To Constitution and beyond ...

[dafi]

Yupp

Also it can be made longer, by adding another bed to the right side.

XXXDAn

[dafi]

Finally after a long time remounted my rope walk again. For space reasons simply hung in the basement hallway under the ceiling



Then I started rigging to try out the blocks. In the contemporary plans, the blocks are about half the width of the forward wheel. These blocks are minimally larger, which makes handling much easier. To do this, nailed a mounting hook into a piece of wood for holding the hooks. And for that the small blocks do not go off, I always put them immediately on the leash



And here the rigged hook and block from close up.





For comparison in size ...



... and in place.



Since I had pulled down one of the knees with my thick sausage fingers, I immediately took the chance to be able to photograph undisturbed














Greetings, Daniel

[dafi]

Until now, the bottleneck in rigging the guns were the blocks: There were almost no small ones, and if there were, they were often difficult in appearance or quality.

Recently, I have test rigged my smallest self-printed blocks times and noticed that fine thin and steady surgeon hands are needed, including good visual reinforcements.

And I realized that suddenly it is now me beeing the bottleneck ...



Here the measure of things was the thinnest rope I needed in 1:100, 0.2 mm diameter. Something for the filigran ones among us

Now the pragmatist in me came out again. According to the old literature I need for the guns in 1:100 / 1:98 the diameter off 0,3- 0,4 mm for the ropes for the lanjards of the side- and back tackles. The 0.4 mm rope is also a common thickness for Gondesen and other suppliers in the aftermarket. So a block combination on this rope thickness is required, and also a good method in which this is done quickly and with good visual results.

It has cost me a few attempts, meanwhile I have found the right variant for myself.

First a normal classical knot to tie the hook in ...



... then the whole thing tightened to the back, in order to make the hook sit well in the middle ...



... spreading the ends again and ...



... put the block of choice ready.



Then clamped the hook between my fingers, used a toothpick to make a drop of super glue in the middle on the knot of the hook and centered the block on it.



Don't let go of the hook now, but detached it would look like this.



This is just the positioning guide to superglue the groove on the side with the toothpick on one side and pull the rope well over it.



Do not grab the glued area, but pull on the free end. This works quite well without the whole thing forming an inseparable bond with the builder.
Then glue the groove on the other side, pull the rope over it accordingly and make sure that the pull is even and the hook hangs centrally over the block.



Then glue the bottom of the block with the toothpick and pull the ends against each other, cut off the excess diagonally, and press the two slanted ends against each other with tweezers or pliers, securing again with glue if necessary.



And then you already have it in your hand, the rigged double block



If you want you can strop the bridge between hook block a little bit, but I noticed that it doesn't help that much, so I made it easy for myself here.

By the way, here is my first attempt, you can still see it somehow crooked, and the one after that, you can see, practice makes perfect



With the single block it is the same, thread hook on the rope, knot, pull back, spread, hook between the fingers, glue in the middle, block on it to secure, glue the side and pull rope over it, glue the other side and pull over it, and now the difference, on the bottom a knot and secured with glue.



Then the free end stropped up, glued and cut tight ...



... and the pair of block is ready



And the other two pairs came together quite quickly, so I soon had a set of three ready for my gun setup.



And as I said, no other tools or jigs were needed than a toothpick as a super glue applicator, I only used a pair of self-clamping tweezers on my bench vice to srop on the free end of the single block.



All the best, DAniel

[JIM BAUMANN]

Ha! Macro splicing !!

I never cease to be astonished by your drive--and ability
--to pursue the making ( and finding ways of...) of various minutia -!!!

- (seemingly !! ) sometimes...-for its own sake-- because you can !

in German....-HUT AB !! ==> ( translates as .... Hats off! )

JIM B

[dafi]

Thank you Jim!

In between all the X-Mess preparations, I actually managed to get down to business again

Status:



First it was about taking the measurements.





