Question: Revell 1/96 Constitution

Jon:

Scratch building chainplates is easy with some basic soldering equipment and some brass wire of the appropriate gauge. I have a simple butane torch and I use some prefluxed soldering paste. I hard solder the links and the strop from the brass wire after they have been shaped around a wood form (the strop is sized around the deadeye) to the appropriate size. The strop is soldered first, then the links are added and soldered shut, one by one. Then the brass wire is chemically blackened and the deadeyes are added to the strop at the top of the chainplate.

The entire soldering set up costs about $40-50 and it can be used to make any metal fitting for a scale model. It takes a bit of practice but the end result is very strong and very realistic.

Russ 

 

 

Thanks, the metal rod suggestion sounds like a very good idea. However, I have already assembled my masts. I don't like the way Revel designed the chainplates. Is there available replacement ones aftermarket or can the be scratched? If they can be scratched what would you suggest I use? I've decided to use the kit's blocks. I'm also thinking about replacing the ratlines. They seem like they might be reasonably easy to make. Thanks.

 

scottrc wrote:

I would keep and use the kits blocks.  They are not as bad as you think.  The chainplates are another story for they are pretty weak and under scale. On the current model I am working on, I am replacing the plastic shrouds and deadeyes because these do not take the stress of rigging up the ratlines very well.  I too use Bluejacket fittings.  Very good in scale and quality and Bluejackets service is great. Another suggestion, when putting the lower masts and bowsprit together, place a metal rod in the center before gluing the halves togther.  You will not regret it when you snage your sleeve or finger on the bowsprit for now it won't snap or shatter. It seems the plastic for these parts on many of the kits  can become quite brittle.

I would keep and use the kits blocks.  They are not as bad as you think.  The chainplates are another story for they are pretty weak and under scale. On the current model I am working on, I am replacing the plastic shrouds and deadeyes because these do not take the stress of rigging up the ratlines very well.  I too use Bluejacket fittings.  Very good in scale and quality and Bluejackets service is great.

Another suggestion, when putting the lower masts and bowsprit together, place a metal rod in the center before gluing the halves togther.  You will not regret it when you snage your sleeve or finger on the bowsprit for now it won't snap or shatter. It seems the plastic for these parts on many of the kits  can become quite brittle.

According to the 1803 Corne' painting of the Constitution leaving Boston harbor that year, she had stern davits but no quarter davits are shown. William Bass shows them in his book based on his research of that painting. So, in 1803 she probably had stern davits and thus carried a boat there.

Russ

 

jpk wrote:

I was looking at photos of the Hull model of the Constitution and noticed the small jolly/cutter boats at the stern of the ship are not there. Nor are there any indications that they should be there. The Revell kit has them and I'm curious as to whether or not the ship actually carried them as the kit shows. Anyone have any info on this? Thanks.

At this point there are now 32 posts responding to this question. Is there a consensus that we just do not know if there ever was a boat at the stern of the Constitution; and if there was, we do not know when? But, Revell's rendering could be valid?

I think I may hold off on that for now then and just use the plastic parts. I don't know if I'm "seriously" interested in ship modeling, plastic or otherwise, but I do love the Constitution. I guess it's not just the ship and the way it looks but the history and all the speculation as to how she looked that interests me, not just the Constitution but all of the initial 44 gun frigates.

Another type of sailing ship I'm interested in would be one of the US Navy's 74 gun ship's of the line. If you think there's not much on the United States, there's almost nothing on those ships, at least as far as I know. There may be some obscure books out there and if there are I'm not aware of them.

You're right, it was brass in the Mantua kit now that you've jogged my memory. I felt kind of gyped when I got the Mantua kit and saw that the hardware was lifted off the Revell kit. I did sell it for more than I paid for it, a good thing. Still kick my self for not getting the BJ kit for less than half what it retails for. Maybe down the road....... 

 

 

jtilley wrote:

