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    Constellation
    47 Posts Β· 12 Followers Β· 575 Photos Β· 245 Likes
    Began 6 years ago by
    Warrant Officer
    United States
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    Latest Post 6 months ago by
    Warrant Officer
    United States
    Most recent posts shown first   (Show Oldest First) (Print Booklet)
    πŸ“ Rigging Screws
    6 months ago by πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ Jerry Todd ( Warrant Officer)
    ✧ 23 Views · 2 Likes
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    Looking at the portrait of the ship done in 1856 by Tomaso deSimone at Naples Italy, on which I'm basing my model's appearance; I discovered, while looking for something else, that she didn't have deadeyes and lanyards on her shrouds, lower or topmast.
    I originally wrote this off as deSimone's corner-cutting, like how he leaves off ratlines on the far side of ships in his portraits. I figured the ship originally had dead-eyes and lanyards and was later fitted with rigging-screws, maybe around the Civil War. But the more I looked at deSimones other paintings, of Constellation and other ships, and photos of the ship after the Civil War, it seems Constellation had rigging-screws (turnbuckles) right up into 1910 or so.

    So, how do I make these things? The chain plates up to the screws are the same as I've been planning, but I'm going to need taps and dies between 1mm and 2mm in both right-hand and left-hand threads to make what's shown in the little sketch, and the only left-handed tools I can find on-line are from MiniTaps and are very expensive.

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    πŸ“ eyes grates hammocks and leads
    7 months ago by πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ Jerry Todd ( Warrant Officer)
    ✧ 31 Views · 4 Likes
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    A couple of 3D printed grates went into the companion way hatches, just so they wouldn't be a pair of gaping black holes. The pin rails were glued in place and holes drilled in the main mast rail for the fore-tops'l braces to pass through. The real ship had an iron band with eyes below the tops for the futtock shrouds to attach to. I didn't need these to be removable, so I simply wrapped a strip of styrene around the mast and inserted eye-pins through it. The tops themselves have also been drilled for the topmast shrouds to pass through to the futtocks.
    About here I shifted work to Pride of Baltimore, but came back a couple of nights ago and glued down the hammocks on the starboard side. I tried to rig up something to cut down bass strips to 3/16 inch for the railings on the bulwarks that will hide the seam between the bulwark and the hammocks pieces. I couldn't get anything to work, so I opted to mark off the bottom with blue masking tape in two layers to form an edge to place the strip against. After being glued on, I trimmed it to to top of the hammock trays.

    The outboard side of aft quarter of the starboard side is done this way so far.

    πŸ“ "We're Painting the Pivots Red..."
    10 months ago by πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ Jerry Todd ( Warrant Officer)
    ✧ 47 Views · 3 Likes
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    Both pivot guns got some paint (no, not red) but still need some touch-up before they're fastened to the hatches they sit on.

    Now I'm trying to make jigs and get a production line going to make 22 pairs of chain-plates.

    πŸ“ Big Wheel Keep on Turnin'
    10 months ago by πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ Jerry Todd ( Warrant Officer)
    ✧ 62 Views · 4 Likes · 1 Comment
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    Rigged the wheel to turn with the rudder's movement, which was a bit like being a contortionist, but I got it done without braking any bones. I have to install a couple more eyes with pulleys so everything will move more smoothly.

    πŸ’¬ Re: Big Wheel Keep on Turnin'
    10 months ago by πŸ‡³πŸ‡Ώ jbkiwi ( Fleet Admiral)
    ✧ 65 Views · 2 Likes
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    Excellent idea, works greatπŸ‘πŸ‘

    JB
    πŸ“ Grates, Eyebrows, Stuns'l Irons, and Painting Guns
    10 months ago by πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ Jerry Todd ( Warrant Officer)
    ✧ 69 Views · 4 Likes · 1 Comment
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    Printed some gratings for the companionway hatches on either side of the capstan, and glued down the bitts to the deck.
    The hammocks were all glued down on the port side.
    Printed gunport eyebrows and installed and painted them on the port side, so I turned the hull and removed the balsa on the bulwarks and the old wood eyebrows I'd installed a while back. The new eyebrows got installed and painted on the starboard side.
    The 1mm square brass came in, so the outboard stuns'l irons were installed on the yards.
    Next day, the olive paint I ordered came in, and I airbrushed the pivot gun carriages, touched up the over-spray, and started picking out the details with Flat Steel.

