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Constitution Cross Section MS20245 Model Expo

Kurt Konrath said:
Were the fish to long, or did your compromise on mast length make it too short!
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This discrepancy was also mentioned in the build by Tom Culb. I believe the mast length was also noted by him. I cut the "Fish" a bit shorter to fit the deck surround. The mast I made is actually a bit longer than the instructions would have you make, so the length of the "fish"as instructed is definitely too long.

Rob
 
Kurt Konrath said:
The fighting top is looking good, but I never understood why all the wood was on top, where sailors stood, versus underneath. I know there was a crosstree that it sat on, but all the edges of raw wood and mostly bare feet, seems like it would be hard to stand firm in a rough sea!

Do the plans say where the saved piece will be used later?
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I agree, I had the same thought. Hopefully the wood was smooth and sealed. Perhaps it was actually advantageous to have the wood there to stand between during rough seas?

I believe they just want you to save that piece to aid in the markings of the timbers. I do not think it has another use. Of course I will definitely keep it. (I have a pile of good from previous kits that annoys the Admiral, but you never know when you will need a piece!)

Rob
 
Using some wood filler, the Chaffing fish was sanded smooth. I then brushed clean the mast and used alcohol to get rid of any residual debris.
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Mast reenforcing bands were next to be applied to the mast. The instructions would have you use 1/64 X 1/16 brass strip but I used a simpler method that Tom Culb did in his build log. I used 1/16" auto pin-striping tape. Tom used a tape called chart pack which is probably similar. It is easy to apply and cuts very easily with a blade. Once it was applied I burnished it down. I used two layer to provide some thickness.
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Kurt Konrath said:
I have seen build logs where shipwrights have used cardboard strips or masking tape to represent these bands, normally colored black.
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The pin-striping tape can be bought in many different colors. I just happened to have a roll of white, and later on the instructions will have you paint the whole mast assembly white.
 
The "rings" on the mast were finally installed.
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The next step is to place the cheeks that will hold the fighting top. In order to make sure the cheeks are in the correct place, I decided to make more of the fighting top so I could fit it on the mast and make adjustments to the cheeks. The cross and terstle tree on the bottom of the fighting top were 4 laser cut parts that fit exactly. After cleaning them up I glues the forward crosstree onto the fighting top. Then using the trestle trees spacers I glued the rear crosstrees into position.
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The trestle trees have what the instruction call "thumb cleats" and on the parts are identified as "cheek cleats' to make things confusing. These are basically pulleys. They have metal sheaves inside. You have to be a bit careful unpacking out the sheaves as there are others slightly smaller that will be used later on, The smaller one is on the bottom in the picture below.
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You are to drill holes in these thumb cleats in order to put small nails through them and the sheaves to make a pulley. When you do this I would suggest you place a sheave in the thumb cleat when you drill the hole to prevent it from breaking, (Ask me how I know this :rolleyes:) It is probably a good idea to coat these thumb cleats with some thin CA first in order to make them more resistant to breaking, Be that as it may, the holes were drilled.
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The thumb cleats actually came out ok and the sheaves rotate freely.
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Two bolsters were also to be fitted onto the trestle trees. These were laser cut pieces and had to be made quarter round. Using the sanding drum of my nail drill made this very easy to do.

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The thumb cleats were glued onto the trestle trees and test fitted onto the fighting top along with the bolsters.
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There is also another, smaller bolster that sits on top of the fighting top. It is also shown on the building plans. There was no laser cut piece for this that I could find so I made one from the numerous scrap pieces available.

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After the mast chocks and Mast fairlead were attached as shown in the plans, the mast and the fighting top were covered with a coat of sanding sealer.
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At this point I noticed there were two sizes of mast chocks supplied. I believe the smaller one (the ones I installed naturally) are for the upper masts. On the laser cut parts both sets of Chocks are labeled "Mast Chocks" seemingly to help confuse you. Luckily the smaller chocks snapped off cleanly and the larger chocks were installed. The also want you to install the boarding pike racks. However these are fragile pieces and I will assemble them along with the boarding pike separately and place them on the mast later on in the build.

The top of the fighting top was painted tamyia light gray. After carefully painting the entire surface I noticed they want you to keep the rear surface unpainted in order to later install a guard rail. After the paint dried I was easily able to remove the paint from that part using my little mini drum sander,

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Using 1/32 X 1/8" strip I made the edge batten which goes against 3 sides of the fighting top. As suggested I placed the planks in hot water for a few minutes. I then wiped them down with Windex. The ammonia in Windex seems to make the wood more pliable. Going slowly I bent the piece around the fighting mast and held it in place to dry using rubber bands.

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Good afternoon Rob. I had some catching up to do do I wasn’t going to send a gazillion likes;). Suffice to say you are making wonderful progress- I like the use of tape for the mast bands, it gives a nicer finish than brass strips IMHO.Cheers Grant
 
After the edge batten was dry, it was glued into place and the ends trimmed flush. The underside of the fighting top and thew crosstrees were painted white. There are then 5 deadeyes with eyebolts below then that have to be constructed to fit in the slots on each side of the fighting top.Using the instructions I used about 1 3/4 inch of the supplied 28 gauge wire for each deadeye, The wire was stretched first to make it straight. Using a 1/32" drill bit as a mandrel an eyebolt was created by twisting the wire around the drill bit. By trial and error I found that twisting the wire three times made a long enough stem to fit through the sllots.
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The thin wire was easily bent around the deadeye by using my finders,
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the 2 wires were brought together on the side of the deadeye and twisted together. The wires were then snipped close to the deadeye and the end pressed down onto the dead eye to bury it as much as possible.

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The deadeyes were then treated through the slots of the fighting top and glued into position using some CA.

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After painting the mast white, I test fitted it into the hull. You can notice here that the mast has a slight rake, as shown in the plans and machined in the placement of the holes for the mast down the various decks.
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It was here that I notice that I had made a serious error. The cheeks are suppose to face forward as the picture above shows. However looking at the plans The chaffing fish is also suppose to face forward and the rings go to the rear. I had glued the Cheeks on facing the wrong way,
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Also, upon close inspection, I had positioned the cheeks the wrong straight edge was on the top. In retrospect this was a saving grace. If I rotated the cheeks 90 degrees the correct straight edge would face the correct direction. I carefully detached the cheek, rotated it 90 degrees and marked the additional area I had to cut out,

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I cut the area out and leveled wevytlhing using a chisel blade and file.
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The cheeks were then reattached.
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It is amazing how easily these errors can pop up and it can be prevented If I just take my time and check everything against the plans.
 
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