That means at the back the blocks must not overlap ...



... and the front position determines the length of the lanyard



And always the anxious question about the side rigging. After the shot in the retracted position and enough rope for 3 to 5 men to pull, yes there is quite a bit of rope left when the piece is run out again.







But if no one pulls the ropes, it isd mostely displayed directly as running into coils lying on the deck. That has two flaws: First, so the gun can move by itself and slide inward. In addition, the rope is shown mostly in a stretched position that would never be able to run smoothly into the coils, as it obeys gravity that pulls it.

So if no sailor is at hand and secures the free ends, the rope should be secured to the gun, the tackle or the ship's side. On my Vic I had made a half hitch around the aft end of the side tackles, Boudriot shows the "amarage simple" around the cascable. The first attempt went wrong, as at Boudriot there was no splice over the cascable as the breechline goes through the gun carriage, and there it worked well. After some research I found a reference, where the lanyard was led under the eye splice of the breech.



So the free end around the cascable, some turns as required ...

as

... and the rest as a bunch neatly arranged on one of the hooks.



So everything should be neatly tidied up and secured.

XXXDAn

[mister me]

nice rope work !

[dafi]

And seen from deck�s height it would look like this ...



... scnr

XXXDAn

[mister me]

fire !

[Martocticvs]

Consitution's hanging knees are positioned under the deck beams then? On British ships, when they were of this design, they were attached to the sides of the beams.

Looking absolultey fantastic!

[dafi]

Thank you guys!

@Martocvicvs I had the AOTS as reference, but already realised there are some inaccurancies in there. But that is not the trouble here, as the focus lies on the guns.

In addition to the figurehead of the Victory, I also made some progress with the battle station of the Constitution. First attached the eyebolts for the carronade's gun rig.





To determine the length of the tackles I again documented the different positions.













In the last two pictures, it can be seen that the hooks for the tackles are too close to each other to work effectively because the angle is too tight. That's why two more eyebolts are needed further out.



While this position is technically possible, I think it is a special case that can be well achieved with handspikes if needed.

To tie the breechline, I built a small rigging aid. Hammered in two nails spaced at width of the eyebolts and fixed the carronade in maximum aft position. Then tied the two rope eyes, nice and tight around the nails.



After tying the eye, just pulled them out over the top of the nail, bent the rings up from the eyebolts on the bulwark, removed them, slid them through the eye of the rope, bent them closed again a bit, and reattached them to the bulwark in the eyebolt.



Looks like this then







XXXDAn

[JIM BAUMANN]

...sprachlos !!! =..... speechless

JB

[BB62vet]

dafi,

Your carronade look quite similar to the ones I fashioned out of bloodwood for my 1:48 scale U.S. Sloop of War PEACOCK (1813) - these are 32 lb carronades -

Most of the U.S.N. inventory of cannon and carronade carriages were made expressly for a particular ship, so slight variations in the actual shape, etc. The sailing warships are such a wealth of interesting details and so forth for the modeler.

Your work is really well done!!

Hank

[dafi]

Thank ypu Jim and Hank, very appreciated!

Then attached the hammock cranes with the netting.



Mounted the white net in the cardboard frame and first primed it with white and then colored it slightly brown.



Then inserted two strips of paper as a convenient insertion aid and inserted the net with a wooden core.



Then on the outside, fixed the net with super glue at points, widened the core so that the net fits well on the inside of the holders, and also fixed the back side of the net at points. Then removed the core, glued the net well to the top rope and trimmed everything well with the pointed scissors.



After that, some more trimming was done and next comes the hammocks.





XXXDAn

[dafi]

The dimensions of the hammocks are well known. The diameter of the rolled sausage also can be seen in contemporary drawings. Even if they were sometimes thicker, because blankets were still rolled in, I choose the thinner version without additional content. Contemporary sources show 7 to 9 laces. Some say like the 7 oceans, on Bray's sketches you can see the variant with 9.

