USS Constitution Tribute Build

[Gazzas]

wow!  That really looks awesome.  all of your extra work is paying off.

[LSP_Ray]

Wow! That is amazing and you have just started! Makes rigging WWI biplanes look simple!

[Greif8]

18 hours ago, Gazzas said:

wow!  That really looks awesome.  all of your extra work is paying off.

 

11 hours ago, LSP_Ray said:

Wow! That is amazing and you have just started! Makes rigging WWI biplanes look simple!

 

Thank you Gary and Ray!  The experience I gained rigging the several biplanes I have built certainly has helped with this build so far.  You are right though that after this experience biplane rigging will look pretty easy!

 

Ernest

[Greif8]

The jib boom guys are rigged.  These turned out to be a bit easier to do then the bobstay and bowsprit shrouds; partly because I had more room to work and partly due to gaining experience in the process of making bullseyes.  You will notice in the photos that there is now even more slack in the lower bowsprit rigging.  I read through a lot of very good sailing ship modeller's build logs and several of them pointed out that it is better to have about 2-3mm of slack in the lower bowsprit rigging so that you can tension the all foremast stays and the upper mast lines that run to the jib boom better as the forces acting on the rigging in this area counteract each other, just like the real thing.  I am keeping my fingers crossed I found the "sweet spot" here.

 

Overhead view showing the eight jib boom guys.  I should have moved the masts out of the way before I took the photo, but you can see how the lines are run.

 

Close up of two of the bullseyes.  I am going to spot paint some of the areas that were fixed in place with super glue to knock down the shine.  Looking at the kit bullseyes next to the ones I made I realized that the kit ones look fine and I would have saved myself a lot of work had a opted to use them; but I wanted to use the eyes I purchased and went ahead and did so here.

 

One of the areas I paid attention to was where the lines came together.  I did my best to make these spots neat and to look close to how the real thing does.

 

That's it for today.  I plan to work on the rigging for the remaining 3 ship's boats next.  After that I have to decide how to proceed while awaiting the sails arrival.

 

Ernest

 

[Gazzas]

It just looks awesome.  I think your rigging will make a huge difference in the final look.

[LSP_Mike]

Nice work. Shipshape lines and seizing.

[Greif8]

On 3/3/2024 at 2:45 AM, Gazzas said:

It just looks awesome.  I think your rigging will make a huge difference in the final look.

 

On 3/3/2024 at 5:19 AM, LSP_Mike said:

Nice work. Shipshape lines and seizing.

 

Thank you guys!

[Greif8]

I have been working on some sub-assemblies or touching up previous work the past couple of bench sessions.  Following are some shots that I thought were worth posting and explaining.

 

I finished the remaining three ship's boats.  This was very straight forward and consisted of adding the blocks for the rigging when that time comes later, and putting the oars in the boats.  I decided to display the oars in a bit of an untidy fashion, my logic being that the boats would have been prepped to launch prior to action commencing to give them a better chance of surviving an engagement.  Ship's boats were normally towed behind the ship during battle.  The Constitution's captain's after action report does not mention launching the boats prior to engaging the HMS Java.  His report does mention that only one of the ship's boats survived the engagement and that leaves a strong impression that they were not launched prior to the fight. 

 

Boats with untidy oars.

 

 

 

Close up of one of the blocks.

 

As I mentioned previously I had planned to replace the spar that the Driver attaches to as it was both flimsy and very badly molded.  As the spar is a constant diameter along its entire length I chose to use brass tube and rod to replace it.

 

The (poor) photo below shows the kit part, now cut apart so that I can use one of its pieces and some brass tube also cut to length.  The kit part is 1.95mm in diameter and the brass tube is 2mm, close enough.

 

The next step was to cut two sections of small diameter tube and a section of rod somewhat over twice the length of the sum of the two small sections.

 

The smaller tubes were cleaned up, fitted into the larger tubes and glued in place.

 

The rod was inserted into the end of one of the tube sections and glued.

 

I hole was drilled through the piece of the kit part and it was positioned, and the final section was joined to complete the spar.                                                                        

 

The final step was to make three "iron" rings out of brass and glue them to the correct locations on the spar.  The small white piece on top of the spar is a locating tab that I cut from the kit part and glued in place with 5 minute epoxy.

 

Oops, wrong picture, below is the right one!

 

I am happy with how the spar turned out and will post a final shot after it has been primed and painted.  I have a few more small things I can do on this build before I have to make the tough choice of stepping the masts or waiting for the sails to be made and sent to me.  The first choice means I will not lose any time and momentum on the build, but installing the sails will be much more challenging.  On the fence with this decision right now.

 

Ernest 

Edited March 5 by Greif8

[LSP_Kevin]

Impressive stuff, Ernest! How did you make the brass rings?

 

Kev

[Greif8]

8 hours ago, LSP_Kevin said:

Impressive stuff, Ernest! How did you make the brass rings?

 

Kev

 

Thank you Kev!  I made the rings by wrapping a piece of brass wire around the correct diameter section of a ring making tool I have and then cutting the area where the wire overlapped.  I got the rings to fit tightly by using  a small pair of pliers to do the final shaping on the brass tube.

