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| Mamoli USS Constitution 1:93 scale (Completed) | ||
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Moderators: Winston, aew, bikepunk
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| Author | Post | ||
| Gary M |
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 Registered Member #4198 Joined: Tue May 07 2013, 10:50pmPosts: 908 | Hi Bill, great to see your log on MSB. I just built one of those ships boats, they are quite the challenge. Your ship looks great! Gary | ||
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| Bill Edgin |
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  Registered Member #4362 Joined: Wed Jan 22 2014, 02:37amPosts: 373 | Since the last post I have made some progress on the Connie. Firstly, I have completed serving the lower formats shrouds, fully serving the forward most shroud and partially serving the remainder where they went around the mast. I decided 2 ΒΌ" to each side of the mast would be sufficient. I started attaching these to the mast while it is off the ship. I cleaned up the hammock Rack frames and took the netting and the appropriate line to thread them and dyed it all with India Ink. I drilled all the holes in the rails on both sides to add the hammock cranes to the railing. I need to get these done before I obstruct them with the shrouds. I installed the hammock frames on the port side and have almost completed the netting on the same side. The starboard has the lines run through the frames but no netting yet. Once the nets were installed and the glue fired, I rubbed the beeswax and turpentine mixture into the netting. I also installed the same netting on the main masts fighting platform's handrail. I also cleaned up and reviewed my workbook on rigging sizes for the Connie. I am going to use the rigging sizes called out during the 1927 restoration. During the last major restoration the lines were converted to polypropylene and the line diameters changed. For instance in 1927 the main mast lower shrouds were 12" in circumference. These are now 10" diameter shrouds. Since the 1812 configuration was Hemp, the 1927 diameters are probably the better ones to use. [ Edited Wed Jul 02 2014, 01:27pm ] | ||
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| Bill Edgin |
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| Registered Member #4362 Joined: Wed Jan 22 2014, 02:37amPosts: 373 | Today I completed the hammock crane installation. After completing the netting on all the frames I built and installed end boards. I also decided to try adding some hammocks to see how it looked. I had not planned on putting hammocks on the ship. I calculated the scaled down size of the hammocks, this ended up being 15mm x 10mm after rounding. I used the paper hand towels that are strong and cloth like. I dyed the cloth with a stain made up of tea and coffee. A minute in this solution and I could wring it out, rinse it and dry it. This gave me the color I was looking for. I cut a few hammocks out and rolled them using the beeswax/turpentine mixture to make it hold it's shape and cut down on fuzzies. After rolling a few, I tried them out on the ship. I did not want to lay them down. I tried standing them on end and did not like that. I bent them in a U and placed them in the rack with the bend up (or U upside down). This was a look I liked. So I started a batch process to cut, roll and roll all the hammocks I would need. This was approximately 260. I placed them from the forward and aft closed ends toward the waist. When I reached the waist, I bound the last hammock with thin thread and glued it in place. This makes the most visible hammocks look bound like the hammocks would have been. The beeswax/turpentine mixture will stiffen up the hammocks as the turpentine evaporates. They will also lighten up slightly as the dry. During breaks on the hammocks, I installed the netting on the remaining fighting tops. At this point, I still need to build the three mast deck rings and mount the gallery ship's boat davits. Then I will return to the rigging in earnest. I will use breaks on the rigging to build the three remaining ship's boats. Thee are a few photos below showing the progress.      | ||
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| aew |
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aew  Registered Member #1929 Joined: Wed Nov 30 2011, 03:05pmPosts: 2825 | Nice work on the hammocks and netting Bill, they look very effective. I'm not sure I understand the size though, that's roughly 1 1/2 metres by 1 metre. 1 1/2 metres looks long for the folded length but much too short for the full length and 1 metre is rather wide! I think the size you've given for your shrouds is just a typo though. I'm sure you meant circumference rather than diameter!  | ||
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| Bill Edgin |
