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Author Topic: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation  (Read 6026 times)

JerryTodd

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1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« on: July 11, 2011, 09:03:32 pm »

This one's been alluded to now and then in this forum, so I thought I start a dedicated thread on the occasion that the model is officially a boat - having sailed under it's own power for the first time this last Sunday, July 10th.



Not finished by a long shot, just jury rigged for a test sail which generally went well, though the wind wouldn't cooperate in the least.

Next step is setting up the controls routing, thru-deck stuff, and get the deck on - which will greatly reduce the "pucker factor" when she heels ;)

There's also a bit of video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLQedpTr7v0&feature=mh_lolz&list=HL1310412313

My site is loaded with design notes, the real ship's history, and loads of pictures: http://todd.mainecav.org/model/constellation/
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JerryTodd

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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #1 on: June 29, 2018, 02:54:01 pm »

It may be time for a little update, ye think?

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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #2 on: June 29, 2018, 04:09:06 pm »


Hello Jerry,


The boat looks very, very nice.
Bet you are looking forward to the finish !!.


John  :-)) :-)) :-))
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Bob K

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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #3 on: June 29, 2018, 04:43:27 pm »

Excellent looking ship.  A square rigger, with no keel?

I would love to see more information on how she sails as these ships are technically challenging to sail as models.   :-))
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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #4 on: June 29, 2018, 05:51:38 pm »

Thank you for the kind words.

John; I stopped thinking about "finishing" her and just work on what ever I need to to meet whatever temporary goal I've set my self, like getting her ready for an event.  I imagine at some point I'll get to a point that I don't have anything to do to her, but I'm sure there'll always be maintenance and repairs.

Bob; she has external ballast, it's the gray pipe she sits on in this picture.  It's a PVC pipe filled with lead bird shot and weights 42 pounds.  It's held to the boat with 5/16 inch stainless steel threaded rods.  One is where the galley hatch is just aft of the foremast, and will be disguised as the galley stack.  The other is under the skylight just forward of the mizzen and the power switch.
The launch cart is a channel on wheels meant to basically hold the ballast.  I bolt a boat to it now and then.  There's a couple of padded side supports to keep the boat from falling over.  ;)
She doesn't have a deep fin, like Stad Amsterdam or some other models, it isn't necessary unless you're going to over sail her, and she 's designed so she can shorten sail easily, though not automatically.

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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #5 on: June 29, 2018, 06:06:33 pm »

How she sails
October 26, 2016.  Second sail in open water (not a pool).  Winds were 5-10 mph with puffs of 15, fluky because of the terrain.
https://youtu.be/80b2au24rFQ
Reducing sail by detaching t'gallants and royals; bunting up courses, and trys'ls.  Also detaching and reattaching the model to it's ballast.
https://youtu.be/yVUWRTnBJ2g
The Model's Statistics: 
  • Scale 1:36 - 1 inch = 3 feet.
  • Beam: 13-5/8" (34.6 cm)
  • Length on deck: 61" (154.9 cm)
  • Length between perpendiculars: 59-1/8" (150.2 cm)
  • Draft, without ballast keel: 7" (17.8 cm) With 3-1/2" ballast keel: 10-1/2" (26.7 cm)
  • Weight, with-out ballast or battery: 30 pds; battery: 5 pds; external ballast: 44 pounds; internal ballast: 15 pds; total: 94 pounds.
  • Length over the rig: 95" (241.3 cm)
  • Width over the rig: 30.5" (77.5 cm) ~ Main yard w/o stuns'l booms.
  • Height bottom of keel to main truck, without ballast keel: 65" (165.1 cm) With ballast keel: 69" (175.3 cm)
  • Total Sail Area: 2,623.26 square inches in 17 sails (18.22 sf, 16,924.21 scm)
  • Minimum Sail Area: 1,148.77 square inches in 5 sails (8.75 sf, 7,411.38 scm)

Bob K

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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #6 on: June 29, 2018, 06:52:57 pm »

Wow !   Thank you so much for the very detailed explanation. 
The videos are both descriptive and superb.

An well planned and executed design.  Well done Sir  :-))
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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #7 on: June 30, 2018, 08:17:39 am »

Hi Jerry you are building a very beautiful ship there - well done  :-))   I can only imagine some of the technical problems that you have had to overcome to get this far!

