The folks at Spudwerks Dockyards are proud to announce the building of their newest ship, the USS Constitution. After a long debate and forced to go through a Government Shutdown (Made to sleep on the couch) the Secratary of Defense (the wife) has approved a limited budget for the building. We hope to lobby the Secratary soon (take her out to dinner) for more funding. But for now we have enough to begin the hull. We will be building the ship hull in a standard POB style build and then shift over to making a plug from the that to make four fiberglass hulls. The extra hulls will be for two of my boys and the other for a dear friend. Stay tuned for more...
RE: USS Constitution - Build Log Today we began the build by getting the plans enlarged to scale. I found a very nice place close by that normaly does blueprints ect.. and they where glad to help out. I managed to get 8 sheets for the plans enlarged to 1:48 scale for just $19.00 Kinkos can go kiss my butt from here on out.... they charge like 10 bucks a sheet and another new thing is they also charge 5 bucks for every time they have to enlarge it. So thats $15.00 a sheet.. Do the math! What a rip off Kinkos is. Anyway the plans are done. I had to make new marks for the bulkheads to fit the former since the enlargements made the slots larger than the 1/4" plywood thickness I am using for the bulkheads. The lines didn't show up because the ink is red and my camarra had the redeye turned on and took off the lines... Next step is to cut out the bulkheads and other items, leaving a small border around the edges... Then glue the patterns to the wood... I am using 1/4", 5 ply wood for the bulkheads... I dont go cheap here with 3 ply because it may warp too much. * A neat little tidbit for new builders... Use rubber gloves and of course the trick is to put on 2 or 3 pair of gloves at a time. This way if you get glue or resin on your hands while working, you can quickly just pull off one pair and keep going.. I use this method when making hulls because the resin gets on everything and I like clean gloves when handleling the cloth.. I used a product called "LockTite Spray Glue" to glue the paper bulkheads to the plyood. This is nice stuff, it allows time to shift paper, and does not bleed through or wrinkle the paper.. also it only costs 5 bucks... compared to 3M at 15 bucks a can and it wrinkles the paper if your not careful. I use a scraper to smooth out the patterns, working from inside to outside... you can peel it off to re-allign it if you need to. I only glue a few at a time so I dont make a mess.... I also use paper under the boards because of overspray. Tada, all the patterns are on the boards and drying.
RE: USS Constitution - Build Log I loved your thread where you made a fiberglass plug. I'll be interested to see how that comes together for an Age of Sail ship.
RE: USS Constitution - Build Log Next step completed. I have cut the sections all out and now it's time to sand, flair edges, and dry fit all the hull sections. As I cut the peices I like to fit a scrap peice in the slots to insure the cut is good for the bulkhead former slots. You can see in theis pic where I changed the thinkness of the peice where the gunport supports set into. You can see here where peice #22 is not fitting real good. I was not happy with it and had to recut a new one. Same with the stern but the area that is loose can be filled in easy. Dry fitting the bulkhead former.... You can clearly see the red lines here where I had to change the angle of the bulkheads once I fixed the bottom that is not right. Here is all the bulkheads cut out... ooooh this thing is big and it's only a 46 gun Frigate... Resin is setting as I get the bulkhead former glued together. It's taking shape.. Here is the bulkhead former all glued up and curing. I clamp it to my table where I know it is straight and flat. More to come later tonight....
RE: USS Constitution - Build Log Well, I just couldn't resist giving her a dry fit.... She looks big on paper.... OMG wait till she is on the bench put together... No problem putting gear inside this ship! 51" from the Head to the Taftrail... 10.88" beam OMG!
RE: USS Constitution - Build Log I had to make the building board today so the keel will stay straight at the bottom. Easy step, just make sure you have good straight edges on the bottom runners as they keep the top board from bending thus keeping the keel from bending. Then I add a couple of runners on the top with a gap as wide as the keel so it sits into the slot.... keeps everything nice and straight! Work now begins on the dry fitting and sanding,,, ugh! inch:
RE: USS Constitution - Build Log The more I look at this, the more I may change my mind on the building style. I would love to see this in glass, plust it would make building two or three more easy as far as the hull goes.. but! Big but here.... I think the advantage of having the internal ribs and structure inplace will be a big structural improvment if not a complete nessesity at this point... I am looking at how I can shift this to a frame and not a plug... I need to see where my decks are going to be for the guns and what still will need to be cut out. My main concern at this point is how to square the bulkheads up if I cut out a lot of material.... Any suggestions at this point are welcome... even if they say wait till the laser cut frames are ready....
RE: USS Constitution - Build Log If you cut the deck, with the notches for the ribs cut into it in the appropriate places, it'll square up the ribs nicely. Of course, if the deck has significant curvature, that screws that up. Alternatively, I've done a few hulls where I CA'd sacrificial balsa blocks of the appropriate length between frames to keep them square... one on each upright. Takes time, though!
RE: USS Constitution - Build Log I agree that the Age of Sail is best represented by wooden ships. It just doesn't seem right any other way. You would have to make sure your ribs meet the penetrability requirements though. If you're building from the same set of plans that I've got (they do look very familiar), and those ribs are 1/4" thick, then you'll have to remove some of the tighter-spaced ribs. The good part is that virtually every gunport has a rib directly adjacent to it. On the historic ship, the decks were indeed slightly curved. But that places an awful lot of strain on the hull if you try to duplicate that with a 1/4" thick subdeck. You'd probably be just fine going with flat decks.
RE: USS Constitution - Build Log Minerva got a flat deck and looks okay I need to cut off the bogus hard area and redo it, but the shape of the hull and deck looks good.
The other night as while talking with Jeff on Skype, and dry fitting the deck plates, I uncovered a very difficult issue with my set of plans. I wanted to flatten the deck as it is hard to not only curve the deck bow to stern, but also bending it to fit the "hump" in the middle of the deck is a very, very hard thing. If I was simply planking it, it would survive. Because I am wanting to remove that deck, it needs to be one piece. Hence the issue. I cant simply draw a nice straight line from side to side along the inside of the gunwhale.. because the darn plans did not impliment the gunwhales on every bulkhead. So there is no common start point to level the deck. Also there is no refrece line on these plans to work off of either. So.... The wood is going to the parts box for other projects, and I will be postponing this build untill I get the laser cut sets from RCENGR. With other ships I could have modified the parts to work, I coulod have managed here as well. But I have OCD too bad.. I would never be satisfied with the changes... So here I wait till I can procure 4 sets of lasercut models from RCENGR.. please hurry! Till then I will still be productive though... HAHAHA Jeff! , I have a very nice set of plans for the Brig Syren..... , and they are correct as I have been building a 1:64 scale model of her for some time...
I had the same issue with the Requin. The decks are compound curves both across the width and length. It would have been nice to replicate it, but darn if I was going to plank a deck! Heh. With a lot of creative sketching upon the plans, I finally decided on a flat deck across that still curved upwards from bow to stern. The curve used was the same as one of the kick boards on the outside of the ship. It worked out pretty well at the cost of some scale accuracy that no one would see anyway during a battle.
I was going to do the same except because some bulkhead drawings have the gunwhale and some do not, it makes is very difficult to get the correct height of the deck... so I have decided it would be better to just move over to the Syren where I have a better set of plans. I will continue this build once I get a set of lasercut frames.
How did lobbying the Secretary of Defense go? If dinner didn't work may I suggest chocolate and flowers! LOL. Did you ever finish her? Do you have pics?
