Deck color - 1800 Frigate

Hi,
Further to my last post, this might be of some interest.
www.cronab.demon.co.uk/cmill.htm

Hi guys,
If you are ever in the UK, why not visit the Chesapeake Mill in Wickham, Hampshire.
The mill has 14 Oregon pine beams and around 160 smaller bits of wood taken from the ship.
I believe some of the wood has been sent over to Boston .

I think I'd better back down from my earlier assertion against white paint on masts. I took a look at some photos of the famous "Isaac Hull model" of the Constitution, in the Peabody Essex Museum of Salem. That model has excellent credentials as being contemporary, or nearly contemporary, with the War of 1812, and it clearly has white lower masts. There is, of course, no absolute guarantee that the model reproduces the color scheme of the actual ship at the time of the war, and it's conceivable that somebody repainted the masts. The latter seems unlikely, though; getting a paint brush in around the rigging would have been quite an undertaking. Mea culpa; sorry.

Another possible color for the lower masts is yellow ochre - like the stripe on the hull - with or without black mast bands. I believe H.M.S. Victory had yellow lower masts at the time of the Battle of Trafalgar, and a few days before the battle Nelson ordered all the ships in his fleet to paint their mast bands black, as recognition device. That's one of the few contemporary references to paint colors. The subject generally seems not to have been one that people wrote about much.

The portions of the topmasts, topgallant masts, and royal masts where the yards slid up and down would be oiled wood - a rather reddish brown. I have the general impression that the tops, crosstrees, and doublings were generally black during this period.

Commander Martin, the c.o. of the Constitution at the time of the U.S. bicentennial and one of the real experts on that ship, was quite emphatic that she had a white stripe on her hull at the time of her fight with H.M.S. Guerriere, but a yellow ochre one during the rest of the War of 1812. The yellow color certainly was more common during that period. I don't know about the painting of the Chesapeake's hull, though. There again, you're best advised to be guided by contemporary artwork - bearing in mind that white oil paint (and bare white paper on lithographs) tends to turn yellow over time.

Good luck.

Hey John,
Good to hear from you. As always, you've been a big help. I think I'm going with wood on wood coloring for the masts and deck. I'll let you know how it goes. Be sure to see the pictures of the HMS Surprise Jose posted if you have not yet. Really nice.

Well, Tilley's right here - but can't help a great deal. The literature of the period (and after, by the historical novelists) is fond of describing "snow-white decks" produced by holystoning. Logic suggests that this is an exaggeration, but the weather decks of the period almost certainly were, with rare exceptions, bare, unpainted wood. (I believe - though I'd be lying if I said I was certain - that the red paint custom was confined to such spaces as the orlop and sick bay. And recent research suggests that the red paint was simply a primer/preservative; any effect of camouflaging blood probably was incidental.) The color probably was fairly similar to that of the unpainted decks one sees today.

In the old days of PolyS paint, I was fond of a color called "Sahara Sand" for decks. It was essentially a dull grey with a beige tinge. The newer PolyScale railroad color called "Weathered Concrete" comes close.

One of my few complaints about the movie "Master and Commander" was that the ship's decks were too dark. Looked like they might have been made of modern pressure-treated pine.

Regarding mast colors, the information is even more scanty. About the only thing that's fairly certain is that they weren't white. That color seems to have been quite rare in ships prior to about the second quarter of the nineteenth century. My best suggestion is to take a careful look at the various paintings and lithographs of the battle between the Chesapeake and the Shannon. Pay careful attention to the dates at which the artwork was created; don't be misled by some 20th century artist who may or may not have known what he was doing. Find the oldest rendition available and extract every crumb of information from it that you can.

The Chesapeake is a good - and grievously neglected - model subject. The only Chesapeake kit I've ever encountered is a tiny 1/700 cast metal version by the British firm Skytrex. I haven't seen that kit, but if the firm's H.M.S. Victory is any indication, its products are excellent.

Good luck.

Building Plastic Model Ships? Is this the book by Lester Wilkins?

Al & Snoopy,
Thank you very much for the help. Seems when I find the answer to one question, two more questions pop up. While looking for the colors of the Chesapeake I found one painting that showed the masts black, as the Connie is today. I'm not sure if this would be correct for the time period with the Shannon. Any thoughts on this?

Where is Tilley when you need him????

Chris,
I don't know if it was the practice in the US Navy to holystone the decks once a day (although a friend of mine who served in a teak-decked destroyer in the fifties said that he did-fifty licks to each plank), but if they did, and given the Chesapeake's age, her deck planking should have been fairly light.
Not that it proves anything, but a color lithograph by an M. Dubourg entitled "The Taking of the American Ship Chesapeake" was published in England in 1813, and it shows the Chesapeake's deck color as very light colored wood. The width of the planking looks different from other (monochrome) engravings made of the Chesapeake's deck, so who knows how accurate it is. The monochrome engravings suggest light colored wood, with visible grain. The color of the planking appears in most to be about as dark as the masts. Most paintings of the Chesapeake show her with light colored masts (I know that some RN ships had their masts painted black).
Your next problem is going to be the guns (number and type) depending on what year your Chesapeake will be from, but at the time of her capture by the Shannon, the Chesapeake carried 28 long 18s on the gun deck, 20 32pound carronades, 1 long 18 chaser, and a 12pound boat-carronade (on some kind of high-elevation carriage).

For what it's worth.

Al

Chris,

Unfortuneately it is not the sister ship to the USS Constitiution class. It is a little smaller. However, the deck color is unknown. Depending on what book you get or what website you look there will be variations on deck colors. On some ships captains painted their decks red so that the blood could not be easily seen and cause sailors to be skwirmish. I believe most American vessel were a light wood color, close to light teak. I have talked to many museums (ship museums) and the records of what kind of paint used are not very extensive. Most models I have seen done of ships during this time period have a wood color for the decks. In the book, "Building Plastic Model Ships" there is painting instructions for the deck color used on the USS President. In they painted a dark shade of teak wood. The paints used were railroad Floquil paints. I hope this helps out and someone else a little more information.