USS Constitution Tribute Build

[LSP_Mike]

Lovely.

[Gazzas]

so many guns!  Must have been quite a broadside.  Exquisite details, Ernest. 

[Greif8]

13 hours ago, LSP_Mike said:

Lovely.

 

5 hours ago, Gazzas said:

so many guns!  Must have been quite a broadside.  Exquisite details, Ernest. 

 

Thank you gents!

 

Gary the Constitution had a much heavier broadside weight than normal sized frigates, as did the other two big 44's.  Against the HMS Guerriere the Consititution could fire a broadside weighing 754 pounds to the Guerriere's 526 pounds giving the ship a huge advantage in weight of fire.

 

Ernest

[Greif8]

Another very small update.  I decided to work on the ship's boats before getting started on the carronade block and tackles.  The kit's boats are decent representations of those carried on the Consitiution, and like most things with the ship there is some debate about how many and what types of boats the Constitution carried at any one time, the numbers and types of boats changed fairly often.  For example, it is very possible the ship carried 8 boats during the time frame I am building her to represent, and the kit contains 7 boats.  I am getting around that little conundrum by saying the Constitution is towing one of her boats, it having been put in the water while the ship was clearing for action.  Normally, the majority of a ship's boats would be towed during action to give them a better chance of getting through the engagement intact.  However, Bainbridge reported that only one of the ship's boats made it through the fight with the Java unscathed which makes me believe that the other boats were not put in the water and towed prior to the ship's battle with the Java.  

 

As I said, the kit's boats look ok, but they could use a little scratchbuilding to improve them.  I used the Anatomy of the Ship book I have on the Constitution as a reference to make the following, fairly minor improvements.  I am only going to show the Launch as all the work is nearly the same for all the boats (though I have only finished the Launch and one of the cutters at this point).

 

The hull before any scratchbuilding.  I need to remove the three ejection pin marks.

 

And those marks removed with the hull prepped for the additional work.  The marks are to help align the framing ribs.

 

I first cut and installed a Keelson using a length of .40 x .40 Inch Evergreen strip gluing it down the center of the hull.  I then used some .10 x .40 inch Evergreen strip to simulate the boat's framing ribs.  Though I did not manage to get the frames 100% exactly spaced I think they look the part.

 

I then cut some .10 x .40 strips 65mm in length and added them lengthwise down each side of the keelson spaced about 1.5mm apart to represent the foor-waling boards.

 

At this point I called it good, though you could really go to town and add several more details.  In the photo below I have loosely placed to the second kit part that makes up the complete boat in its position to check how the boat will look when it is finished.  I like the result and think it adds to the realism of the boat(s).  I'll paint the two parts seperately and glue them together once the paint has dried.

  

Edited June 28, 2023 by Greif8

[LSP_Mike]

Well done. 

[Uncarina]

This is looking so very good Ernest!

 

Cheers, Tom

[Gazzas]

Bravo!

[mozart]

Such a fascinating build Ernest, you really are doing the Constitution justice with your attention to detail.
 

Whilst cycling in the New Forest last week, we went to Bucklers Hard on the edge of the Solent where many of our ships were built, the nearby forest providing a plentiful supply of English oak:

 

 

In the picture above, the furthest house on the left belongs to the Master Builder, quite a responsibility! 

 

 

Edited June 28, 2023 by mozart

[Greif8]

On 6/27/2023 at 2:05 PM, LSP_Mike said:

Well done. 

 

On 6/27/2023 at 3:36 PM, Uncarina said:

This is looking so very good Ernest!

 

Cheers, Tom

 

18 hours ago, Gazzas said:

Bravo!

 

13 hours ago, mozart said:

Such a fascinating build Ernest, you really are doing the Constitution justice with your attention to detail.
 

Whilst cycling in the New Forest last week, we went to Bucklers Hard on the edge of the Solent where many of our ships were built, the nearby forest providing a plentiful supply of English oak:

 

 

In the picture above, the furthest house on the left belongs to the Master Builder, quite a responsibility! 

 

 

 

Thank you for stopping by guys!

 

Tom, I am giving this build my best shot.  It has been fun and interesting to learn some new techniques.

 

Max, thank you for the wonderful photos.  Someday I plan to visit Portsmouth and the HMS Victory so I will be pretty close to the Solent I think.

