WIP: 1:96 USS Constitution

[Chrome]

Today I decided that I won't be following the provided paint scheme for the model, which is the current paintjob on the restored ship, but instead follow the paintings of how the ship looked in 1812 when it battled the HMS Guerriere(a slightly crazy thought crossed my mind while searching for reference photos but since I couldn't find any 1/96 scale models of the Guerriere I dropped the idea...)

Between the reference hunting and the slight sidetracking with practising my rigging skills on an old ship model that had been in desperate need of repair for quite some time now there wasn't much time for any extensive work on the ship today.

So, the details I've found out about the ship at that certain point in time are as follows:

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Yellow ochre stripes and lower masts
Gun ports are lined in red and have no shutters
Bow and stern ornamentation trimmed in white
Red panes on stern windows
Green boats with red interiors and White trim

So, I started with painting the rough hull detail using Tausept Ochre over a white base for the stripes and Mechrite Red directly on the wood paint I previously did on the window panes.

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After that it was time to create the windows for the panes, these were cut out from a thin sheet of clear acrylic following the pattern provided in the assembly instructions.

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After having cut the two window sheets I washed them with plain old dish washing liquid and let them dry on a piece of paper to remove any fingerprints or other marks that may have found their way onto the acrylic.

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The window sheets were then glued on the inside of the hull using thin beads of super glue, carefully placed so that the glue won't accidentally squish out onto the visible area of the sheet when it's applied.

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And lastly it was time to test my patience with putting the two halves together. A lot of careful adjusting of vices, swearing, deep breaths and extra application of glue later it's waiting to dry properly for the next steps in the plan.

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And with that it's time to call it a night here, busy day tomorrow, got a ship to build!

 

[marjedi]

Is that a plastic ship. If it is boooooo hisssss, real men build wooden ships!

 

[cassar]

Was that right did my eyes decieve me???? did you say the ship ORIGINALLY had NO gun port shutters!! are ya sure its just not the model makers cutting corners...howd they stop the ship from sinking??? point in case the Mary rose (different era same problem) she'd just been up graded in the heavey guns department and when she put out for sea trials gun ports open, high seas, extra weigth and a sharp turn well she took on water throught he gun ports and the rest as they say is history.

Just checked google images it did have shutters two of them snug fit around the cannon muzzles, didnt think even the yanks would be that daft lol

 

[Chrome]

Was that right did my eyes decieve me???? did you say the ship ORIGINALLY had NO gun port shutters!! are ya sure its just not the model makers cutting corners...howd they stop the ship from sinking??? point in case the Mary rose (different era same problem) she'd just been up graded in the heavey guns department and when she put out for sea trials gun ports open, high seas, extra weigth and a sharp turn well she took on water throught he gun ports and the rest as they say is history.

Just checked google images it did have shutters two of them snug fit around the cannon muzzles, didnt think even the yanks would be that daft lol

(IMAGE)

That's the renovated version mate. That's how it looks today with added features and a new paintjob. And all shutters are a snug fit when they're closed, they only open them when they are to fire the cannons.

The model does indeed come with shutters, no corner cutting there.

In 1830 she was deemed unseaworthy and they were planning on scrapping her completely but peer pressure (and a poem) made the navy reconsider and in 1833 they started renovating her.

This picture is of the hull during repairs in 1858:
(the picture didn't link properly and when I searched for another like it I had no luck so it's removed)
(I did however find this:
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)
"The USS Constitution, shown here at the Navy Yard at Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1858, has undergone a number of restorations since her launch in 1797. Each restoration replaced old materials with new and evolved her purpose from a fighting frigate to a national monument, now residing in Boston Harbor. Estimates of how much of her orginal building materials are retained range from negligible to 15%. The estimate of the amount of the USS Chesapeake that was built into the Chesapeake Mill ranges up to 30%. The true figure is not known. That material, however, is just as it was in 1820, and protected since that time within the structure of a sturdy building."
I know she's stripped but even so, no shutters.

In 1881 she was converted into a barracks ship and stationed in the port of Portsmouth:
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Still no visible shutters there.
She got her shutters in the renovation in 1920 where she was converted to a touring museum and got to set sail again. That's also when she got her new paintjob.


Here's a painting by Leoni Anto depicting her in 1815 during the battle with Cyane and Levant
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Captain Isaac Hull, the commander of the Constitution during the battle with the Guirrere, commissioned painter Michel Felice Cornè four paintings to depict said battle and details of those shows no trace of any shutters either and a clearly different paintjob from the one it has today:
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Now, it's definitely not impossible that all artists that made any depictions of the ship during the time just didn't add the shutters in their paintings for stylistic reasons, but I doubt that's the case, frigates are fast, lightweight ships with no guns on the lower deck commonly referred to as the "gun deck", making the frigate able to carry on fighting in storms where larger ships would have to disengage and close their shutters to not take in water. So, the gun ports on a frigate were on such a level that shutters weren't as needed as they would have been if they had had guns on the lower deck like other ships did.