Well, replacing the plastic "deadeye and lanyard" assemblies on the Revell kit isn't, in itself, particularly time-consuming.  I did it on the one I built way back in the seventies, as a matter of fact.  I don't remember just how the parts representing the deadeyes and the channels are arranged, but the job amounts to slicing off the deadeyes and replacing them with wood or metal ones.  A series of holes needs to be drilled where the old deadeyes were; the new ones can be held in place with wire or even thread.  You might also want to think about replacing the chain plates, but they don't look bad if they're cleaned up carefully. The tricky part of the process is rigging the genuine, thread deadeye lanyards.  As I've mentioned several times in other Forum posts, I personally find that just about the most trying part of ship model rigging.  In theory it's pretty simple, but getting the upper deadeyes lined up in a straight line and more-or-less uniform tension on the shrouds, without making the mast lean too much in some direction, is a challenge.  I've seen various jigs and fixtures that people have devised in attempts to make it easier, but in my experience there's just no substitute for getting some practice.  I frankly don't suggest a big ship, with lots of shrouds, as a first effort for rigging your own shrouds. I remember, back when I was working in a hobby shop, examining a ad for what must have been that same Mantua kit.  The brochure contained glorious color photos of the cast brass bow and stern ornaments.  (The company also sold them separately - in a velvet-lined wood box.)  It struck me that they looked remarkably like their counterparts in the Revell plastic kit.  And the scale of the Mamoli version was 1/98. The Revell kit is on 1/96.  Brass castings shrink by two percent as they cool.  Hmmmm. I had another curious experience with one of those European manufacturers.  I went into a hobby shop that specialized in ship models (such establishments really did exist, once upon a time).  The proprietor produced, with a considerable flourish, an item that had recently arrived:  a pair of "bronzed metal" castings from (I think) Mamoli that supposedly represented the carved trailboards of the Cutty Sark.  I don't remember the price of them, but it was considerable.  Several other customers were admiring these things.  I said I thought they were out of proportion and rather crude; that the Imai and Airfix plastic kit, and even the decal versions in the old Revell one, actually were better scale representations of the real thing.  Everybody looked at me as though I'd either gone out of my mind or blasphemed. The interesting thing about that conversation was the venue:  Maritime Models of Greenwich.  Everybody present had walked by the real Cutty Sark on the way to the shop. Those continental European wood kits have a strange mystique about them that has little to do with scale modeling.  If you do a Forum search on the word "HECEPOB" (that's Hideously Expensive Contintental European Plank On Bulkhead) you'll find several interesting discussions of the subject.  Bottom line:  if you're seriously interested in scale ship modeling, getting rid of that Mantua kit was an extremely smart thing to do.

Well, replacing the plastic "deadeye and lanyard" assemblies on the Revell kit isn't, in itself, particularly time-consuming.  I did it on the one I built way back in the seventies, as a matter of fact.  I don't remember just how the parts representing the deadeyes and the channels are arranged, but the job amounts to slicing off the deadeyes and replacing them with wood or metal ones.  A series of holes needs to be drilled where the old deadeyes were; the new ones can be held in place with wire or even thread.  You might also want to think about replacing the chain plates, but they don't look bad if they're cleaned up carefully.

The tricky part of the process is rigging the genuine, thread deadeye lanyards.  As I've mentioned several times in other Forum posts, I personally find that just about the most trying part of ship model rigging.  In theory it's pretty simple, but getting the upper deadeyes lined up in a straight line and more-or-less uniform tension on the shrouds, without making the mast lean too much in some direction, is a challenge.  I've seen various jigs and fixtures that people have devised in attempts to make it easier, but in my experience there's just no substitute for getting some practice.  I frankly don't suggest a big ship, with lots of shrouds, as a first effort for rigging your own shrouds.

I remember, back when I was working in a hobby shop, examining a ad for what must have been that same Mantua kit.  The brochure contained glorious color photos of the cast brass bow and stern ornaments.  (The company also sold them separately - in a velvet-lined wood box.)  It struck me that they looked remarkably like their counterparts in the Revell plastic kit.  And the scale of the Mamoli version was 1/98. The Revell kit is on 1/96.  Brass castings shrink by two percent as they cool.  Hmmmm.

I had another curious experience with one of those European manufacturers.  I went into a hobby shop that specialized in ship models (such establishments really did exist, once upon a time).  The proprietor produced, with a considerable flourish, an item that had recently arrived:  a pair of "bronzed metal" castings from (I think) Mamoli that supposedly represented the carved trailboards of the Cutty Sark.  I don't remember the price of them, but it was considerable.  Several other customers were admiring these things.  I said I thought they were out of proportion and rather crude; that the Imai and Airfix plastic kits, and even the decal versions in the old Revell one, actually were better scale representations of the real thing.  Everybody looked at me as though I'd either gone out of my mind or blasphemed.

The interesting thing about that conversation was the venue:  Maritime Models of Greenwich.  Everybody present had walked by the real Cutty Sark on the way to the shop.

Those continental European wood kits have a strange mystique about them that has little to do with scale modeling.  If you do a Forum search on the word "HECEPOB" (that's Hideously Expensive Contintental European Plank On Bulkhead) you'll find several interesting discussions of the subject.  Bottom line:  if you're seriously interested in scale ship modeling, getting rid of that Mantua kit was an extremely smart thing to do.

Once again jtilly I thank you for offering your insight as well as all of the others here that have contributed to this thread. There's been much useful information exchanged.

My research resources are tiny compared to what some of you have aquired. I have only Chapelle's, Gilmer's and the Osprey books for reference, not to forget the net also but there's not a dirth of visual information on the net it being mostly text, still that gives a lot also.

Russ, thank you also for your help. It's has been very enlightening.

