1/96 RVL Constitution Build, reference and source guide.

LIVIT

 I am going to mark out the glue line and clean the paint off the hull. 

Dale, I think you definitely need to scrap off the paint in order to get a good bond on those channels. Gene1 had it nailed: "The main thing I do with channels ( I have heard them called shroud tables) is to make sure you have a plastic to plastic glue joint, that means NO paint. I glue them on before I paint with AC. ( or CA)." I plane on glueing on the channels before I paint the hull. They will be glued on with liquid glue reinforced with CA and possibly a laser bond.

I have noticed that is was common for period ships with outside channels to have braces between the channels and the hull. I have not been able to find any evidence of any braces on old photos of the Constitution. One way of achieving this on the Connie, without braces, is to lay a thin piece of stretched sprue along the join of the channel to hull and melt it in with solvent.

Just thinking it through! Dale, she is really shaping up nicely.

I got all the spardeck guns tied and glued in place. Working on cannon ball racks now.

I wish it was a chain on the Connie, would be much easier to do.  I was thinking about stroping the deadeye with blackened copper wire and seeing how that looks. I am going to pin the channels. I am going to mark out the glue line and clean the paint off the hull. 

  Dale ,  The main thing I do with channels ( I have heard them called shroud tables) is to make sure you have a plastic to plastic glue joint, that means NO paint. I glue them on before I paint with AC. ( or CA) 

   I wonder if you used a very thin copper wire to wrap the bottom deadeye & drill the channel & glue the deadeye copper into the channel. Then use a piece of flat brass for your chain. You could stiffen small chain with CA & use it, if it was a chain that was used. The deadeye copper wire could come slightly below the channel for strength & be hidden by the chain. These are just thoughts as I have never done it this way. 

  When I did it , it was on a wood model.

LIVIT

I have decided to yet again upgrade my build from the OOB stuff. As I previously mentioned, I was concerned about the strength of the belaying pins. I am replacing all mine with some AM pins from model expo. I might have to replace the pin rails too, which is no problem, I already have some plastic strips I had purchased for my cannon ball racks. They are just a bit thicker than the OOB rails.

I also decided to do more realistic shrouds, ratlines, deadeyes and chain board. Not sure if chain board is the right term here, what I am referring to is the board the shroud lines bottom deadeye attach too. My question here is, did the Constitution actually use chain from the base of this board to the hull ?

Sounds ambitious Dale. I may catch up to you yet, if I can get started. It seems that my start date will be moved back several months because it looks like we will be moving! At this time I am cleaning up extensive flash on the hull.

Thanks, you sure are helping me learn correct terminology.  I can see the need to pin the channels in then too. That would really be a mess if they came loose. I might just make new channels out of a bit thicker stock plastic strip. I will have to brainstorm on how to make a good example of those iron bars.

They are called channels, which seems to be a conjunction of chain and wale.

On Constitution they look like iron bars with a fitting on the top to connect to the deadeye strop, and a flange on the bottom to be bolted to the hull.

Because the shroud and the bar at an angle, the force on the channel is all compression into the hull. 

On a model, unless you really modify the “chains” it’s all on the channel to hull connection. Granted it’s nothing like the force of a set of sails, but having those things pop off is a disappointment.

Got to visit with Gene1 and his lovely wife. Gene's builds are even more impressive up close. I did learn some things. It was hard not to drool on any of his ship or plane models. Looking forward to our next visit. 

I have decided to yet again upgrade my build from the OOB stuff. As I previously mentioned, I was concerned about the strength of the belaying pins. I am replacing all mine with some AM pins from model expo. I might have to replace the pin rails too, which is no problem, I already have some plastic strips I had purchased for my cannon ball racks. They are just a bit thicker than the OOB rails.

I also decided to do more realistic shrouds, ratlines, deadeyes and chain board. Not sure if chain board is the right term here, what I am referring to is the board the shroud lines bottom deadeye attach too. My question here is, did the Constitution actually use chain from the base of this board to the hull ?

Made some progress on getting swivel guns tied in. Mounted a few of the pinrails. Those belaying pins are rather thin, I am concerned with how well there going to hold. I am working on doing some kind of a rack to display cannon balls on.

GMorrison

What we model as an eyebolt was usually a ringbolt.

If you mean the inside of the gunport lids, the ones I've seen are the same color of the inside of the bulwarks. Or I suppose they could be natural.

 Tks, I had seen them on other models in red or another color and was wondering if there was a reason for this or that the modeller had just done so for affect. So am I correct in my asumption that the eye/ringbolts are all orientated fore/aft ?

 

Tks Bill, it has been a real learning experience ! I have already learned of many things I will do differently when I do my serious Connie build and others. I am going over to visit with Gene thursday and taking Connie with me. Gene is going to show me some rigging tricks and critic my build so far :)  I am looking forward to this and seeing his impressive builds up close.

Ben & Mike, tks guys ! Your pics are a great help.  From what I can see in your pics and others is that all the eyebolts use that fore/aft orientation. I have already installed all my eyebolts for the spardeck cannons and realize I installed them in the wrong orientation. Not going to try and change them now. Something else learned for future builds. I had thought that eyebolts would of been orientated according to direction of the most force on them.

Here is another fore/aft orientation

consttour8 by Benjamin Zabriskie, on Flickr

Not sure about ringbolt orientation for the ship's boats but this image I found on the 'net shows some of them oriented fore/aft.

Good work so far. I'll surely be following along.

https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/05/ec/e5/89/top-deck.jpg

Dale,

Your Connie looks great!  I am very impressed with what you have done.

