings I created using the AOS information. These turned out pretty well. Now I have all of the deadeyes installed for the futtocks and have the forward most pair rigged. I decided after reviewing the literature as well as looking at the photos of the current ship, that I would use black threads for lacing the deadeyes. Originally I used beige. I should be able to get the formats back to where it was by Monday.

 

Then I will try to get some photos for the before and after shots.

[HIPEXEC]

I'll be copying your gun rigging jig tomorrow! I really like it.

[robnbill]

So things have been a bit slow in the shipyard. Many household projects to get done during the great weather we have been having as well as still having issues with my shoulder. However, thanks to Popeye2Sea and the great folks over at http://www.1812marines.org, I have obtained a piece of the real Connie to add to my build. Since the hull is completed, I can certainly add it to the ship's boats, but I would like to add it to the ship's furniture.

 

One way I could do this is to build a ship's wheel (al la TFFM). Not sure if I can pull it off at 1:93 but I want to try. I will build one first out of normal hardwood then if all goes well< I will use the Connie's wood to build the wheel. In pursuit of this I used the Navy plans of the ship's double wheel (pre 1927) done for the 1927 restoration.  It was as the ship had on it before the 27 work was done. I used the Navy plans to draw it up in CAD. This is at the same scale as the original drawing 3" = 1'. Anyway, if any one is interested, here is the PDF of the double wheel.

Constitution Double Ships Wheel.pdf

[usedtosail]

Thanks for the plan, Bill. I might try building one for my Connie.

[robnbill]

It will be a bit of a challenge since it is so small and has so many parts. I am planning on setting up my drill press with an XY vise. Then I will make a circular base on a ball bearing mount. I should be able set index holes in it to lock it. This should allow me to mount the workpiece to the round base, set it in the XY vise. align it to the center, then offset it for the round cuts. Then old it with the indexing pins to cross cut the 10 slots needed for each circle.

 

Easier said than done, but it will be a fun challenge. FYI, I realized when I did this, that my existing wheel ( the metal one from Mamoli) had only 8 spokes. 

 

Bill

[robnbill]

Thanks. I will let you know how it goes.

[JSGerson]

 

Vill

 

The XY clamp is good value. I have my Dremel drill press set up with the Proxxon XY clamp.

 

Cheers

Geoff

I too have a Proxxon XY table on a Dremel drill press and am not so happy. The XY table is fine but a bit of a pain to align on the drill press. The real problem is the drill press itself - it just isn't sturdy enough. I can't tell how many times I've lined up the drill only to have it move laterally when lowing the drill assembly due to the press's low precision. It's made of plastic parts with low tolerances.

 

Hopefully in the near future I will have a true dedicated drill press that can be adjusted with precision. It's just a question of time and money.  Isn't it always?

[robnbill]

Actually, I am using a Delta floor mounted drill press. I purchased the 6 inch XY table from Harbor Freighr. Looking at the reviews if the various tables. Unless I was going to spend a great deal more (hundreds more) money, this one got the best reviews. I went to the store and looked at it and tested it for smoothness before I purchased it.

 

So hopefully I will not have the wondering bit issue. If i do, I will have to regroup and look at dedicated mills.

 

To support this, I am building a jig to allow me to mount the work piece in the table and turn it independently of the XY table. I will post how that comes along. I purchased the various hardware pieces I needed today.

[HIPEXEC]

Bill,

You were the push I needed....I'll fill the rest of my hammock nets with folded hammocks. I really like the way you deck looks.

[robnbill]

I know it has been a long time since I updated this build log. Well I am back to rigging. My surgery was a success and my arm is feeling much better now. I have spent a couple of weeks looking at  and building various prototypes for replacing my current metal wheel with a wooden one using wood from the Connie. However, the wood has pretty wide rings and just isn't suitable for trying to carve something this small out of it. So I will plan on using it in the ships boats, and for the plaque/name plate once the case is done.

 

I started work on the shrouds for the mizzen today. I served the lower shrouds (with the forward shroud being fully served. Tomorrow I will start rigging them to the mast. 

[robnbill]

Well progress has been made on the Connie. She has a nose now - and a long one it is! I decided to follow the rigging as described in Vol 4 of TFFM. So I will start with the bow spirit, then move to the mizzen then work forward until the standing rigging is completed.

 

I set the bowsprit into it's footing, then started on the lower standing rigging. Tomorrow, I will continue the bowsprit. I have photos below of the progress I made today.

Edited October 11, 2014 by robnbill