A question about replacing deadeyes. Since I have not in the past built a wooden model, althought at one time I did have the Mantua Connie, what is involved with replacing them on the Revell kit. It may be more work than I want to bite off at this time but it would be good to know the method. The Mantua kit was a wooden copy of the Revell kit with the decorative bits reproduced in white metal and photo etch. I did not have the tools to work in wood so I sold the kit shortly after I purchased it. Maybe someday I'll get the BJ kit. I have their catalog and it looks very nice built up.

 

 

 

jtilley wrote:

Speculating on how that roundhouse arrangement was set up, and what armament (if any) was on top of it, is really beyond my capacity.  It certainly does make sense that it would have entailed some sort of arrangement that would enable those aftermost spar deck ports to be closed.  I haven't done any serious reading about the War of 1812 in quite a long time, but as I remember there are some pretty reliable figures on the armament of the American frigates during the famous single-ship actions (e.g., the United States vs. the Macedonian).  Such a list should shed some light on just what the United States's spar deck armament was at that time.  A good place to start looking for such material is The Naval War of 1812:  A Documentary History, edited by William S. Dudley and published by the Naval Historical Center. Various types of carriage were built for carronades; some of them did have trucks so they could be run in, and some of the designs called for the pivot pin to be mounted in the waterway, rather than the port sill. (That configuration would let the port be closed.)  I suppose it's possible that the carronade carriages of the United States were built like that.  (The Hull model is of no help whatever on this point.  Its gun carriages are crude blocks of wood, with no trucks at all; the modeler didn't make any distinction between carronades and long guns.)  Mr. Marquardt's book contains (p. 84) drawings of several types of carronade carriage; at least three of them would allow the gunport to be shut. I don't know when cast metal letters for transoms came into use, but I have the general impression that it was fairly late in the nineteenth century.  My guess is that the name on the transom of an American frigate from the War of 1812 period would be either painted on the planking, incised into it, or made up of individual carved wood letters, probably carved by the same artisan who made the other decorative work.  In the absence of any specific evidence, I'd be inclined to go with the latter - which seems to be what Revell did. Model Expo (www.modelexpo-online.com) offers a wide variety of wood blocks and deadeyes.  ME in fact gets them from several different European manufacturers, and they vary quite a bit in quality.  If you want to go that route, my suggestion is to order a sample of each of several sizes and types, and take a good look at them before commiting yourself to the considerable expense of fitting out the whole ship. A small American company called Warner Woods West makes wood blocks that, though I've never used them myself, have a fine reputation.  They are, however, quite expensive. My own personal favorite source of blocks and deadeyes is Bluejacket.  Its fittings are cast in Britannia metal, which obviously requires different treatment than wood; the fittings require some cleaning up, and have to be painted.  But they're extremely well proportioned (which can't be said about all those European wood ones), absolutely consistent in size and shape (ditto), and affordably priced.  The smallest Bluejacket blocks are also smaller than any wood ones I've encountered. One other thought on that topic.  Several Form members, working on big sailing ship models for the first time, have, in great bursts of enthusiasm, shelled out vast sums of money in order to buy all the deadeyes and blocks they need for an entire model at the same time.  The bill for such an order would amount to well over a hundred dollars.  There is, in fact, no reason whatever to lay out that amount of cash at one time.  My normal practice is to order however many fittings I think I'll need in a month or two, and watch carefully as I use them up.  When the stock of one particular size or type gets a little low, I order some more.  The companies mentioned above give good, fast mail order service; they won't slow down anybody's model building significantly. Earlier in this thread I mentioned Donald McNarry.  (I don't like to deal in such language, but if I had to put the label "world's greatest ship modeler" on anybody it would be him.)  The letters I exchanged with him back in the early eighties contained lots of interesting revelations.  One of the most astonishing was that he routinely let his two cats, Pepys II and Fubbs II, share his workshop with him; he sent me a picture of Pepys II scratching his chin on the bowsprit of an in-progress model.  Sounds to me like a surefire recipe for disaster.  I'm lucky enough to have a detached workshop in the back yard.  When I head out there I try to remember to make sure Willie II is shut in the house.  If not, he's likely to sit down in front of the workshop door and start yowling at the top of his lungs, thereby arousing the neighborhood.  And if I finally break down and let him in, he promptly starts yowling to get out.  Cats are weird creatures....

Just a quick note regarding the arming of the roundhouse on the 'United States:'  While it is quite possible a few swivels might have been mounted from time to time, it is important to note that heavy weights (from cannon, or even carronades) on the ends of the ship cause significant strain on the structure of the ship as a whole.  This is because the ends of the ship have the least amount of flotation available to it, which is a result of the narrowing of the lines for streamlining purposes.  The 'Constitution' and many other ships have suffered from this, with pronounced hogging as a result (after the hogging was recently repaired on 'Constitution,' the iron cannons in the bow were replaced with fiberglass replicas as a way of preventing such hogging in the future).  A number of ships built during the era had quite short lives as a result of the structural problems caused by excessive weight in the ends of the ships (the huge 'Commerce de Marsellaise' is a good example), and given the fine lines of the American frigates, it is quite likely the roundhouse on 'United States' remained unarmed for just this reason.  In similar manner, the British often removed the forward main deck cannons of captured French ships (using the empty ports as 'bridle ports' for ease of anchoring) to reduce the weight on the forefoot of the ship. Also, it should be noted that the roundhouse on 'United States' was not really unique, and in fact was a feature on a number of large French frigates of the period, and to my knowledge, none of them featured armament either.......