    πŸ’¬ Re: Grates, Eyebrows, Stuns'l Irons, and Painting Guns
    10 months ago by πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ pressonreguardless ( Commodore)
    ✧ 71 Views · 1 Like
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    Looking Good πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘
    Trev
    πŸ“ Stuns'l boom Irons, Top Rails
    10 months ago by πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ Jerry Todd ( Warrant Officer)
    ✧ 82 Views · 3 Likes
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    The irons made to the diagram didn't really fit the yard well. The stalk that holds the hoop off the yard was too close on the outboard fitting, and too far on the inboard one; so I adjusted the 3D model and printed them again. These worked out much better.
    Now I have to find, or produce some brass square stock to install into the ends of the yard for these things to attach to.

    I made the stanchions and rails for all three top railings. I need to make a jig to weave up the netting that gets stretched out across them.

    πŸ“ Skylight, bitts,stuns'l fittings, hammocks
    10 months ago by πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ Jerry Todd ( Warrant Officer)
    ✧ 88 Views · 7 Likes · 1 Comment
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    I redid the skylight again. The center bar was widened so the sashes would lay down, and new sashes with the bars inside instead of top were made.
    There's four pairs of bitts on the spar deck, and those were modeled after the ones in the earliest photos I could find. I held off gluing on the hammocks because I though I needed to install hawse pipes near the bitts, but the ship didn't have any, so I've started gluing on the hammocks.
    I modeled the stuns'l yard fittings, but I have to find, or make some brass square stock for the ends of the yards.

    πŸ’¬ Re: Skylight, bitts,stuns'l fittings, hammocks
    10 months ago by πŸ‡¨πŸ‡¦ Newby7 ( Admiral)
    ✧ 92 Views · 2 Likes
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    Nice work on the parts.
    Rick
    πŸ“ chugging along
    11 months ago by πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ Jerry Todd ( Warrant Officer)
    ✧ 97 Views · 3 Likes
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    Looking at the diagrams from the manual for operating the pivot guns, I felt my gun circles needed a bit more to them. I added circles for the center skid of the chassis to the plan, printed them, primed them, painted them with Testors' "Steel," and CAed them to the deck.
    The ones on the bow overlap the edges of the access hatch, and had to be trimmed and the overhanging parts glued to the fixed part of the deck. I drilled holes for pins of some sort, to back up the CA, though I haven't decided what to use. I'm thinking Delrin rod, but I'm have to by some first.

    The last sections of hammocks were printed today. Before they get installed I have some work to do on the bulwarks; hawse holes, that sort of thing. I'm planning on using slow-setting epoxy mixed with fine saw-dust to attach them.
    In the last two pics, the port-side hammocks are sitting in place, I haven't removed the balsa from the starboard side yet.

    πŸ“ Did I mention I was 3D printing stuff?
    11 months ago by πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ Jerry Todd ( Warrant Officer)
    ✧ 104 Views · 3 Likes
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    I hung an anchor on the cathead just to see how it looked there, and get some idea what it would require to get the thing lashed up as it is in the painting - which reminds me, I have to make a cat head for the cathead.
    I tweaked the model for the oars and tried printing 45 all at once. I got what was either a Borg cube or some sort of electrical heat-sink thing. I've managed to dig out 27 or them with only 4 total losses so far, but I don't hold much hope for the rest.
    I did up the bob-stays with the 3D printed bulls-eyes and temporarily lashed them up - I have to walk some line for the permanent lashings.
    Years ago now, the bulwarks were covered with several layers of balsa sheet, rounded over and painted black to look a bit like tarpaulins over the hammocks until I could figure out how I was going to make exposed hammocks as appears in nearly all the paintings and photos of the ship. 3D printing settled that for me, but just printing them outright would use too much expensive resin, so I needed to make them hollow. 200 hammocks will be visible when it's all done, and I have just under half of them printed in groups of 9 hammocks. I primed them in gray, then painted a first coat of "canvas" which is my custom mix of flat white with about 1/8 of it flat tan.
    I sawed of the wheel-stand, of the new 3D printed wheel and used the wood stand from the old 3D printed wheel, which means the wheel can properly spin now. So I'm going back to plan A and connecting the wheel to the rudder servo so it's move when the rudder does. The skylight and wheel also got painted, though the skylight bars need some touch-up (that flash really brings out every little flaw!)
    I finally finished the 3D model of the gun rings for the pivot guns. I modeled in holes so I could pin them down as well as CA them to the deck. I mounted them to print all together at once, but left more space between things so as not to repeat the above oar-block problem-turns out I needed to leave more space still. The holes I modeled were too small and printed as dimples, so I wound up drilling them anyway. They got a base coat of black, but will get a "gunmetal" or "steel" paint job at some point.