 

Ernest

[Greif8]

I modified a few of the eyes so that when I reach the point of rigging the section they are part of I can rig the line more realistically.  I also primed and painted the scratch built spar that the Driver Sail attaches to.  Finally, I measured, cut to length, and where neccessary added an eye or block, all the stay rigging for the masts.  Those really are not worth photos but the other two projects might be of interest for some of you.

 

First up is a shot of one of the large eyes next to an unmodified one.  The heaviest and largest lines on a sailing ship were those belonging to the Fore and Main Stays and Preventer Stays for those two masts.  The lines are really massive in real life and they were secured to the deck (main mast stays) and bowsprit (fore mast stays) with heavy fastenings using what were called Heart Blocks.  I don't have any Heart Block shaped blocks, so I modified two of the large and two of the medium sized eyes so that the interior of them looks close to the actual thing, which was a triangular shaped opening. 

   

I used 1.3mm diameter line for the Main Stay and Main Preventer Stay and 1.0mm diameter line for the Fore Stay and Fore Perventer Stay.  Below is the Main Stay with the eye seized three times.  This end will be part of the huge bullseye on the deck near the bow.

 

This busy overhead shot shows four of the five sizes of lines used for standing rigging.  From largest to smallest they are:  1.3mm, 1.0mm, .75mm and .50mm (the bowsprit rigging), I did not show the .25mm line.  You can get a feel for just how large the Main Stay/Preventer Stay line is in comparision to the others.  The 1.0mm and .50mm lines will also be used for the shrouds and back stays.  The kit gives you three sizes of standing rigging line large (about .75mm), medium (about .50mm) and small (about .25mm).  I should be able to rig the standing rigging much more realistically with the five sizes as they are at or very close in scale to the actual diameter of their respective lines.

 

After the paint had cured for several hours I dry fit the spar for the Driver Sail in place.  It looks much better, and is much more stiff than the kit part.  I don't think I will have to glue it when the time comes to fix the mast in place as the part fits very snugly and looks like it belongs.

 

 

 

 

I plan to make the booms that fit onto the fore mast channels to replace the kit ones during the next bench session or two.

 

Ernest

Edited March 6 by Greif8

[Greif8]

I made two booms to replace the kit parts that represent the fore mast lower studding sail booms.  They were fit onto the channels for the fore mast on the actual ship.  The kit instructions would have you place booms on the channels for the main mast as well; however, nearly all sources agree that the ship never set studding sails for the main course, so there were never booms for that arrangment.  

 

Below is one of the booms that I made next to the kit part.  I still have to shape the ends but even at this early stage you can see that the scratch built boom looks better.

 

The ends have been shaped.

 

I made "iron" rings and the hook at the rear of the boom out of brass rod and added them to the wooden boom.

 

The boom is ready for staining.  On the actual ship spars like this were made out of pine wood from Maine so I am going to try to stain the two booms to look like pine that has weathered a bit.

 

Staining complete.  I tried to get a look of weathered wood, but I am not sure a hit the mark.  It does look nice though.

 

The completed booms flanking the kit part.  I like how they turned out and I think they will look good once in place on the channels.  

 

The next step will be to try and replicate the mounting hardware for the booms on the channels.

 

Ernest

Edited March 8 by Greif8

[Greif8]

With the two booms finished I had to make the mounting hardware for them.  Due to the nature of the two mounting pieces I chose to use both brass and plastic to make the parts.  Below is a photo out of Marquardt's book showing the mounting hardware numbered 35 (Turning Iron) and 36 (Resting Iron) on the page.  

 

I used brass make the resting iron by cutting a strip to size and punching several .6mm disks out of brass to replicate the mounting bolts.  The shots below show the shortened process from start to finish.

 

Next was to make the Turning Iron.  Here I chose to use plastic and took a leftover piece from one of my previous aircraft builds to first rough cut a piece and then cut and sand it into final shape.  The first photo shows the leftover part with a section already cut off it with the final product next to it.  I could not replicate the actual part exactly, but I got a reasonable representation of it.

 

Here that part is dry fit on the channel ready to be glued

 

And painted, you can hardly make it out.

 

The Resting Iron in place.

 

I dry fit the boom to check the fit and the look which were both pretty good.  I will not place the boom until the end of the build to avoid potential breakage.  THough the boom appears to be bowed in the photo that is an optical trick due to how it sits in place and the angle I photgraphed it.

 

To finish a couple of close ups.

 

The kit does not have the modeller make what were known as "crowsfeet".  These were small lines the ran from the forward part of the fighting tops of the fore and main masts to a small piece of wood pierced with holes that rested on top of the stay known as a "Euphroe".  I am not sure what the purpose of this was but all sailing ships of at least frigate size and larger had them.  I have to assess whether I can drill the 10 holes through the fighting tops without damaging anything now that I have fixed them in place and installed the yards.  This is a spot where my inexperience in building sailing really shows.  Had I known about the above I could have fairly easily done the work to replicate it early in the process of making the fighting tops.  Now it is going to be much more difficult - should I choose to do it.

 

Ernest   

[LSP_Mike]

Nice progress. Wee steps, but you keep moving forward. The learning curve is fun sometimes. Ask about trying to detail the boat pockets on a 1/350 Saratoga...

 

[Gazzas]

All very tidy Ernest.  I keep finding my head filled with questions about what lines and parts were for.   making me realize that I really don't know anything about sailing ships.