Speculating on how that roundhouse arrangement was set up, and what armament (if any) was on top of it, is really beyond my capacity.  It certainly does make sense that it would have entailed some sort of arrangement that would enable those aftermost spar deck ports to be closed.  I haven't done any serious reading about the War of 1812 in quite a long time, but as I remember there are some pretty reliable figures on the armament of the American frigates during the famous single-ship actions (e.g., the United States vs. the Macedonian).  Such a list should shed some light on just what the United States's spar deck armament was at that time.  A good place to start looking for such material is The Naval War of 1812:  A Documentary History, edited by William S. Dudley and published by the Naval Historical Center.

Various types of carriage were built for carronades; some of them did have trucks so they could be run in, and some of the designs called for the pivot pin to be mounted in the waterway, rather than the port sill. (That configuration would let the port be closed.)  I suppose it's possible that the carronade carriages of the United States were built like that.  (The Hull model is of no help whatever on this point.  Its gun carriages are crude blocks of wood, with no trucks at all; the modeler didn't make any distinction between carronades and long guns.)  Mr. Marquardt's book contains (p. 84) drawings of several types of carronade carriage; at least three of them would allow the gunport to be shut.

I don't know when cast metal letters for transoms came into use, but I have the general impression that it was fairly late in the nineteenth century.  My guess is that the name on the transom of an American frigate from the War of 1812 period would be either painted on the planking, incised into it, or made up of individual carved wood letters, probably carved by the same artisan who made the other decorative work.  In the absence of any specific evidence, I'd be inclined to go with the latter - which seems to be what Revell did.

Model Expo (www.modelexpo-online.com) offers a wide variety of wood blocks and deadeyes.  ME in fact gets them from several different European manufacturers, and they vary quite a bit in quality.  If you want to go that route, my suggestion is to order a sample of each of several sizes and types, and take a good look at them before commiting yourself to the considerable expense of fitting out the whole ship.

A small American company called Warner Woods West makes wood blocks that, though I've never used them myself, have a fine reputation.  They are, however, quite expensive.

My own personal favorite source of blocks and deadeyes is Bluejacket.  Its fittings are cast in Britannia metal, which obviously requires different treatment than wood; the fittings require some cleaning up, and have to be painted.  But they're extremely well proportioned (which can't be said about all those European wood ones), absolutely consistent in size and shape (ditto), and affordably priced.  The smallest Bluejacket blocks are also smaller than any wood ones I've encountered.

One other thought on that topic.  Several Form members, working on big sailing ship models for the first time, have, in great bursts of enthusiasm, shelled out vast sums of money in order to buy all the deadeyes and blocks they need for an entire model at the same time.  The bill for such an order would amount to well over a hundred dollars.  There is, in fact, no reason whatever to lay out that amount of cash at one time.  My normal practice is to order however many fittings I think I'll need in a month or two, and watch carefully as I use them up.  When the stock of one particular size or type gets a little low, I order some more.  The companies mentioned above give good, fast mail order service; they won't slow down anybody's model building significantly.

Earlier in this thread I mentioned Donald McNarry.  (I don't like to deal in such language, but if I had to put the label "world's greatest ship modeler" on anybody it would be him.)  The letters I exchanged with him back in the early eighties contained lots of interesting revelations.  One of the most astonishing was that he routinely let his two cats, Pepys II and Fubbs II, share his workshop with him; he sent me a picture of Pepys II scratching his chin on the bowsprit of an in-progress model.  Sounds to me like a surefire recipe for disaster.  I'm lucky enough to have a detached workshop in the back yard.  When I head out there I try to remember to make sure Willie II is shut in the house.  If not, he's likely to sit down in front of the workshop door and start yowling at the top of his lungs, thereby arousing the neighborhood.  And if I finally break down and let him in, he promptly starts yowling to get out.  Cats are weird creatures....

If I may offer a thought on this one;

The advantage of carronades was that they were lighter than carriage long guns and for a greater calibre per weight, albeit at the expense of range. They also operated on slides so they could effectively be run in.

HMS Victory carried six 18 pounder carronades on her Poop deck between 1780 and 1782, so even tho' the Poop deck was a lighter structure than the main decks it was up to the task of bearing carronades.

Hope this helps.

jtilley wrote:

We do know that painting (or carving) the name of a ship on her transom was extremely common practice in those days, but to my knowledge there were no rules about such things in the U.S. Navy at the time.