(Sorry if it looks like a rant, it's not. I had the same doubt myself when I stumbled upon a blog about building the ship according to the paintings so I did a LOT of digging myself and got a wee bit fanatic about it and managed to collect a fair bit of data. )
The entries in the blog that made me go search for more were these:

"I wanted to be more accurate with this second 1/96 scale model of the ship. I conducted online research of the ship and how other model builders constructed theirs. I found many useful sights and suggestions from other modellers. I also found that many ideas were contradictory. This is mainly because the details of the ship during the August 19, 1812 battle with the HMS Guerrièrewere not recorded to the level of detail many modellers like. I decided, damn the contradictions, I'll build the model to the depiction of it in Michele Felice Corne's depiction of the battle. Upon the USSConstitution's return to port, Capt. Hull commissioned Corne to do a series of four paintings depicting the battle. I am assuming that these painting probably most closely resemble how the shipped looked during the famous battle."

and

"The Revell model comes with sixteen gun ports on the gun deck per side for a total of 32. I filled in both of the bow end gun ports using two of the gun lids with Squadron White Putty. I shaved the hinges off of the gun port lids. I also filled in all of the 'hinge-spaces' for the rest of the ports on the gun deck using the putty. This procedure took 45 minutes to complete. Corne's painting shows no gun ports and 'research' on the internet suggest that gun port lids were not used on the Constitution except during extreme weather. "
And that's pretty much my reasoning behind my choice.

(Ignore the italic, it got that way when I copied the text from the blog and for some reason the forum didn't let me remove it. :/ )

 

[cassar]

No worries mate you rant away lol i dont want to sound argumentative but the shutters are a standard naval safety feature stops the ships taking water and sinking also stops the guns and innards getting wet when not in use and im 99.9% sure yours would have had them from being commissioned.

 

[Chrome]

No worries mate you rant away lol i dont want to sound argumentative but the shutters are a standard naval safety feature stops the ships taking water and sinking also stops the guns and innards getting wet when not in use and im 99.9% sure yours would have had them from being commissioned.

argue away! The recorded details from that era is, vague, to say the least, especially compared to the standards we are used to today. so the best we can do is to argue a bit, show what little references we have and settle for something that feels close enough.

 

[Chrome]

Oh, and it's not so much about them not existing as it's about where and how the shutters are kept, I've found several sources telling me the shutters on that class of ship were kept inside and not hinged on the outside of the hull.

 

[cassar]

Oh, and it's not so much about them not existing as it's about where and how the shutters are kept, I've found several sources telling me the shutters on that class of ship were kept inside and not hinged on the outside of the hull.

shutters were there just a lot of the artist commissioned to paint left them out as a ship with its cannons out looks good the shutters opened out (mostly) as a safety feature, they would seal tighter in rough seas and it also kept the shutters out of the way of the gun crews (usually between 8 and 14 for the big guns) not like the standard 2 or 3 of the movies lol the ones on the constitution are extremely well engineered and must have been re done when she was refitted with the long 24's they where maybe two large to fully enclose inside the ships hull hence the muzzles poking out
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikefairbanks/4127017890/

 

[Sand Rat]

Don't know if you had found this site - http://www.history.navy.mil/ - they've got some old shots of Old Ironsides

 

[Bloodhowl]

Chrome,

I have an old book on sailing ships that belonged to my grandfather. I'll check it in the morning and if it has anything useful on the Constitution, I can scan it and email it to you if you are interested.

 

[Chrome]

Chrome,

I have an old book on sailing ships that belonged to my grandfather. I'll check it in the morning and if it has anything useful on the Constitution, I can scan it and email it to you if you are interested.

that sounds great! The more sources the better, even if they contradict eachother.

 

[Bloodhowl]

I'll try to get it scanned tonight. Wife has me working on the dreaded "honey-do" list right now...crap she saw me on the ipad....back to work.....

Edit: evaded the wife to have a look at the book. Nothing useful in it unfortunately, however I do have "Building Plastic Ship Models" from Kalmbach Publishing where the author used the Constitution Kit to model the President. I'll scan that section and send you his reference list. Maybe you can find something useful in it.

I just thought of this, try checking out the US Navy website and see if the Public Affairs Office has historical photos/paintings.