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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #8 on: June 30, 2018, 09:00:56 am »

Very interesting to read this post. My late brother, Duncan, was the research officer for HMS Gannet in Chatham Historic Dockyard.
Gannet is also a sloop of war, but transitional sail/steam.
One of Duncan’s finds came from a former employee at Sheerness Dockyard, where Gannet was built, the employee was told to shred some documents, but kept them for posterity. Some of these documents were the original plans of Gannet, drawn, not on paper, but on oilcloth, all text in perfect copperplate, all systems colour-coded in watercolour, they are works of art in their own right.
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JerryTodd

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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #9 on: June 30, 2018, 08:27:20 pm »

This project was begun when I thought I had "settled down."  I was married, owned a home, had a regular job; we lived a few hundred yards from a small river or a large creek, where I sailed my 16 foot sailboat.  I had always wanted to build a large RC square-rigger.  A proper scale model.  Up til then I had built a myriad of little models, converted plastic kits, and scrap wood oddities, all of which were free-sailing, usually quite simple, and bobbed like corks in open water like Baltimore's Inner Harbor where I pretty much lived in my teens and early 20's.  I was also inspired by the Rattlesnake model I saw in Model Ship Builder magazine #25.  (I didn't see this video until about a year ago, I wish I had seen it then:  https://youtu.be/GXVv_vN18QM )

I wasn't planning on building any vessel in particular, but rather a particular rig, a hermaphrodite, or jack-ass bark - basically a bark with a fore-n-aft mains'l instead of a square.  My long time friend Mark, who I've sailed and worked with since our early teens suggested Constellation.  I knew the Constellation well as a hideous, rotten, hogged, anachronism the city was trying pass off as the 1797 frigate.  Mark argued that the ship had just begun a restoration back into an 1854 sloop of war, had a Civil War history, local history, and was certainly a square-rigger, and in building a model, I'd have the real ship right there in front of me.  I looked into it and found that a builder's half model had recently been discovered at the Naval Academy, and that matching drawings existed in the National Archives.
Looking at drawings in the Archives was amazing.  I not only saw, but handled original drawings with pin holes for copying, erasures, handwriting; for someone of my interests, it was like being in a temple and handling sacred texts.  I came out of the place with a dozen copies of drawings for Constellation.  Chief among my haul was an 1853 drawing in 1:36 scale (same as the half model) which is the scale I decided to go with.  I felt it would be large enough to handle in the creek like a boat, and not a fishing bobber, and the rig could be reduced enough to fit in my SUV.
I started the model in February 1999 and hardly got anywhere before life intervened and it was put aside for more than 10 years before I started to really work on it again.
 
Almost 10 years after that, I'm still working on this thing, and it's still not finished.  I don't know that it ever will really be "finished" but I hope to get to some level of completion before I'm set out with the trash one morning.

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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #10 on: July 01, 2018, 09:57:12 am »

pic of Gannet
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JerryTodd

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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #11 on: July 25, 2018, 02:03:08 pm »

Added the capstan, wheel, and skylight windows.  The power switch and aft keel rod are under the skylight.  The skylight, capstan, and two hatches for-and-aft of it form the battery compartment hatch.The rebuilt gun carriages got some paint too.

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Since 2018...
« Reply #12 on: March 13, 2022, 02:53:22 am »

Including images here is giving me fits, and I'm giving up trying

If anyone's at all interested is what's happening with this model, I invite you to the work-log on my site, picking up where the last post left off at:  http://todd.mainecav.org/model/constellation/model34.html
I gonna have some tea and maybe try again later.

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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #13 on: June 19, 2022, 09:26:51 am »

Most of the work done on Constellation since she last sailed in 2019 has been 3D printing
It took a lot of trial and error until I finally started getting consistent prints, and while my luck held, I printed everything I could...The boat howitzer, railing for the launch with gun mounting points, both pivot guns, deck circles for the pivots, the anchors AND studded chain, pin rails at the fore and main masts, rolled hammocks for the bulwarks, bitts, a new skylight, gratings, a new wheel (that moves with the rudder now),  night life buoys, boarding steps, stuns'l boom irons, gunport eyebrows, the beginnings of a crew, and a cat.
The head carvings I've yet to manage a 3D model for.  There's a few other items to print such as; gun port lids for stern ports; boat chocks when I figure out what they should look like; more crew, - I need officers and I'd like a few Marines.
A long running project that I'm trying to get up and running again are the deadeyes and chainplates I have about 10 of the 52 I need for the lower shrouds.
I'm also working on upgrading my ropewalk with a house-current power supply and a remote hand-held switch, so I can crank out the miles of line I need to rig this old girl.

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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #14 on: September 01, 2022, 03:00:05 am »

The port side hammocks have been glued down for a while now, I glued down the starboard side ones now, using a variety of weights to "clamp" them down.
After grinding the trays flush with the bulwarks inboard and outboard, I used two layers of blue tape to make an edge for some bass strip to lie against, and after gluing it on, trimmed it to the top of the hammock "trays."  This hides the seam between the hammock trays and the bulwark.