Sign maker here- my guess would be that these were individual letters cast in a foundry.

jtilly, Thanks for sharing your extensive knowlege base on the Constitution. I find it very helpfull in my build. I, like the above poster, will use the Hull model as a baseline reference adding or subtracting as I glean more information. This is my second large Connie. The first was demolished by my cat 20 years ago. I had all the standing and some of the running rigging done when the accident happened and I haven't had the will to restart another build until recently. I have much more information now though to approach this build with a more critical eye. Also, alot of better tools to work with helps imensely. 

Once I get there, I may consider using wooden blocks to do the rigging rather than the kit ones.They require so much clean up before you can use them and that takes forever. Is there a place that they are available from? I would also liked to have had the Bluejacket plan set but $60.00 is a bit more than I want to spend. Thanks again. 

Addendum: Regarding the poop deck. I understand what you're saying about the weight of the guns and that the higher structures being constructed in such a way as to add as little top weight as possible. That is why I've revised my thinking about how I might configure my build of the United States. A question......I realize this is a shot in the dark but give me your best thought on it. The last two carronade ports, both starboard and port on the spar deck, supposedly were within the structure of the round house. Could those guns have been replaced with carriage types of a smaller calibre instead of the pivot types to allow them to be run in and have the ports sealed in heavy seas? Otherwise the ports could not be sealed with the latter guns in place. Thanks for your thoughts.  

 

It's certainly conceivable.  I don't have prints of any of the old paintings or engravings in front of me at the moment; Mr. Marquardt includes the ship's name on all four of his reconstructed transoms (three of which are his interpretations of Corne pictures), but we've established that he makes mistakes.  We do know that painting (or carving) the name of a ship on her transom was extremely common practice in those days, but to my knowledge there were no rules about such things in the U.S. Navy at the time.

I do think it's entirely possible that the name got left off the Hull model simply because the modeler wasn't up to the task of putting it there.  (His rendition of the lower part of the transom is especially clumsy; it would be hard to find room for such lettering there.)  As I've noted in earlier posts, plenty of details are missing from that wonderful old model; to leave the name off the transom would be consistent with leaving the trucks off the gun carriages (and the steering wheel off altogether).  But I'd have to look at the old paintings to see whether the name is visible in any of them. 

jtilley wrote:

Several modelers have commented on the fact that the ship's name isn't carved on the stern of the Hull model.

I am also building the Revell 1/96 Constitution and am finishing it consistent with the Hull Model.   Two questions:

1. Since the Hull Model does not show the ship's name on the transom, do any of the contemporary paintings, or any other credible sources, suggest how the name might have appeared? 

2. I remember some discussion a few years ago suggesting that the ship's name was not carried on the actual ship during the War of 1812 perhaps as a deceptive measure and was painted on the transom after the war.  If true, could this account for its absence on the Hull Model?

 

Regarding the decorative work on the Hull model - another thing to remember is that, like most of the detail work on that model, it's pretty crudely executed.  I confess that, when I had a chance to take a close look at it last summer, not having seen it for about twenty years, I was a bit surprised at how good the carvings are.  And they're painted in bright colors that don't appear anywhere else on the model.  (The transom window frames, for instance, are bright blue.)  I wonder if the basic hull and deck details, on the one hand, and the carved ornamentation, on the other, were done by different people. 

Several modelers have commented on the fact that the ship's name isn't carved on the stern of the Hull model.  To my mind there's a simple explanation for that:  the task of carving or painting such small lettering was simply beyond the task of the modeler.  (He wasn't up to the task of making a steering wheel, either.)  The words "Model of the U.S. Frigate Constitution.  Presented by Commodore Hull." are painted neatly on the starboard side of the hull; that lettering, though, pretty clearly was added some time after the model was built.

Incidentally - I just took a look at some of the photos of the Hull model that I took last summer.  It does have a pair of horizontal boat davits sticking out of the upper transom - but no davits on the sides.

The recent book Anatomy of the Ship:  The 44-Gun Frigate U.S.S. Constitution, by Karl Heinz Marquardt, contains some serious inaccuracies (which we've dissected pretty thoroughly elsewhere in the Forum).  One if its best features, though, is a set of reconstructed drawings (on p. 67) of four configurations of the transom.  In this case Mr. Marquardt tells us the sources on which he based the drawings:  the Corne painting of 1803 (eight transom windows), two Corne paintings from 1812 (five and six windows, respectively), and the current configuration (three windows).  Mr. Marquardt's apparent failure to examine the Hull model is unexplained - and hard to excuse.  But he obviously did take a good look at the contemporary evidence regarding this particular part of the ship.  George Campbell, when he was working on the plans for the Smithsonian model (and, though he presumably didn't know it at the time, the Revell kit), did look at the Hull model.  The carvings on the Revell kit look to me like a thoroughly reasonable interpretation of those on the Hull model - i.e., what the carvings on the real ship, which got translated into the slightly primitive renditions on the model, looked like.  There's certainly plenty of room for interpretation about all this (as there is regarding so many other details of this great ship), but until I see some hard evidence to the contrary I'm inclined to think Revell's rendition of the bow and stern carvings is as believable as any.