Also found a Official US Navy History link: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/war1812/atsea/con-guer.htm

 

[cassar]

is the constitution a fourth or fifth rater i think she started out as fifth but was upgraded and became fourth fourth being anything over 48 guns which is a lot for a frigate putting her up there with ships of the line, first rate ships were the big boys of the line tripple deckers 100 plus heavey guns they all had gun port hatches lol

on a helpful note here's a nice site http://www.ageofnelson.org/MichaelPhillips/

 

[Chrome]

is the constitution a fourth or fifth rater i think she started out as fifth but was upgraded and became fourth fourth being anything over 48 guns which is a lot for a frigate putting her up there with ships of the line, first rate ships were the big boys of the line tripple deckers 100 plus heavey guns they all had gun port hatches lol

on a helpful note here's a nice site http://www.ageofnelson.org/MichaelPhillips/

Yeah, The Constitution was, albeit not classed as such due to Americans and British having different classifications, to all intents and purposes a fifth holding 44 cannons at the time of battle according to wiki (though several naval nuts over at Model Ship World seems to agree on her having only 38 at the time of battle). But I have done some more digging on the port hatches and the camps are really divided, some say she stored them inside and some say they were attached to the hull. It seems most agree upon having them modelled on the hull for aesthetic purposes though, with emphasis on not using the two-part hatches she carries today but the whole "flip-lids" that were more common in that era.

The nelson site seems to have very little info but it seems to be an awesome database nonetheless.

 

[Chrome]

I'll try to get it scanned tonight. Wife has me working on the dreaded "honey-do" list right now...crap she saw me on the ipad....back to work.....

Edit: evaded the wife to have a look at the book. Nothing useful in it unfortunately, however I do have "Building Plastic Ship Models" from Kalmbach Publishing where the author used the Constitution Kit to model the President. I'll scan that section and send you his reference list. Maybe you can find something useful in it.

I just thought of this, try checking out the US Navy website and see if the Public Affairs Office has historical photos/paintings.

Also found a Official US Navy History link: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/war1812/atsea/con-guer.htm

The scan sounds quite helpful. Already have both naval sites bookmarked as references.

 

[Blackadder]

I am loving this thread. I spent a lot of time on the Constitution as a lad. Back in the days when you could even go into the orlop and bilge. I haven't seen the stern panel yet but originally the Humphreys frigates had six windows across the stern not five and the Constitution and her sisters USF United States and USF President were classified as heavy frigates rated 44 guns (5th Rate) but pierced for sixty (counting bow and stern chasers) I believe but never carried that many. Conistitution carried 54 guns during the 1812 war her major combat battles. She never went up against ships of her caliber her two major frigate combats against French built 38 gunners Guerierre and Java. Both ships large for their rate by British standards the HMS Guerierre carried 49 guns during her fight with Constitution and Java 49 guns as well.

Whoa Thats enough! I get on a roll about my favorite subject................. sorry.

 

[Chrome]

Hmm, according to http://www.history.navy.mil the Constitution had 22 32-pound carronades behind broadside ports on her spar deck and three bow-chasers on the forecastle. And also 30 24-pound guns on her gun deck. Gotta love the accuracy of Wiki! Thanks for making me look that up Blackadder and Bloodhowl!

 

[Blackadder]

Man you are making me itch to take up my model of Old Ironsides. I put it aside years ago when I decided to revamp the model to the 1812 appearance. I got so far as to cut away the the hair rail of the head and then found a conflicting source of information. Suffice it to say that the ship in Charleston Navy yard doesn't look like the Constitution in her heyday but a reasonable attempt none the less. For a good representation of the US Navy 44 in 1812 check out Howard I. Chapelle's

History of the US Sailing Navy

Included is an British Admiralty take off drawing of the USF President after her capture and an relatively accurate view of how an American 44 looked in 1814.

I'll see if I can make a decent scan...............

 

[Chrome]

Man you are making me itch to take up my model of Old Ironsides. I put it aside years ago when I decided to revamp the model to the 1812 appearance. I got so far as to cut away the the hair rail of the head and then found a conflicting source of information. Suffice it to say that the ship in Charleston Navy yard doesn't look like the Constitution in her heyday but a reasonable attempt none the less. For a good representation of the US Navy 44 in 1812 check out Howard I. Chapelle's

History of the US Sailing Navy

Included is an British Admiralty take off drawing of the USF President after her capture and an relatively accurate view of how an American 44 looked in 1814.

I'll see if I can make a decent scan...............

That would be more than awesome! The info on her looks back then is damn conflicting so I'm digging out whatever small fact I can find, or at least trying to.

 

[Blackadder]

I thought this image was more detailed. I have more to post later.

http://i.imgur.com/hV7ZZ.jpg