Wilhelmshaven 1:200 scale USS Constitution

Hello, all! :D 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. :oops:

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. :D 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. :wink:

Cheers to all!

Jim
 
Yep, Jim, you sure got me further confused but I love to be confused that way. You may confuse me any day.

Max, I know Jim's model is very petite - although I have to remind myself that every time I watch those closeups, 'cause you tend to forget, don't you, on account of the finish and detailing being so exquisite and precise.

L.
 
Sorry about that, Leif! :D

I hope these labeled photos will help a little.
The guns are fired with the barrel pulled into the gun port by the tackles, then when fired they recoil back a bit, so after reloading they need to be pulled back into the gun port. The breech ropes keep the gun from recoiling across the deck. :shock:

Let me know if there is anything I can clarify further.

Cheers!

Jim
 
Hi Jim

Very fine work mate, only a few more to do :roll:

She did have a good mix of guns that gave here the close in heavy shot as well as the range with the long guns. It would have been a fool who shipped just the carronde, some did pay the price for it :shock:

Amazing stuff Jim, more as soon as you can

Rob
 
Just in case you all might have thought I fell off the face of the earth over the Holidays, well, I didn't. :wink:
It's been rather busy, but tell the truth, I've also have been able to spend at least an hour or so at a time working on Constitution, just not a long session in one sitting. But that worked out well because it gave things a good time to dry before the next session, I tend to rush things sometimes. :roll:

Anyway, what did I accomplish since the last time around? Well, I finished installing the remaining four carronades in the forecastle battery, for one thing. I must mention I am probably going to modify the tackle rigging procedure a bit because it was getting rather hairy trying to thread the line through the ring blocks along the bulwarks...just too small for my big fingers and bad eyes. I figure I can pre-rig them, then attach them to the bulwarks at the right spots and finally attach them to the carriages once the guns are put into place. I'll try that for the next session and see how it works, but it sure sounds easier than trying to thread everything on the model like I did for the first six cannon.

I also toyed with the steps for the bow area, and have included as my first photo a shot trying to show the laminated step in cross-section. I then cut a length of this strip, finished off the ends with black paint, and glued them in place. You can see the steps installed in the other photos. I also wanted to show how I made the cleats for the bow area as well. It's just a strip of paper to which I glued a short length of fine wire, and then painted. The paint and glue tend to round off the joints nicely to give the impression of the curves you see on a cleat, at least it looks like that to me. :lol:

I also got tired of doing cannons and made the bow pin rail and the bow grating with a canvas cover. These show up in some of the photos, and in some you can even see the belaying pins in the bow pin rail, I hope. :wink:

Well, that's about it for this time around. I hope to get more of the carronades done, and to continue with the hatches as I work aft. I also hope to add some other little bits, odds and ends along the way, and will hope to post some of that as well if I get to them.

Hope all are having a wonderful New Year!!

Cheers!

Jim
 
Fantastic stuff Jim :shock:

I like photo four the best it real shows of all the detailed work great 8)

A work of art mate and well worth the time and hard work it has taken to get this far!!

More when you can

Rob
 
I think it was a good job you only did an hour at a time with that eyestrain the detail is superb like the pinrails.

barry
 
Why, thank you so very much, guys! :D

I do appreciate the encouraging words...they help particularly when a set of belaying pins go flying across the room never to be seen again. :lol:

I've been working a bit on the fiferails for the foremast the last day or two, as well as jumping ahead a bit and toying with a way to make the double wheel. Waiting for the glue to dry before putting some paint to it to see if it came out okay or whether it's back to the drawing board. :? The way I look at it, even if the end result makes it's way to the trash bin, at least I learned something along the way. But that's the fun part, right Rob? :wink:

You are so right, Barry, doing it in small shifts helps relieve the frustration and eye strain quite a bit! I think I was pushing it a bit too fast before, only to find myself doing things twice or three times before it came out passable. :roll:

I'm afraid it's going to be a while before I get to the masts and rigging, Roman, but I will get there, I promise! :wink: I have to do a bit of sorting out of the lines to ensure I have the deck attachments worked out right before the fiferails are put into place...nothing worse than putting stuff on the deck only to find you need to resort to some magic to get a part under or behind something you just glued in place. :shock: I have already started making mental notes of some of those fittings, so at least I'm making some progress, although it might not seem all that obvious at first glance. :D

I hope to have something worth taking a picture of shortly...stay tuned, folks. :D

Cheers!

Jim
 
Hi Jim.

Your Constitution is coming along pretty good, I still say your work on the carronades are Microsurgery ;)... also on the cleads and steps.

As for working on small shifts that's the best way, I have found myself that patience fades the longer you work and want things to be done faster and the results are not the ones you are expecting.