Regarding the United States's "roundhouse" - I don't think anything can be said for absolute certain.  Howard I. Chapelle, in the plans he drew for his History of the American Sailing Navy (1949), included a generalized reconstruction of it that certainly looks reasonable to my eye.  I can recall seeing at least one photo of the ship, obviously taken late in her career; unfortunately the after part of the hull was blocked out by another ship, so that was no help.  And to my knowledge the "roundhouse" doesn't show in any of the contemporary paintings or engravings of her.

One point regarding the armament, or lack thereof, on top of the roundhouse (and, for that matter, the poop of H.M.S. Victory):  guns were enormously heavy things, and the beams and other structural members of a deck high up in the superstructure of a ship were relatively light.  I suspect that, in both of these cases, the people responsible figured that putting such weight so high up in the ship would be dangerous. 

One source that doesn't get consulted often regarding the Victory is a series of watercolor sketches that the great artist J.M.W. Turner made on board her shortly after she got back to England after Trafalgar.  (Turner eventually made two major oil paintings that feature her.)  One of those sketches (reproduced in H.M.S. Victory:  Construction, Career and Restoration, by Alan McGowen and John McKay - though I may have garbled the title) shows the break of the poop.  It doesn't look much like the ship does today (though it closely matches an 1803 model at the National Maritime Museum).  It does show a rather large swivel gun mounted on the stanchion at each end of the poop rail.  To my eye, at least, swivel guns mounted on the railing surrounding the United States's roundhouse would look pretty reasonable.

Thank you.

With regards to the round house on the United States, I was looking at photos of the HMS Victory which also has a round house/poop deck. The ship obviously is much larger than the United States but the interesting thing was the poop deck had no cannons on it. It also was with out any armaments. Of course the ship had many more gun decks and cannons than US but I may rethink my refit of my United States and keep the cannons on the spar deck. I will install hammock nettings on the bulwarks though and a solid transom with maybe two stern chaser ports cut into it.

Ah!! That's no problem. Just crossed wires. :)

I do not know an online source for the Corne's paintings. William Bass's monograph, written in 1980, is titled Constitution Second Phase, 1802-1807. He created his drawings for that book. So far as I know, this book is out of print. I have a copy that I have used in my research.  

Russ

Russ, I apologize, I was looking at the wrong painting. It was Constitution and Guerriere. I will try to find an image of the one you've noted online. If you know of a link it would be most appreciated.

The 1805 painting by Corne' that showed her stern decorations during the Tripolitan War is valuable because it is the earliest known rendering of the Constitution's original stern decorations. That painting has been put through a microphotographic examination and the stern decorations have been pulled out and redrawn so that they are quite distinct.  

The Hull model and the 1805 Corne' painting are not at odds because they represent different periods of the ship's history. It is well settled that by the War of 1812, her decorative scheme was much simplified from what she originally had. Just what sort of decorations she had on her stern during the War of 1812 is up in the air. However, what is on the Hull model is the best record I know of for that period. Laurence Arnot drew a plan of that decorative scheme in his kit instructions for the Bluejacket Shipcrafters kit of the Constitution.

Russ

I seached for paintings by Corne and found I believe the one you refer to in your post. It can be considered no more or less detailed than any other painting I've seen of the stern decorations of the Constitution, of which there are many interpretations. I've seen many differing arrangements on many different paintings of Constitution's stern, why is it that you hold his painting in such high regard while the Hull model, made and painted by a crew member is given less weight?

Well, I find the ship interesting. I love the lines of the Constitution. I have one that I'm currently building and it's fun to try to decide how I want her to look. I'm not trying to make a museum piece, just a nice looking model. But.....I find the United States an interesting off shoot. It's a combination of historical fact finding and personal interpretation. Much like taking a standard Fletcher but modding it to fit a particular ship. Not all Fletchers were the same and displayed many different configurations. Same with the Constitution class but there were only three ships available to display the differences. I don't see how Revell so totally screwed it up. The round house was the round house. It was in fact there. The detail stuff they may have missed the mark on but the ship had a round house. All I'm trying to do is apply what I think the warship might have looked like based on what I would think the captain would have done if he had such a structure built and still maintain the fighting capabilities of the ship.

That odd  'stern heavy' look is exactly why I lost interest and gave it up to gather dust in the loft these many years. 

A poor rendition lacking any sense of proportion; a quick and cheap fix by Revell to squeeze a little more out of the market off the back of their very fine Constitution model which in my opinion provides far greater scope for enhancement with a reasonable degree of historical accuracy.

