USS Constitution Tribute Build

[Greif8]

On 3/10/2024 at 12:13 PM, LSP_Mike said:

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...

 

 

20 hours ago, Gazzas said:

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.

 

Thank you Mike!  I am now at the point where I have to wait for the sails to arrive.  I asked several very experienced model ship builders and they all told me it will be MUCH easier to install the sails while the masts are not fixed in place on the ship.  Easiest of all would have been to bend the sails to the yards before attaching them to the masts, alas I was not smart enough to ask about that before doing so.  I will make it work though.

 

Thank you as well Gary! I really don'r know much more about sailing ship terms then you do.  I have learned a lot while building this model and through all the research and reading I have done to try and keep mistakes to a minimum, but I am a neophyte compared to the guys who build sailing ship models almost exclusively.

 

Ernest

[Greif8]

The build is paused while I wait for the special order sail set to arrive.  After consulting with several experienced model ship builders I have decided to install the sails to the yards before stepping the masts in the hull.  There is really nothing else I can work on while waiting as I have finished all the sub/side assemblies that can be done prior to stepping the masts and starting the standing rigging.  Hopefully the sails will arrive soon and I can get the shipyard up and running again.

 

Ernest

[MikeMaben]

[Greif8]

About an hour after I posted I would be pausing the build while awaiting the sails, one of the experienced sailing ship builders I have been corresponding with emailed me and asked why I was pausing.  He pointed out that I could rig the shrouds and lower stays on the masts, and in fact most sailing ship modellers did that kind of work before stepping the masts.  He also wrote that very often guys would fix one end of the stays and rig the upper ratlines as well while the masts were off the ship and before the sails were installed.  When I wrote back telling him I was seriously considering using the kit shrouds/ratlines as I was not sure my skills were up to rigging the actual shrouds and getting them positioned and tensioned correctly he basically told me to stop worrying as based on the build log he was sure I was more than skillful enough to do those tasks so I should get cracking! 

 

I took his words to heart and just finished installing the shrouds and the main stay/preventer stay to the main mast.  Following are some photos of either the end results or the process.

 

First up are the upper parts of the shrouds in position.  On actual ships shrouds were rigged in pairs wherever possible beginning with a pair or, if required, a single line on the starboard side followed by the same pair or line on the port side, and that is the process I followed.  The model has 9 lines for the shrouds for the fore and main masts and 5 for the mizzen mast.  Normally the single line would be towards the stern side of a channels, but due to how the shrouds have to be run on the model I put the single line forward.  On sailing ships the foremost shroud was thicker than the others because it had been what was called, wormed, parceled and served along its entire length, so I used a 1mm line for the foremost shroud to replicate that look and .75mm lines for the remaining 8 shrouds.

 

I also worked on and positioned the main stay and main preventer stay.  These were very large heavy lines and I used 1.3mm line to replicate them.  The end that looped around the mast had what was called a Mouse installed on the line, the purpose being to prevent the line from sliding upwards towards the fighting top thereby loosing the line.  The end was worked into an eye and seized, and the other end passed through the eye and run to its terminus point on the deck.  Believe it or not, the 1/96 scale Constitution is considered fairly small and things like a Mouse normally would not be installed, but I wanted to try make them anyway. 

 

First I selected a small wooden dowel.  

 

I drilled a hole in the dowel that would allow the line to be run through it and slightly beveled the end.

 

The dowel was cut to length and the other end beveled.

 

I then used the sticky part of one of those heavy band-aid type bandages to wrap around the wooden part.  The texture looks close to the actual thing at this scale.

 

The Mouse has been shaped.  In the early 1800's a Mouse on the Constitution looked more like a cylinder than a tear drop and I tried to get that look here.  Once the stays are in there final positions I will do some minor shaping work, but they look fairly close now.

 

The two ends of the main stay ready to be installed on the mast.

 

Both the main stay and preventer stay have been wrapped around the mast, checked for correct length and position on the mast and now await final rigging once the mast is fixed in place later.  I have about 2-3mm of play to make any final adjustments and once the stays have been rigged in place and tensioned I will glue the "mice" to fix them in place and paint them.

 

View of the lines positioned on the mast.  I will have to make some minor adjustments once I start the rigging process for these lines, but I got the look I was after.

 

And of course I posted the wrong photo above, below is the right one.

 

Here is how the shrouds and lower stays look in the Marquardt book.  I did not get a perfect look, but I think I got close enough.

 

Again a goof with the pictures, very vexing!

 

Edited March 14 by Greif8

[Greif8]

A combination of work, yard projects and cycling reduced progress on the build to a crawl the last week and a half, but I have been plugging away on the ship.  I have been working on the shrouds, ensuring they are the correct lengths and getting the lower shrouds prepared to attach them to the deadeyes on the channels.  This involved a lot of repetitive and not very photo worthy work, but the lower shrouds are all prepped and ready to be attached to the deadeyes when the time comes.  I have also started to run the top mast shrouds for all three masts.  This again requires a bunch of repetitive tasks that look pretty much the same, so I'll only show the Mizzen Top Mast shrouds to spare all of you the experience of looking at a series of photos showing much the same thing. 