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| Registered Member #4362 Joined: Wed Jan 22 2014, 02:37amPosts: 373 | Thanks I corrected the diameter to circumference. the former would have sunk the boat they would have been so heavy! The size on the hammocks that I found on line was 6' long by 4' wide, 1.8m by 1.2m. This is the flat dimension and not what it would be hung. This equated to 19mm x 13mm on scale. My average length cuts were slightly shorter but since the ends were down in the racks these would not show. The process I used was to take a piece of the stained cloth, cut a length of it to the width (approx 10-13mm) then roll it tightly. Then I would snip off the rolled lengths into the approximate length for the hammock (15 - 19mm). The width would be responsible for the thickness of the roll. Since I was not using a cloth anywhere close to scaled, the width was more a function of what I wanted the thickness to look like when rolled. I have seen three different methods for stowing the rolled hammocks on models. Just laying them horizontally, on end, and bent in a U shape. I did not like the horizontal arrangement at all. standing them on end made them stick out well above the hammock netting which I had a few issues with. First, it made the hammocks much more pronounced when looking at the model and I felt over shadowed and covered too much detail. Secondly, it would have required twice as many hammocks to fill the racks. Since the end of the material would be exposed, the thickness of the cloth would also show and it would have been too thick. I could have adjusted the thickness of the roll by altering the cut width but that would have shown on the ends where you could see the turns of the wrap. So it was a catch 22. The length of my cuts on each one would have to have been much more precise, and lastly, each one would have required 7 marlinspike hitches down each side. Given the full crew on the Connie was around 500, storing them on end was probably the only way they could have actually put all of the hammocks in the racks. I just did not like the look and felt overall it would have detracted from the model, at least as far as I could execute it. By placing them in the U shape, the exact length was no longer an issue since the small differences in length would not be seen since they would be down in the rack. This allowed me to adjust the hammocks height in the racks. If one was slightly short I could raise it, too long, I could snip it a bit or just push it deeper into the rack. | ||
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| aew |
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| aew Registered Member #1929 Joined: Wed Nov 30 2011, 03:05pmPosts: 2825 | Thanks for the explanation Bill. I suppose querying the way you arrived at the size was just me probing the theory rather than the practice. Whatever the method, the results looked just fine. As far as bending them into a U-shape, I thought that was the way that they were stowed. | ||
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| Bill Edgin |
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| Registered Member #4362 Joined: Wed Jan 22 2014, 02:37amPosts: 373 | Thanks for the compliment. As far as how they are stowed, I have seen them all three ways. I have photos of models I took in the Lisbon Maritime Museum that have them rolled and stood on end. I also have photos of other Connie builds where they were lays horizontally. I also have seen photos of commercial ships doing that. So I think the argument can be made for whatever configuration you want. I do think that on end might have been the only way that they could have stored all the crews hammocks. This would also have doubled the height of the coverage. So it is entirely possible, that they did it on end. FYI, The Portuguese models had hammocks that were huge. Either artistic license (what I thin), or the sailors had the most comfortable beds on the high seas. These were not in netting but in a slot on the rail and were layer in diagonally. I have included a few of these photos taken from different models. They show the hammocks standing more or less on end in the slot. I can't decide if these were supposed to be rolled end to end, or longways like the British and Americans did. Some of these look short enough that they could be rolled end to end, but others look too long for that. Regardless, they are all very fat!   | ||
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| Bill Edgin |
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| Registered Member #4362 Joined: Wed Jan 22 2014, 02:37amPosts: 373 | Today I feel the actual rigging has started. I have been working on serving the foremast shrouds as well as serving them around the mast. However today I actually rigged the foremast topgallant shrouds! Now I feel like the rigging has started. I am doing as much of the rigging as possible off the ship. This is my first time rigging a ship so coming up with the processes I can follow that are repeatable is always my first task. I have not affixed the lines yet since I still want to be able to adjust them as the full rigging gets placed on the mast and it on the ship. So in the mean time, they are terminated by wrapping them around the shroud in two half hitches. Tomorrow I will continue to work on the foremast rigging.    | ||
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| Gary M |
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| Registered Member #4198 Joined: Tue May 07 2013, 10:50pmPosts: 908 | Bill, She is looking fantastic. I like the idea of doing as much mast rigging before stepping them. I will do the same. The hammocks are very nicely presented and add real interest. Best, Gary | ||
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| Bill Edgin |
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| Registered Member #4362 Joined: Wed Jan 22 2014, 02:37amPosts: 373 | Thanks Gary. Now that I have actually started to string the rigging on the masts, I feel better about it. It was just so nebulous before. Now it is just chipping away at it. At least with the rigging, there will not be hundreds of the same thing to do over and over like the cannon and hammocks. That is until I get to the ratlines. Oh well... | ||
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