Hello, all! 
Hope you all are or have had a great holiday!
Well, Barry, the bloopers were:
1) the barrel ring on the carronade apparently fell over at some point...thank goodness the breech rope kept it handy, so all I had to do was reglue it on the back of the barrel.
2) the carriage of the long gun, next to the carronade, somehow got warped/squished on the left side! Not sure how this happened, don't recall forcing anything, actually, but I will have to figure out how to reshape it without doing further damage to the carriage, rigging or deck.ops:
Leif and Max, thanks so much for the very kind words! Max, this model is actually 1/250 scale, so it's about 39% the size of the 1/96 scale Revell model, if my math this Christmas morning (i.e., very little sleep last night :roll: ) is right. I love that Revell model, it's based on plans from the Smithsonian used to make a model of Constitution to represent her 1812 configuration...while not exactly correct in certain respects, it is a fairly good version of her from that era. It's a great kit to get your feet wet in making a fully rigged ship and gives you a great model when done, though there are many shortcuts taken for the plastic kit which you would not follow in making a wooden ship model. The treatment of the gun tackles is one of a few problems with the rigging used for that kit. I had another version of that kit, it was slightly smaller, and suffered the same fate as Max's kit.
Leif, the carronade is different from the long gun in her operation in that the carronade uses a slide on the rack/lower piece to ride on the recoil. Both the long gun and the carronade (on the upper slide) use a breech rope (the thicker of the lines) to absorb the recoil upon firing. The long gun also uses tackles on each side to move her up to the gun port and to help train her side to side, although they also used a large pole or lever to push her physically as well. The carronades use a similar tackle to move the lower sled, those are the outter tackles. The upper tackles attach to the slide and are used to push the barrel into the gun port opening in preparation to firing. Both also have a single tackle used to pull the barrel back from the gunport but these are normally not rigged nor displayed as they give the deck a great deal of clutter. It is hooked to the back end of the carriage/slide and the other end is hooked to an eyebolt on the back behind the gun, usually somewhere around 4 feet or more behind the gun. On the actual ship they are not riggedf to avoid accidents from tripping by the visitors as they walk along the deck. Hope this explanation doesn't confuse things further, Leif.
Cheers to all!
Jim
Hope you all are or have had a great holiday!Well, Barry, the bloopers were:
1) the barrel ring on the carronade apparently fell over at some point...thank goodness the breech rope kept it handy, so all I had to do was reglue it on the back of the barrel.
2) the carriage of the long gun, next to the carronade, somehow got warped/squished on the left side! Not sure how this happened, don't recall forcing anything, actually, but I will have to figure out how to reshape it without doing further damage to the carriage, rigging or deck.
ops: Leif and Max, thanks so much for the very kind words! Max, this model is actually 1/250 scale, so it's about 39% the size of the 1/96 scale Revell model, if my math this Christmas morning (i.e., very little sleep last night :roll: ) is right. I love that Revell model, it's based on plans from the Smithsonian used to make a model of Constitution to represent her 1812 configuration...while not exactly correct in certain respects, it is a fairly good version of her from that era. It's a great kit to get your feet wet in making a fully rigged ship and gives you a great model when done, though there are many shortcuts taken for the plastic kit which you would not follow in making a wooden ship model. The treatment of the gun tackles is one of a few problems with the rigging used for that kit.
I had another version of that kit, it was slightly smaller, and suffered the same fate as Max's kit. Leif, the carronade is different from the long gun in her operation in that the carronade uses a slide on the rack/lower piece to ride on the recoil. Both the long gun and the carronade (on the upper slide) use a breech rope (the thicker of the lines) to absorb the recoil upon firing. The long gun also uses tackles on each side to move her up to the gun port and to help train her side to side, although they also used a large pole or lever to push her physically as well. The carronades use a similar tackle to move the lower sled, those are the outter tackles. The upper tackles attach to the slide and are used to push the barrel into the gun port opening in preparation to firing. Both also have a single tackle used to pull the barrel back from the gunport but these are normally not rigged nor displayed as they give the deck a great deal of clutter. It is hooked to the back end of the carriage/slide and the other end is hooked to an eyebolt on the back behind the gun, usually somewhere around 4 feet or more behind the gun. On the actual ship they are not riggedf to avoid accidents from tripping by the visitors as they walk along the deck. Hope this explanation doesn't confuse things further, Leif.
Cheers to all!
Jim