USS Essex

The wooden kits you are probably thinking of are the Model Shipways models at 5/64"=1ft and one at 3/16"=1ft. Both long out of production, but turn up regularly on the second hand market. A few years ago I turned up the opportunity to buy a part-finished Essex for a small sum and I regretted it ever since!

BTW, Essex was a contemporary of Constitution, but rated as a 32 gun ship was much smaller (although still very large for her rate- a 36 gun by most logical standards; she was 141ft on the gundeck) A very handsome ship, and regarded as a good sailer, even though later commanders ruined her sailing qualities by over bearing her hull because she was a sharp vessel with consequently little room in her displacement to add a lot of extra weight!

If you're interested in sailing ships of the US navy I'd recommend finding a copy of Howard Chapelle's seminal work 'The History of the American Sailing Navy'.

Will

Billyboy

The wooden kits you are probably thinking of are the Model Shipways models at 5/64"=1ft and one at 3/16"=1ft. Both long out of production, but turn up regularly on the second hand market. A few years ago I turned up the opportunity to buy a part-finished Essex for a small sum and I regretted it ever since!

BTW, Essex was a contemporary of Constitution, but rated as a 32 gun ship was much smaller (although still very large for her rate-

snip

Will

When I was a kid my local hobby shop had one of the MS Essex kits on display.  How I longed for that kit.  But it was too expensive for my resources- I had to stay with Sterling and Guillows kits (balsa hull- I believe the MS kit was basswood or something like that).  The kit sure looked like a real step up from the kits I was building.

There is a book in the  " Anatomy of the ship " series which might help.

OKay, thanks everybody!   I'll look for the books.  Maybe I'll get lucky and a kit will pop up on evilbay.   Who knows... 

Small correction: the Model Shipways scales were 5/64" and 1/8".  I recently found a 1/8" scale model, complete, in an old junk store.

There are a couple of them for sale right now on ebay (the 1/8 scale kit).

Bill Morrison

If plans will help, TAUBMAN PLANS SERVICE INT’L has three sets ..

I understand the set by Portia Takajian are very good, but not exactly cheap ..

I'm currently working on a Essex  project since I have been intrigued at how graceful and symetrical the Essex's design was for the period.  Model Ship Builder ran an article on scratchbuildng the Frigate Essex in 1986.  Both Model Shipways and Marine Models did the solid hull kits in 5/64.  Aeropicolla did a POB kit in a odd scale that is still shown on their website.

Like the Constitution, the ship went through a number of modifications from 1799 until its capture in 1814 and then it was in the Kings service for another 15 years.  So there is a number of ways to build the ship.  The most common is to put her at 46 guns, with 40 of these the 32lb carronades that David Porter detested so much but the Secretary of the Navy forced him to keep. 

Portia Takiajan's book is must if planning a detailed model.  I have this book and the Taubman plans and have been very pleased with them.

I thought the Essex was sunk in Valpariaso harbor.

   No.     USS ESSEX was cornered in Valpariaso Harbor on February 8, 1814, by HMS PHOEBE and CHERIB.  After a prolonged fight with a great loss of life on the ESSEX, she was forced to surrender. Taken into the Royal Navy, the ship served many years and in her final days became a prison hulk . In 1836, she was sold and burned the following year to salvage her metal parts.

    Montani semper liberi !     Happy modeling to all and every one of you. 

                                 Crackers                                   

scottrc

Both Model Shipways and Marine Models did the solid hull kits in 5/64.  Aeropicolla did a POB kit in a odd scale that is still shown on their website.

Model Shipways, as mentioned in the thread, also had a 1/8" scale version: this is the one I found recently!