I wish you luck with your conversion jpk, and hope you can make a swan out of this ugly duckling

I understand the information on the round house is slim but it did exist at one point. It may or may not have been removed by the 1812 war. I also know Revell probably did as little as possible so they could make the US from the Connie. But still, the round house was there and while Revell's redition of it may not be accurate it certainly would be similar save for the transom decorations and the gallery windows. I plan to remove the out of scale railing and raise the bulwarks similar to what are along the spar deck. I'll put hammock nettings above those along with 3 caronades and gun ports cut into the bulwarks on each side. I'll also fill in the last three spar deck gun ports as these, if left open in heavy seas, would allow water to flood into the round house area. I would think that that would not have been desirable. I'm also planning on an additional doorway into the round house.

I had read that thread before and looking at the gentleman's build of the US I felt the stern of the ship looked bad. Not his build but just the way it was designed. The US was a war ship and to leave such a large area open with nothing on it knowing that space was always at a premium on those ships seemed to me to be wrong. The great thing about it is with such a paucity of solid info, you can pretty much do what you want and who's to argue. I may also change the transom design to something a little more decorative than that boxy one supplied by Revell. Even when you look at drawings of US 74 gun ships of the line the transom was usually of a curved design and not boxy like the kit's transom. 

We had an interesting Forum discussion about this subject a while back.  Here's the link:  /forums/749974/ShowPost.aspx

Bottom line:  (1) Very little is known for sure about the "roundhouse" of the United States.  (2)  Revell's rendition of it shouldn't be taken seriously.  The questions jpk has raised are certainly interesting and significant, but I don't think anybody can answer them with any certainty.

If I remember correctly, the Smithsonian's Constellation model was built by the same people, and at about the same time, as the Campbell-designed Constitution.  That was just about the time when Howard I. Chapelle, then curator of the Smithsonian's Division of Transportation, was raising the hackles of the people in Baltimore with his assertion that the 1797 Constellation and the one then under restoration in Baltimore were two different ships.  The model, as I recall, represented the 1797 frigate; reading between the lines, I think it can be regarded as one of Chapelle's "broadsides" in his battle with the Baltimore faction.  Chapelle, of course, eventually won (albeit quite a few years after he died).  The people responsible for conserving and operating the Constellation now accept that she is in fact an 1850s corvette.

jtilley wrote:

The Smithsonian has two models of the Constitution.  (Actually maybe more than two; two that I'm familiar with.)  One is a big, 1/48-scale one that was built by (if I remember right) a commercial firm called the Arthur Henning Company back in the late fifties.  This is the one for which the Smithsonian commissioned the plans by George Campbell, on which the Revell kit is also based. The other Smithsonian Constitution is an incredible 1/192-scale one by the great modern modeler Donald McNarry.  I saw this one on my first visit to the Smithsonian, back in about 1966, when I was in high school.  It's one of the finest, most detailed models I've ever seen; it depicts the ship in her as-built configuration.  Some years after that, the museum took it off exhibit.  When I got a job as a curator at the Mariners' Museum, in 1980, I made arrangements to borrow the McNarry model.  (Driving down from DC to Newport News with that model in the back of a station wagon was a neurotic experience.)  It was still on exhibition at the MM when I left in 1983.  I believe the MM has given it back to the Smithsonian since then. I last went to the Smithsonian's Museum of American History three years ago, when the new American military history gallery had just opened.  My opinion of that exhibition is, in general, extremely high.  But I was somewhat dismayed to note that scarcely any ship models were in it.  Neither of the Constitutions was anywhere to be seen - nor were various other important, beautiful models that used to be exhibited prominently.  Tastes in museum exhibition design change over time; I guess ship models are out of favor at the moment.  The Museum of American History is currently closed for a major renovation.  (I believe it's scheduled to reopen in summer '08.)  One of the big projects in progress now is a major refurbishing of the "Hall of Maritime Enterprise," which deals with non-naval maritime history.  In its old form it contained lots of ship models.  I'm holding my breath waiting to see how many of them have vanished from public view when the new gallery opens. The Naval Academy Museum at Annapolis has another 1/192 Constitution by Donald McNarry - almost identical to the Smithsonian one.  (The man is simply amazing.)  I'm not sure whether it's currently on exhibit; I do know that the staff of that museum does appreciate ship models.  The relatively new gallery in the basement of the building, in which the famous Rogers Collection of "Admiralty models" is displayed, is one of the best ship model exhibition facilities in the country - if not the world. The Naval Academy Museum has a model that also probably belongs on that "top ten" list of most important American ship models:  the model of the brig Fair American, from the American Revolution.  That one has (with the Naval Academy Museum's encouragement) been the subject of several excellent articles in the Nautical Research Journal, which examined its provenance, the existing documentation about it, and just about every other aspect of it.  The museum also cooperated with Model Shipways, which offers a wood kit based on the model.  I have no idea whether anybody's ever approached the Peabody-Essex Museum about moving the "Hull model."  I strongly suspect the museum would be unwilling to part with it.  My wife and I were up at Salem last summer, and I had a chance to take a look at how the model is currently being treated.  I did a post about it here in the Forum when I got back; here's the link:  /forums/818443/ShowPost.aspx I don't accuse the Peabody-Essex Museum of mistreating the model.  But I do think it needs to be the subject of a more serious research and publication project than, to my knowledge, has been devoted to it so far.  I've given some thought to doing an article about it, but in all honesty I don't think I could afford it.  Even if the museum agreed to the proposal, to do it right would entail taking up residence in Salem for quite a while, and that's just beyond my - and, I'm pretty certain, the museum's - means for the time being.

