USS Constitution - weathering

Not bad at all.  It's a little too much weathering for me though.  From my perspective, Constitution was a very tightly run ship.  I'm up in the air as to weather the Captain/crew would even allow the ship to get into that kind of shape.

But, this modellor has good skill with weathering.  I'll give you that.

The underwater ship is excellent and I can buy it looking like that. I very much doubt if the rest of the ship would be that badly maintained (the boatswain would get a good sharp kick in the butt for letting the ship get this run down if I may hazard a guess).

Julian

Hello all,

An example of a weathered frigate(?)

http://www.warshipmodels.com/~users/JoseGonzales/Picture298.jpg

Here's a pic of the HMS Surprise as she stands today. According to the docents tending her, she was made to look like a ship that had been many months out at sea. I know it's Hollywood, but...

Jose Gonzales

A very nice photo. If you have any more.................................

I must admit this is very tempting. The weathering above I would love to try myself.

cheers,

Julian

British ships of the Napoleonic era spent many months at sea blockading the French and Spanish ports and protecting the convoy routes.

 To give an example the condition of the Agamemnon (64) was very poor after several months at sea during the Mediterranean campaign of 1794 -96. Despite some minor repairs in friendly ports Nelson wrote that they had no fuel for the galley and that the decks were so poorly caulked that no man slept dry for many months.

 In March 1796 she was in such a poor state that she had to be frapped with cables to keep her frame together and there was hardly a patch of paint left on her. A really bad storm had stove in her stern , carried away her starboard Qtr gallery, and sprung  her main topmast. but it was not until June 1796 that she at last received orders to return home for a much needed refit.

 Ships have always been hard used in times of war and keeping them pristine was not a priority, the fighting efficiency was.

 In more recent times during the Battle of the Atlantic one only has to look at pictures of hard worked Corvettes on convoy duty to see the ravages of weather left unattended to in the face of more desperate priorities. This despite the fact that the Western approaches camouflage needed to be clean to afford the best effect.

 To display models of Naval ships with varying degrees of weathering is not in my opinion out of order and possibly represents the more usual appearance; I think it adds character to a model ship. I quite like the look of the 'Surprise' even if she is 'Hollywood' she looks less so than HMS Victory standing proudly in her dock without a blemish on her paintwork.

 One of the first things that caught my eye, in both the Constitution weathering, and the photo of Surprise, was the running rust. I spent some of my early years in the Navy, as a deckhand in a Sumner class DD. I remember the constant fight with running rust. Anyone who doesn't believe that water can "remove paint", should watch a power wash in operation. The Boatswain....that's Bosun to those who know better....tried to insure that the ship never had more than one primer coat, and two finish coats. That usually meant stripping (chipping) all the paint off, wire brushing/sanding all the rust, priming, and applying a finish coat. the second finish coat, was a "quick clean up", so we'd look good. I can't remember now what a complete coat of paint weighed, only that it was a lot more pounds than I'd want to try to lose on "nutrisystem" !!!!! Painting "over the side" , underway, was rarely done, so runnin' rust, and dried salt were constant elements of the ship's appearance. I saved the photo of Surprise, I'll refer to it later when I decide how much hull weathering I will use. The Constitution photo is another good one to save, very nicely done, slightly heavy, but decidedly not overdone.

Personally, I like the treatment of the copper sheathing on that model.  I think the rust effects on the above-water portion may be a little overdone - especially the anchors, which I suspect would have been retarred before they reached that state.  (On the other hand, an anchor just raised after considerable time on the bottom probably wasn't a pretty sight.)  My inclination would be to make the rust effect a little more subtle, but I think the modeler was working in the right direction.

I do detect one small mistake, though, which I'll take the liberty of pointing out in the hope of encouraging other folks not to repeat it.  (It's also easily fixed - even on a finisthed model.)  The pintles and gudgeons - the hinges for the rudder - appear to have been weathered with "rust," as though they were made of iron.  That can't be right.  One of the first discoveries that shipwrights made when they started experimenting with copper sheathing was that when a piece of copper and a piece of iron are placed in contact with each other and submerged in saltwater, a nasty reaction takes place - and it happens fast.  (Some of the first copper-sheathed ships had their sheathing fastened in place with iron nails.  The copper around the nail  holes promptly dissolved, and the sheathing fell off.)  The pintles and gudgeons below the waterline had to be made of copper or bronze.  (Those above the waterline might be iron - probably painted the same color as the hull planking.)  They'd weather to the same color as the copper sheathing, or nearly so.  Any hull fastenings that came in contact with the copper sheathing also had to be made of copper or bronze.  (It's well known that Paul Revere was contracted to supply at least some of the copper bolts that were used in the construction of the Constitution.)

I notice, also, that the rudder is painted black from top to bottom.  Revell may be the culprit here, but normally the rudder would be copper-sheathed below the waterline, just like the hull.

Small points, but rather interesting ones I think - and, as I said, easy to fix.

jtilley wrote:

Personally, I like the treatment of the copper sheathing on that model.  I think the rust effects on the above-water portion may be a little overdone - especially the anchors, which I suspect would have been retarred before they reached that state.

You spoke as with my own voice, Professor. 

The anchor bothered me more than a bit.  Anchors and their roves are washed as they come aboard (this is even more important with natural fiber cable, which need drying after washing the "wild life" out of it.  Anchors were inspected for damage, symmetry, and such when they were swayed up to the cat.

(The rigging of the anchor from the Cat was a bit under the quality of the rest of the rigging, to my thinking.)

We still wash the ground tackle as it comes aboard today, and for similar reasons.  There's also the attendant rituals of recovering the anchor bouys, the bout lines and the like.  There's plently of time for the mate & bo's'n to insure that idle hands are busy and don't get up to the divil's work instead. 

Since there's usually a spare to go with the two main bowers, the bo's'n, to my thinking, would take an anchor that orange up on deck while the cat jig was rigged anyway and had a bit of a paint call upon it.  Now, if it were the beefsteak/rustoleum color of the Surprise repro--then maybe not so much.  It's likely germane to point out that anchoring was the primary method of mooring warships in those days; so the ground tackle got a lot of use.

Or, at least, that's how I see it.