 

Ernest

[mozart]

You will indeed, just a few miles along the coast Ernest. 

[Greif8]

Yet another small update.  I managed to tame the breeching lines on the carronades and they look much better now.  I have also started making the block and tackles for them, but I don't think I will take any photos of that process as it is identical to the one I used to rig the 24 pounders and I have already bored you guys with photos of that.

 

A lengthwise view of the aft portion of the ship from the stern.  The carronades are looking pretty shipshape now.

 

The breeching lines for the six forward carronades have also been tidyed up.

 

Mid-range shot from above and rear of some of the carronades.  It took some fiddling to get the breeching lines to hang more or less realistically.

 

Finally the forward starboard side carronade has been rigged to test the measurements I made for the block and tackle lines.  I managed to get that right the first time so I was able to start producing the block and tackles.  I will need to tidy up the lines for this carronade.  Test fitting confirmed that things are tight but doable; I foresee a "fiddlefest" in the future, but first I have several days ahead of making the blocks and tackles.  I'll snap I photo once I have gotten this carronade's lines ship shape.

 

[LSP_Mike]

It all looks shipshape and squared away, as it should.

[Greif8]

I have been working away making the block and tackles for the carronades the past few days.  There are a total of 88 block and tackle lines, 44 for the run out rigging and 44 for the traversing rigging; which means stropping 176 blocks.  The upside is that I am now pretty experienced at this process and that will be a huge help when it comes to working on the standing and running rigging later in the build.  I finished all the stropping earlier today and have assembled the run out rigging, placed it on the carronades carriages and have completed that part of the rigging for slightly over half the carronades.  Below are photos of the progress with some explanations covering how I went about doing it.

 

A stropped double sheave block.  Actual blocks were stropped from a single strand of rope laid back on itself to form a continuous loop. A seizing is then worked around a thimble which tightens the strop around the block and the thimble. At 1/96 scale that is very, very difficult to bring off well, at least for me, so I developed a technique to simulate the look in scale.    On the block below, I used a smaller diameter thread first tying the eye of the hook off with a simple overhand knot.  I than wrapped the line around the block with the hook centered on one end, clamped the sides of the block that had the lines running along them with a pair of tweezers that clamp and tied the other end with another overhand knot.  I glued that end with a tiny drop of super glue, unclamped the block and used an old paint brush to brush thinned white glue on the sides.  After everything hand dried for 30 minutes I cut the excess thread as close as possible.  This technique results in a block that looks fairly close to the actual thing, with the hook secured inside what was known as a becket and the other end fairly flat.

 

 

Blow is the "shipyard" with work underway to make the components of the block and tackles.  On the right side of the photo are the parts for the run out rigging (which are finished) and the left side shows those for the traversing rigging (which are about 65% finished).  In the center is the "lines" that will be stropped to the single blocks that you can see immediate left.

 

 

The parts to make the run out block and tackles.  The single sheave blocks were stropped with the run out line nearly the same technique as that for the double sheave blocks.  The two differencies being that I stropped the blocks using the run out line and tied the end opposite the one with the hook off using a square knot that I pulled tight to both center the line and grip the block firmly.

 

And the traversing parts.

 

Lengthwise photo of the spar deck from the bow.  You can make out that I have attached the run out rigging to all 22 carronades and that the port side carronade run out rigging is complete with the lines glued in place on the deck.

 

The spar deck viewed from the stern.  My goal is to have all the lines look similiar without making them look too identical.  

 

Finally an overhead shot showing three of the carronades.  You can see that things get crowded real quick meaning that placing the traversing rigging will be an interesting challenge.

 

[Gazzas]

Very nice work, Ernest!   One thing that most ship models do wrong is show too much free area on the deck.  Through lack of detail, of course.  There's no kit that seems to have enough of the detritus of seafaring scattered about and lashed down.  I don't think your kit will have that problem.

[Greif8]

On 7/4/2023 at 3:51 AM, Gazzas said:

Very nice work, Ernest!   One thing that most ship models do wrong is show too much free area on the deck.  Through lack of detail, of course.  There's no kit that seems to have enough of the detritus of seafaring scattered about and lashed down.  I don't think your kit will have that problem.

 

Thank you Gary!  I don't think an empty deck will be a problem with this build either man.  On the contrary, I am already thinking hard how not to make it too cluttered up given all the tied off rigging that is going to be shown.