In the mid 80's I spent a few days in DC on vacation and went to the M of AH. I saw the model of the Constitution in a case and took some photos of it. They also had a model of the Constellation. I was building the Revell large Constitution at the time. Unfortunately the ship took a broadside from my cat and destroyed the rigging and masts beyond repair. It was a moment for sure but the cat did survive. She was too much a loved pet.

I realize this may be getting off topic but I will ask anyway. I have the large Revell United States in addition to the Constitution. Looking at the large area taken up by the round house it is devoid of any cannon or bulwark protection for crew. It seems strange that such a large area on a warship would not commit any weapons or protection to such a large area. Are there any thoughts as to why this is? I realize that the design of the round house is for the most part speculative as to its outfit and I know about it possibly having been removed at some point. However, it seems she did go to sea with the structure so would it not have been outfitted with weapons and protection? 

 

John:

I have that website boomarked for some time now and refer to it often just to sit dumbfounded. I also have both of his books and I thumb them quite frquently, both to drool and to get me back into ship modeling mindset again.  One of them has two examples of his Constitution models. He actually had the properly scaled tools for the gun crews laid out on the spar deck next to the guns. So, its not just a great model, but its got great atmosphere as well.

I have read about those truss rods. Bass showed them in his drawings that were based on the Corne' paintings. However, I really wonder if they would have been that visible. I accept that they were there, but as a matter of scale, I wonder if they would be seen at 1/192 scale. Probably a lot of different opinions on that. :)

Russ 

 

When I got that McNarry model to the Mariners' Museum I had the museum photographer take some closeup pictures of it, and sent prints of them to Captain Tyrone Martin.  (At that time - 1981, I think - he had recently retired from the Navy; his book about the Constitution was the latest work on the subject.)  He offered quite a few criticisms of it, most of which were relatively small - and most of which I've forgotten.  (I think I may have a copy of his letter at the office; I'll try to remember to look for it.)  One point I do remember is that Captain Martin said there were some iron, athwartships truss rods in the ship originally, and that their ends should be visible outboard.  His overall conclusion was something along the lines of "as an example of craftsmanship it is a masterpiece, but in terms of accuracy it is wanting."  I didn't forward the letter to Mr. McNarry; he was on the verge of retiring from building models professionally, and I figured that information wouldn't do him any good.

One of the tasks I set myself when I got that job at the MM was to get a McNarry model for its collection.  I sort of succeeded.  He wasn't building many by that time, and the museum's budget couldn't handle the prices of his more elaborate ones.  I did engineer a loan, for a couple of years, of several McNarry models from a private collector in Philadelphia.  And toward the end of my brief curatorial career Mr. McNarry offered to sell us one of several little English ceremonial barges he'd just completed.  I got the museum to buy one of them.  The task of getting it from England to Newport News was formidable and time-consuming, but eventually our Registrar made contact with an employee of a sister institution who was going to England and was willing to make a side trip to Mr. McNarry's house.  One day when I got to my office I found a remarkably small cardboard box on my desk.  The Registrar had put it there, so I could open it.  It of course contained the little barge, in all its glory. 

I don't know whether the museum has that model on exhibit at the moment; I rather doubt it.  The big problem with McNarry models (and others on extremely small scales) from the standpoint of a museum is that most members of the general public, understandably, have trouble appreciating them.  The average person's eyesight is barely good enough to see the detail on such models, and only a person who's got at least a little experience in model building can really understand what remarkable things they are - in terms of both craftsmanship and research. 

The North Carolina Maritime Museum, where I spend quite a bit of time hanging out nowadays, recently acquired (by donation from that same Philadelphia collector) a McNarry model of a Civil War blockade runner.  A couple of the museum staff members are former students of mine.  I spent some time explaining to one of them why that model is probably the best one in the museum - and why it's probably worth what the donor said it was (and, I assume, will be telling the IRS shortly, when he claims a tax deduction for having donated it).  The staff member made some nice, sympathetic comments about it, but I don't think she entirely believed me.

For the benefit of anybody who doesn't know what we're talking about, here's a link to a web page containing some photos of a few (just a few) of Mr. McNarry's models:

 http://www.donaldmcnarryshipmodels.com/menu.html

None of his Constitutions is shown, but you'll get the picture.  Pay particular attention to the scales and dimensions.