Bill

Dale, it really looks good. I would do white on the inside gunport lid, match bulwark. I really like the deck. I am not unhappy with my kit decks on the Kearsarge & Alabama. They are a lot dirtier looking. I do like the Scaledeck way better than the other one from HisModel. They show too muck grain color, even on their light one. 

What we model as an eyebolt was usually a ringbolt.

If you mean the inside of the gunport lids, the ones I've seen are the same color of the inside of the bulwarks. Or I suppose they could be natural.

After doing the mock setup several things I could use some advise on.

Eyebolt orientation: for the eyebolts used to lash down the Captains skiff and the 3 other small boats. Should the eyebolt eye be orientated port to starboard or fore to aft ?

Gunports: should the inside of port be same color as hull or interior. IE on my build black or white ?

Cannons: in the mock setup pics you can see on the foredeck 6 cannons and 8 gunports with eyebolts installed, did I miss something ?

Chase guns: kit comes with 1 but I keep coming across documentation referring to chase guns not chase gun. Should there be at least 1 more ?

I did a mock setup.

Over the past couple of days I got some of the spardeck details done. Also built the Captains skiff and 3 others. 

ShipWreck, I have done that same research as you with some of my RC Warbirds. Later in my building I got into doing my markings etc.. as to what I liked and not  historically correct. Your correct I should of said "A possible 1812 configuration"  I have noticed a good bit of conflicting information on the Connie and read numerous discussions about same. I am for sure building my Connie in a early 1800's "LIVIT" configuration. 

LIVIT

 

My BlueJacket Connie manual and blueprints came several days ago. Wow is that quit the project to build, do not think I will be doing one of them anytime soon. The manual has a lot of very interesting historical data and claims that BlueJackets Connie is in the 1812 configuration.      Dale

 

Dale, you may have noticed my post to David's Cutty Sark thread about how I got so involved in Research that I never built my CS. The Blue Jacket Connie could end up being a life time build; but so could a Revell Connie. That is why I am going to attempt to do a simple OOB build with minimal research. I might even have time for some other builds before I retire from the hobby!

I find it interesting that that Blue Jacket calls their Connie "the 1812 configuration". The "the" should read "a"; because the configuration may have changed daily. Unless you can nail down a specific point in time with a dated painting or description there is no way of knowing the configuration on any given day. It just depends!

wonder where the military terminology head came from  

Tks Gene, I am with you, anything smaller than 1/96 and my arthritic digits and eyes dont like it. Wish there was some larger than 1/96 plastic ship kits available. 

I tested some of that 560 glue on several eyebolts. Let them sit overnight, unless you want to do damage there not coming out. I like that it left no signs of gluing around them. I am planning on using it more myself. It cleans up so easily. 

My BlueJacket Connie manual and blueprints came several days ago. Wow is that quit the project to build, do not think I will be doing one of them anytime soon. The manual has a lot of very interesting historical data and claims that BlueJackets Connie is in the 1812 configuration. I can see where the large blue prints of rigging are going to be a lot of help.  I will be off Fri,Sat and Sun. will get a good bit done on the spardeck. I did get the life boats and cradles built. Did a mock setup of cannons and the boats, I think it looks good. Will post more pics soon.     Dale

Dale, that really looks great. You are doing a beautiful job. I am even thinking about a Revell 1/96 United States & a Scaledeck deck for it. I have an Imai/ Monogram 1/120 United States. I got a good price on ebay & I almost only want to build larger ships & either Imai or Revell or Imai knockoffs.

   I am going to use 560 glue on all my eyebolts from now on. Don't know why I didn't already. I use it for most everything already.

  Boy, your Connie looks good.

Got scale deck done on spardeck. Working on getting all the eyebolts in place.

Tks Gene, that coming from guys like you means alot to me. The correct terminology for the type of threader I am using is  Bobbin Threader and they do come in various lengths and cost around $10 with shipping.  A Bobbin is another handy tool. IE: Syren rigging line comes in a zip baggie and you need to put it on a thread spool. You can buy bulk bags of small thread spools on ebay for just a few dollars. The Bobbin holds the spool and has a stem you thread the line through so no loops coming off spool and twisting etc...

I did not stain my scale deck. I did feel it was a bit light in color.  What I did was apply a coat of MM wood to plastic deck, this darkened it up some and seemed to make the details stand out more. I varied the shade and this to me gave it more of that stoned look.

Dale, this has been a really great thread, post , build on yoir Constitution. I never know what to call these writeups.It really looks great & I like your tools too. You need to tell me about the threaders, I haven't used them I don't think. 

   How do you like your wood deck by now? Did you stain it or leave it natural?

Still working on getting spardeck ready for scale deck. Should have it done today.

Something that I think we should touch on is favorite tools and why. I have robbed a lot of my building tools from out of my fly tying tool kit. I teach DAV's how to tie flies and flyfish, so my tools have been used alot and have never had to replace them yet. In the pic from left to right. 

First is the line threader, this one is better than any sewing version you can buy. Plus it is nice in that it has such a long reach. Works well on most any size line. Specially the small stuff. Second is pin files, not a neccessity but nice to have. Third is a nice selection of tweezers. Forth, another flytying tool is the small very sharp scissors. Fifth pin vise, must have for ship builders. Sixth razor knives. 6&7 are sprue cutters, the first one that looks like tweezers is the best I have ever used, it cuts close, so less parts trimming and its sharp. Works well on all size parts. At top more flytying tools, spring clamps, they come in multiple sizes and I find are more convenient that forceps, but I still do use forceps. 

Thats some great info. I had asked Mr. Morrison for some cannon ball size info. Thank you sir for taking the time to post this. For a reference point the 24lb cannons at 1/96 would use a 1.5mm cannon ball.  I am going to go into more detail on my Spardeck and riggings. I will add that eyebolt for the cannons and some tackle.