Cheers,

Erick
 
Thanks, Erick! :D I'm glad you like the way the cleats turned out; the first try turned out cleats that were way out of scale...they couldn't fit on the bulwark! :oops:

I was able to put in a few hours here and there so far this weekend, and hope to get to do a bit more before the weekend is over. I figured I would show what I got done in the last few hours...made the foremast fiferail, the access hatch just aft of the bowsprit, and the hatch with the charlie noble smoke stack. I also started the main hatch...well, pretty much done, I just have to figure out how to build the brass railings that surround the hatchways, but I think I figured out how to take a stab at them. I really want to get the fore deck done so there can be some sense of at least partial finality...is that a goofy phrase or what? :lol:

The smaller hatches were pretty straight forward. I decided to put a tarp on the hatches like I have in my photos. I used tissue paper, the type you get with gift wrapping or the stiff tissue that comes when you buy a new shirt (one of the bonuses from Christmas!). :D I just wrapped them over the top of the gratings and then painted them with flat white acrylic. The texture of the tissue seemed to be just right to give a sense of the canvas used on the real ship. I did build up the height of the hatches and gratings because the single layer used in the kit was not high enough off of the deck, and in many cases did not show the carlings (the side of the hatches) like they should. The kit in two instances just used a printed hatch on the deck, so that would stick out like a sore thumb if I left it that way. The charlie noble was fairly easy to work with, but the kit parts used a part that was too long for the part that runs horizontally aft, so I cut back on that a bit and added a little detail to the cover on the aft end...you can't see them too well but there are rods on each side that are used to attach the cover to the stove pipe.

The fiferail was pretty much scratch built, but I was able to use the part into which the belaying pins will be...I just didn't have time yet to make those belaying pins but hopefully I can get them done tomorrow (yep, lost a few on the first attempts, flying off into space never to be seen again :shock: ). I also have to build the pin rails that go along the bulwark and in between the cannons and carronades, but they should be fairly staight forward too. Just a quick comment about the kit on this...they have the pin rails set up wrong, and the sizes are off...good thing I have a set of plans that helped me double-check this...that would be a real headache when rigging to find out the rails are set up differently than they should be. :(

Back to the fiferail...I substituted the stanchions from the rectangular ones the kit provides to ones that more or less show the lathe work and the sheaves in the bases, but I didn't see the need for actually showing the sheaves, just the square base, since they are not used in rigging and would be lost amongst the rigging when it is set up anyway. I did put a sheave on the forward posts (and tried to show the brass caps on the posts; it's not all that clear in the photos, I think, except in the close-up shots), and the knee that adds strength to the whole fiferail...the kit doesn't provide for this either. Again, the kit is designed for a simple build, but I wanted to try and show a bit more, particularly where the details serve a function later on in the rigging. They also didn't have the right number of stanchions, and used a nice bright white square where the kit stanchions go, so I had to cover those white parts up with parts of the printed deck. There is no belfry on the current ship, but the kit has one...again with the white spots on the deck, so I had to cover them up too. You can't really see them too well, but the lower bullseyes used for the main mast stays are between the after fiferail and the mast hole, as well as a few eyebolts on either side of the mast, also used for later rigging points.

I'm also adding some photos of the real ship, to show where I was trying to go with these latest details. The main hatch shows the railings I was talking about earlier. Again, the hatch was built up more than the single layer the kit calls for because the coamings are a significant height in the real thing, moreso than the single layer would depict. I also tried to correct the kit colors to the hatches, fiferails, etc., since the kit shows them as yellow, not a light wood as in real life. This boggles my mind...they got the color of the deck right (it really is that dark) but then they use yellow for the wooden hatches, gratings and the like. :? Go figure!

Well, I've taxed your patience long enough with this post...let me just show some photos which I hope makes my rambling a bit clearer. :D
Thanks for bearing with me on this update...I'll try to keep the next one a bit more brief. :wink:

Cheers!

Jim
 
Here are the last few for tonight...my server is acting up so it's been REAL slow going tonight/this morning (Good Morning, Rob and Barry! :D ), so I'll try and post them later one when hopefully things will be better...just as a tease, the next three photos will show how I build a pair of fittings to be installed later on when I work on the quarter deck. :wink:
 
Hi Jim

Good show old bean, thats what is called real detail 8)

The idea with the hatch covers is a very good one, cheers
I will give my wife a shock and get out those new shirts given as gifts that you would not be seen dead in :lol: :lol:
She might think I will wear them :shock:

Love the detail mate and the photos are fantastic, I will have to get a good camera.

More ASAP :roll:

Rob
 
Hi Jim

Sorry mate run out of superlatives again !!!!

I don't know how you do it, again I will wait impatiently.

barry
 
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