The mats were rolled of Fimo, the laces rolled in by means of a special comb. Since the holders are very low, I first tried the straight variant.



I found the bent variant better, as it is also historically documented in many cases.



After that, a bit of 50 shades of beige , plus some ink for shadows and depth and the lacing in the visible area represented with thin yarn and it all fits so far for me.







XXXDAn

[dafi]

I'll come back to the Battle Station later to still add some life. But it was time to do some stretching.

First off, built a sturdy stand.



Then came bondage. The hull is unfortunately so warped, that here rougher force in the form of tight lacing had been necessary.



The lacing allowed me to spread the load better. Still, later the hull partially burst open again, so the rougher tools came into play. Result was that it finally lasted ...



... but as collateral damage the hull had become quite wavy. Later on, the insertion of the upper deck will be a even-ing challenge (Mark the bun!)




The next step was to double up the ship's side. This makes the difference between the appearance as a classic plastic kit and upscale modeling appearance. Built up a small stop to do the doubling.



Then glued inside 4 mm battens against the stop.





Then inserted the sills at the top and bottom, making sure that there is enough overhang in each case. The space between these port frames was also filled with battens.



If there is too much protrusion of the sills, this is first minimized them with a sharp tool.



Then cut a flat batten to sand down the remaining overhang at the top/bottom, with minimal undersize in the sanding area and slightly more on the opposite side port. Taped 240 grit sandpaper to it with double sided tape, that fits well with my rather soft battens.



The strip is passed through the port on the opposite side, this gives an even horizontal angle.



Then sanded the sill on top ...



... turned the batten over and sanded the bottom sill.



Prepared another sanding strip for the sides ...



... especially in the bow area at the idle ports, some rework is needed because of the strong bend.



And this you get as comparison: original version Revell ...



... and the revised version



XXXDAn

[JIM BAUMANN]

Ha!

The strip is passed through the port on the opposite side, this gives an even horizontal angle.

now THAT is really a most useful hint !!
question;

I assume the deck camber is so slight there is no danger of accidental sanding of the planking..?

MFG ( KR ) Jim Baumann

[dafi]

Thank you Jim, no no danger at all. Even the correct camber would leave plenty of space, but to tell the truth, the kit has no camber at all ...

XXXDAn

[dafi]

After all the battens were mounted, the cleaning up really started. Rough overhang was minimized with the scalpel, then the top and bottom were filed with the sandpaper battens as already described.



I also made a small tool for the inner surfaces.



For the bow area there was something more shorter and rounded.



After everything was smooth enough we went to the spirketing. A 1 mm thick polysterol strip at the bottom, 0.5 mm Polsterol between the ports, and another 1 mm above that.





And the fit sample.



Fits

To fit the lower strip, press it well inside ...



... on the outside, score the lower edge of the port with a scalpel ...



... make the scribe visible with paint, i.e. color it and wipe away the paint on the outside so that only the depth of the scribe remains colored ...



... and cut off the overhang based on these marks and glue this adap�ted stripe in. Between the ports, orient the 0.5mm strip to the height of the ports. If you have worked evenly when filing the ports should be always the same height.



And the one side is ready.







Now the other side and then the head area and the side galleries areas.

XXXDAn

[marijn van gils]

Wonderful work! This makes a big difference to the overall feel indeed

[dafi]

Thank you Marijn!

In order to get a little more structure into the few possible views into the lower deck, I have printed the characteristic triple knees of today's Constitution. Whether these were already in place in earlier eras of the ship or if they were only installed during later conversions is beyond my knowledge. I would have instinctively guessed the classic use of 3 separate knees for the early phase of the ship. I would be happy to take any hints on this.



Due to the kit, I can't work with deck beams because the ship has to be pressed into shape by the upper deck. Therefore, I have to skip the upper part of the knees too.









Placement check with guns.



And in the end it's all about such a view anyway



XXXDAn