All four quadrants of the hammocks will get this treatment inboard and outboard, and then the hammocks will get painted and clear-coated with a UV resistant coating.

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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #15 on: September 01, 2022, 06:35:58 am »

Guess the overall takeaway here is that nobody builds a squarerigger in one afternoon!
The sail control plan a few posts back is the first time I've ever seen how a square rigged ship is worked in RC, interesting.


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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #16 on: September 03, 2022, 07:34:04 pm »

Jerry,  you never cease to amaze me your attention to detail.  Incredible.  Nice work!  Dennis
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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #17 on: September 03, 2022, 08:19:48 pm »

Thank you for the kind sentiments gentlemen.
Since I started this model in February 1999, I estimate I have about 3,000 hours of actually doing work on the model.  That's 375 8 hour days; not really a lot for a big scratch build project like this.There's been long periods of little to nothing being done because I was too busy, too tired, too broke, had no place to work, too uncomfortable in the workspace, or just plain lazy - you know - life.
I get people telling me to forget all the details and just sail the damned thing; and others telling me to forget building "a toy," rig the thing properly, and finish it as a static model.
I'm trying to do both because that's what I want it to be, though that requires compromise on both end to achieve.

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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #18 on: September 03, 2022, 09:20:18 pm »

I'm trying to do both because that's what I want it to be,
There is a saying which goes something like, "Keep on keeping on":-)) And I'll invent another saying right here in the moment, "Build for you what fulfills you".
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JerryTodd

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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #19 on: December 16, 2023, 07:39:30 am »

While building 3D models to print for Macedonian and  Pride of Baltimore, I picked up another I started a while back for Constellation, and sort-of got stuck on.
I built the first of her boats, the launch, and the 1st cutter (pic in post #13), and started a 3D model of the 2nd cutter, but building a lap-strake boat wasn't going well.  Recently I saw something on a forum, that gave me an idea on how to proceed, and poking away at it, here and there the last few weeks, I've managed to get something that looks like it ought to.  The model will be too long to fit in the printer, so I'll print it in two halves, and use some resin and UV light t bond them together.

So far, the hull is built, and faired, though I keep spotting places for little adjustments.  The oar notches are in, seats in place, a grating deck fore and aft, and 22 of 25 ribs are installed as I type this.  There's floor-boards, seat clamp, and some 3D modeling details to put in so it'll be printable.
If it comes out right, though I expect I'll need to tweak some details and try again; I'll get working on the rest of the boats; 2 quarter-boats, and the whale-boat/stern-boat.  The last three will hang outside the hull on davits, and can be damaged or destroyed being more exposed, but this way I'll be able to replace any lost boats by just printing them.
All the pics I wanted to post here aren't, because EVERY time I tried to attach the 4th one, no matter which one was 4th, Firefox crashed.

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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #20 on: December 19, 2023, 10:46:20 pm »

Printed!

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3D modeling the Quarter-boats
« Reply #21 on: December 31, 2023, 04:00:06 am »

With the cutter printed, I went to work on the quarter boat, of which there will be two.I did the planking a little differently to be more precise than I was with the cutter.  It added more work at the front end, but saved some work at the back end, so I guess it all evened out.This one's just about ready to print, just have some oar-lock adjustments to make and some "proof-reading" to do. ;)

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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #22 on: December 31, 2023, 12:31:58 pm »


That's impressive work!   :-))
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Quarter Boats Transition into the Real World
« Reply #23 on: January 03, 2024, 01:08:19 am »

the quarter boat 3D model was basically done, but before prepping it for printing (mirroring the port side, etc) I redid the notch on the transom and adjusted a few other things, so I didn't get it started printing before we went out, as I had planned.Instead, I got it going on New Years Day, and it was done some 5-1/2 hours later.
The pic with three boats together is the 2nd cutter with the two quarter boats.The last shows, sort-of, where these boat will live on the model.  The davits were set to hange the boats between the main and mizzen shrouds.

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Re: 1854 Sloop of War Constellation
« Reply #24 on: January 09, 2024, 01:58:03 am »

The whale-boat's the last boat to make for Constellation, though there'll be 5 or 6 boats to make for Macedonian.The slicer software says this one weights .83 ounces (23.6 grams), uses $.83 USD worth of resin, and will take 5 hours and 25 minutes to print.When I got up today, everything printed just fine, and after a wash in denatured alcohol and then warm water and left to dry, I cleaned up the seam, though it hasn't been bonded together into a boat quite yet.In the picture of all the printed boats together...
 the 25'10" 2nd cutter, on the left, is 8.625" ( 219 mm) long,
 the 28'2" whale boat, in the center, is 9.625" ( 245 mm) long,
 the two 26' 6" quarter boats, on the right, are each 8.875" ( 226 mm) long.
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