Switched over to installing jack-stays on Constellation's yards, till I ran out of eye-pins, so it's back to Macedonian, and I started making her masts...
To make Macedonian's lower masts, I looked at various sources. Several forums, Internet searches, period pieces like Steel's. Photos of models. But while I could see the end product, it was hard for me to visualize what was going on, or how it got to that point. Lee's Masting and Rigging was, in some ways, the clearest and easiest to comprehend; my problem with Lee's is trying to pick MY time-frame from the stew of data he presents. Often only parts of things change over time, so you have to piece it together; checks from 1800-1816, hounds from 1770-1820, rubbing paunch (used to be the "front fish") from 1810-, brains from Abby Normal, and that sort of thing.
For my 1812ish frigate it seems, if I interpret all this correctly, The mast can be a single piece with cheeks and rubbing paunch added on. It tapers from the deck to the top end. From the top of the cheeks/hounds down, it's round except it's left flat on the sides where the cheeks attach. The cheeks are rounded themselves to nearly blend into the mast, but there's a bit of a step or channel formed so they don't taper down to nothing at the sides. The real hounds are a separate piece scarfed onto the cheeks. I found it better to actually do this so they weren't in the way or getting damaged. Lee's gives the proportions of these parts; for instance, the rubbing paunch is 1/3 the width of the mast.
I didn't put any taper in the space between decks, and the bury below the gundeck is 8-sided. After shaping the core of the mast, I used strips of copper tape left-over from Constellation's bottom to make the banding. Every-other band where the cheeks are is under them and need to go on before the cheeks.
So far the fore and mizzen are nearly ready to paint, and the main is tapered, but still square.