    Then, while printing 2 more hammock trays, I broke the printer, again. Last time the LCD screen went bad. This time the resin vat stuck to the LCD and tore off the ribbon cable when I was trying to remove the vat. Before this happened, I had ordered an upgrade screen kit that's supposed to speed up printing times by as much as 2x, but it hasn't arrived yet.
    If any of you are trying this at home, put a sheet of film over the LDC so if the vat sticks, it pulls the film, and not the screen.

    πŸ“ Guys and Chains
    12 months ago by πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ Jerry Todd ( Warrant Officer)
    ✧ 117 Views · 8 Likes · 3 Comments
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    I modeled and printed new pin rails to sit on the stanchions/pilasters shown in the last post, these with the belaying pins already in place.

    I had a 3D printed wheel from Shapeways, but it was so brittle that a spoke seemed to break off just looking at it, so I printed a whole new wheel.

    I replaced the clunky skylight panels with 3D printed one that are better sized and have better detail. They need to be pained, glass installed, and hinged on the skylight yet.

    The only idea of what the stern of the ship looked like early on was a drawing of her in dry dock in 1859, when she returned from her first cruise. In that drawing are a couple of circles connected by thick drawn lines, and since 1999, I've had no idea what they represented. Recently, I finally found out they were Night Lifebuoys. Some Royal Navy officer named Cooke invented the things around 1818, and they apparently were very common on ships in most of the world's navies. Based on poor photos mostly, and the design of some more modern versions, I 3D modeled some fairly simple versions and printed them. The ball floats were copper, but based on photos, some of which of Constellation herself, it looks like they were painted right-over in typical Navy tradition.

    I'm gonna need a pile of bullseyes in different sizes, and shroud-fairleads, or as they were apparently known, sizing-trucks, for what reason I can't figure out. I modeled and printed three sizes of these items.

    I found some 3D models of American Civil War sailors, that I can use to make a crew. I printed them as is to see how they'd turn out, but I'll alter the files, or alter the figures after printing to get what I need. In all I already planned on 30-40 figures in little vignettes about the ship, these pics show 19 so far, and a cat. Stella the cat will probably sit on the capstan as she is here, it just seems like a natural place for her. I haven't decided if I'll paint her as a calico or a yellow tabby. I'll probably have a second cat, and a rat for it to be chasing, somewhere around the main hatch.
    Back aft, I think I'll fix the pivot gun off center as shown, with a crew drilling it's operation. The forward gun is surrounded by a spider's web of jib sheets to tangle with the figures, but the aft crew only has to contend with the spanker sheet.
    The picture of the whole model shows that even just 19 crew and a cat makes for a much livelier display.

    It took a few tries and a lot of adjustments, but I manged to model and properly print articulated studded anchor chain, ie printed all in one go without the links being bonded together. Four sets, one for each anchor, are all printed and painted as of today.

    πŸ’¬ Re: Guys and Chains
    10 months ago by πŸ‡¨πŸ‡­ Mike Stoney ( Midshipman)
    ✧ 85 Views · 1 Like
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    Hello Jerry
    We have someone in our club who owns such a larger printer and sends us parts from *.dwg at spot prices. Simply the madness of this development.
    Perfect!!!! Good work! πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘
    Hobbyist greetings Michel-Claude
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    πŸ’¬ Re: Guys and Chains
    12 months ago by πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ Jerry Todd ( Warrant Officer)
    ✧ 111 Views · 0 Likes
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    I ran the printer to death. Well, almost, the LCD went bad and I ordered a new one, so I should be back up and printing soon.
    πŸ’¬ Re: Guys and Chains
    12 months ago by πŸ‡¨πŸ‡¦ Newby7 ( Admiral)
    ✧ 114 Views · 1 Like
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    πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘Wonderful work.
    Rick
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