New USS Constitution Model

According to the Model Expo website, the Model Shipways kit is on the odd scale of 5/32"=1' (1/76.8). So far as I know, that makes it the biggest Constitution kit on the market. (I rather suspect that's why the company chose that scale.)

To my knowledge nobody has ever released a bigger - or better - plastic Constitution than the Revell/Monogram 1/96 one. Keep in mind, though, that the plastic sailing ship kit industry has, to all intents and purposes, been shut down for almost twenty years. In my opinion that kit is a remarkably good one - certainly capable of serving as a basis for a superb model. But it's more that thirty years old. It would be unreasonable to expect it to come up to the standards that modelers routinely expect these days in airplane, armor, and even twentieth-century warship kits.

Thanks!! Looks like a nice kit but what scale is it? and is the old Monogram kit the largest done in plastic or have there been better kits released at that same scale?

Brain shout down there. The National Geographic is July 97. I've had the honor to dine with the Captain several times. His knoledge of Naval History is amazing. I've heard he is working on a new book. Always a wonderful read. he still has several papers that are assigned reading at USNA.

Many thanks to chrisstedt for filling us in with firsthand knowledge! By coincidence I can help a little regarding the Constitution's green boats - or at least one of them.

Quite a few years ago I paid her a visit and had the good fortune to get into a conversation with the then commanding officer, then-Commander Tyrone Martin. He's a terrific guy, by the way. He's an honest-to-goodness historian, and probably knows the history of the ship better than anybody else. He was largely responsible for turning the Constitution around in terms of interpretation and presentation. Before his day she was a tourist trap full of curios, operated by personnel whose main priority was to funnel as many tourists "in" and "out" as possible. He made her into a serious example of ship preservation. (To be fair, he also had a bigger budget than any of his predecessors; these were the halcyon days of the U.S. Bicentennial, when early American history was popular with the public and the government.)

Anyway, I'd seen the green-hulled boat and asked Commander Martin about it. He explained that, in going over the ship's logbook for the period when Isaac Hull commanded her, he'd found a reference to "the green cutter." I'm not sure, but I believe the hull of one of the boats on the contemporary "Isaac Hull model" of the Constitution in Salem may have a green boat as well. I'm not sure how it was established that the other boats were also green, but I suspect somebody found some good evidence.

Having served on the Constitution for two years I think I can help. The red is the anti fouling that was placed in 2000. Be sure to check out the July 2000 National Geographic. There is a wonderful story on the renovation. When the US Navy was all sail & wood there was no real set regulations for some colors. it was left up to the CO to make the call on some things. Boats were painted different colors so crew members could spot their shipmates in the water. Jake & Tilley, you guys gave me so advice when I was working on the proper colors of the USS Chesapeke when she met the HMS Shannon. I found out these boats were painted a dark red with white trim. We all have to remember that the Constitution is still a memeber of the US Navy, all-be-it the SOP's are quite different than other ships. Not sure who/when made the call to paint the boats green. I can tell you they give her a nice contrast in color. Much more than gunship grey!!! Always great talking to you all.

I took a look at the Model Expo website. The page relating to the Constitution kit has several detail photos. On the monitor of my office computer (which is better than the one at home) it's pretty clear that the insides of the bulwarks are painted dark green. I think the black that Jake referred to may have been due to lighting.

It's also clear from the pictures that the modeler did a really spectacular job of reproducing the Constitution's current appearance. That includes some details that, to my notion, aren't quite consistent with her War of 1812 configuration. The curves of the window frames in the quarter galleries on the model, for instance, look just about like the ones currently in place. To my eye, they're a little distorted from 1812-period proportions - but that's not the modeler's fault. The model also has a series of odd-looking vertical strips of wood spiked to the hull along the waterline - modern fenders, I imagine.

If I were undertaking a model of the Constitution (heaven forbid), I'd probably start with either this kit or the Bluejacket one. These are honest-to-goodness scale models.

The photo in the link Big Jake gave us is the same one that's in the Model Expo catalog, illustrating the Model Shipways kit. I haven't seen it in person (the Constitution isn't high on the list of projects I want to tackle), but I think millard is right about it. It seems to represent the ship as she exists in Boston at the present time.

The restoration she underwent in 1927 was important, in that it saved her from the scrapheap - and caused the Navy to make some detailed measurements and draw up a set of plans for her. That project was not, however, done to the standards taken for granted today. The guy in charge of it was a regular Navy lieutenant (whose name escapes me), who seems to have been extremely conscientious but didn't have much formal training in history or the theory of ship restoration. (In fairness to him, scarcely anybody else at that time did either.) His job was to rip off the "roof" that had covered the Constitution's spar deck for some years while she was serving as a floating barracks, install a completely new set of spars, rigging, and sails, and make various other alterations so she would resemble a sailing frigate again. Model Shipways used to sell a booklet that was published by the Navy at the time, and which described in some detail how the process had been carried out. An example of how the lieutenant and his staff operated: they found several old sets of spar dimensions, so in building the new spars they took the average of all those numbers. Not the sort of thing that would be done today. When those folks got finished she looked more-or-less the way she'd looked in the 1830s, or thereabouts. Quite a bit different from how she'd looked during the War of 1812, and even more different from her "as launched" appearance. But that was how she looked when, in the thirties (I think), she made a long voyage down the east coast, through the Panama Canal, and up the west coast. She was towed by a Navy tug, and the sails were kept firmly furled to the yards throughout the trip. (All this is recounted in Capt. Tyrone Martin's excellent book, A Most Fortunate Ship.)

Since then the Constitution has undergone several other restorations, each of which, to my eye at least, has brought her a bit closer to her War of 1812 configuration. There still, however, are some significant differences. It looks to me like the individual who built the model in the Model Expo photo was trying to replicate her current configuration - and he or she did a good job of it. My own inclination would be to shoot for an earlier period, but that's a matter of personal taste. I imagine that the kit, being wood-and-metal, would be fairly easy to finish in any configuration the modeler wanted.

I have one question. How on earth did Big Jake get a graphic description of the process of entering the Nether Regions to appear in his post, whereas my oblique reference to a female donkey a few weeks back got electronically censored?

Jake
You said its based on 1927 drawings?The color sounds alot like how its now sitting except the bulwarks.In 2000 last time I was aboard her the copper plating had anti fouling red painted on that stuck out of the water.The ship boat were on shore and some were painted green.But the gun- wales were painted green.I'll look at the catalog tomorrow its at work right now.If thats the Model shipways plank on frame models I believe it is based more on todays Constitution.That kits been out for about 2 years its very detailed .
Rod