 

The lower main mast shrouds attached to the mast and hanging free.  What looks like an ungodly mess is actually fairly organized and I should be able to sort the lines for attachment without too much trouble.

   

And here are the lower fore mast shrouds.  Slightly out of focus is the fore stay with it's mouse in place ready for final attachment and adjustment.  I will have to wait until I have stepped the mast and rigged the lower shrouds to place the fore preventer stay as I'll have to align it with the fore stay where both attach to the bowsprit.

 

Not the best photo, but you can make out all the lower shrouds hanging down as well as some of the stays.

 

The Mizzen Topmast shrouds have been rigged.  I learned some new techniques while rigging these shrouds.  Overall they turned out respectable and a managed to get them properly tensioned so that the Topmast is true.  The lanyards that run between the upper and lower deadeyes were actually used to tension the lines, just as on the actual ship.  There is a lot of debate among both maritime historians and experienced sailing ship modellers as to the color of the lanyards.  Some say only the lanyards for the lower shrouds were left natural rope with the rest being greased, others claim all lanyards were greased, making them all very dark brown to almost black in color,  I went with the first group.

 

I double seized the lines attached to the upper deadeyes and ran the lanyards following the rigging instructions in one of the books a have.  I kept the distance between the top and bottom deadeyes close, but I did not try to get them perfectly aligned.  Most tall ship experts agree that it was common for the space between the upper and lower deadeyes to vary slightly as each line was adjusted as required.

 

You can see the the topmast is true.  It is also now quite stable, the shrouds are doing their job even at 1:96 scale.

 

Not a huge update, but you can see that a fair amount of progress has been made.  You can also see that there are a lot of lines, with more to come - and this is only the standing rigging.  On a final note, the sails I had made should be here this coming week and I am very interested to see what they look like!

 

Ernest

Edited March 25 by Greif8
Spelling

[Gazzas]

Fine update, Ernest.  I really like the uneven look of the deadeyes.  It looks much better than if they were perfectly parallel.  Everything looks very realistic.  I can almost imagine the fighting tops full of Marines.

 

 

Edited March 23 by Gazzas

[LSP_Mike]

Nicely done. To me, the rigging looking, and being functional, is the look.

[Greif8]

On 3/24/2024 at 2:13 PM, LSP_Mike said:

Nicely done. To me, the rigging looking, and being functional, is the look.

 

On 3/23/2024 at 9:45 PM, Gazzas said:

Fine update, Ernest.  I really like the uneven look of the deadeyes.  It looks much better than if they were perfectly parallel.  Everything looks very realistic.  I can almost imagine the fighting tops full of Marines.

 

 

 

 

Thank you both for the kind words!

 

Ernest

[Greif8]

A tiny update.  I have spent several hours at the bench for little to show for it.  The past several bench sessions have focused on tying off the ratlines.  This turned out to be a huge learning experience.  I tried several different types of line; cotton, synthetic, and nylon fishing line before I decided to use 0.135mm Infini elastic line.  I ended up redoing the port side topmast shrouds twice, before I got the ratlines to look halfway decent - and they are far from perfect.  Hopefully by the time I start on the lower shrouds my technique will have improved.  

 

 

The small piece of wood was called a Futtock Stave; it's purpose was to keep the shrouds from twisting.  Again, I am hoping I get better at tying the ratlines 

as I progress.

 

Ernest

[Gazzas]

Looks good.  I had thought that this would be a particularly difficult procedure.  One that I am glad to avoid.  I'm near to start rigging Grosser Kurfurst...  I know it won't be 1/100th of what you're doing. 

[Greif8]

On 3/27/2024 at 3:10 AM, Gazzas said:

Looks good.  I had thought that this would be a particularly difficult procedure.  One that I am glad to avoid.  I'm near to start rigging Grosser Kurfurst...  I know it won't be 1/100th of what you're doing. 

 

Thank you Gary!  The process is not really that hard, but it is very time consuming and takes some practice.

 

[Greif8]

Progress continues and I am beginning to understand why tall ships take so long to build when you try to get the rigging fairly accurate - it is a very time intensive process.  I am keeping my fingers firmly crossed that I don't end up making a real mess of the rigging.  My lack of experience is really showing now as I have to keep referring to sources and triple checking to make sure I am running and tying of line right; but I am getting more efficent and, hopefully, better.

 

The mizzen topgallant shrouds are finished.  I made a couple of slight changes to how the line are run based on the sources I have reviewed.  These turned out to look ok.

 

You can see how crowded some of the areas on the mast gets with line and blocks.

 

I finished running the main topmast shrouds as well.  Like the mizzen mast shrouds they go a long way towards stabilizing the masts.  Running actual shroud lines is a fair amount of work, but I can't imagine that the flimsy plastic shrouds/ratlines the kit provides either look better or provide any sort of support.

 

 

 

The shroud lines ran nicely on both sides and I managed to get the deadeyes pretty even with good spacing.

 

This photo really shows how crowed and complex the rigging lines get - and this is just the standing rigging.  Once the lines are run and tightened things should look much more shipshape. 

 

Wrong photo above, the correct one is below.

 

[LSP_Ray]

Well done!

[Gazzas]

Exceptional!

[MikeMaben]