USS Constitution Revell 1/96 kit

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Jul 20, 2020
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Location
New England
My HiS carronade gun carriages for the spar deck on the 1/96 Connie arrived, but with no instructions, and I'm having a hard time finding any instructions on the net. Is anyone familiar with these carriages? They will certainly look better than the plastic kit carriages.
I am redoing the pin rails too, with 6mm blackened belay pins. The kit pins like to snap.
I have pics of my build on my I phone. Is it possible to email them to this forum on SoS and if so, how? Not a pc guru!
 
Started working on the HiS carronade carriages. looked at the Constitution spar deck online and figured out from that how their carriages go together. They look good. A little primer, some paint and ready to roll.
The carriages you get with the kit are a newer version of the carriages she carried. HiS are truer to the 1808-1817 period. And they look more realistic than the plastic ones.
 
Tried both forward and aft carronades and carriages, a little sanding is required for proper fitting. I did not purchase the brass guns, just the carriages, from HiS. I am keeping the kit's plastic guns. The brass guns are expensive, and the kit guns are more to scale, and the brass gets painted black anyway. You have to get a "rod" and drill through the kit carronades for the rod to fit through so you can mount them on HiS carriages. Got the rod at my local hobby store.
The carriages need primed for painting. It's easier to paint them on the form before assembling them, with a little follow up touch ups after.
 
I think that if you are accessing SOS from your phone that when you post a reply you will see an attach files box on the lower left. Click on that on it should take you to your gallery on the phone and then you can select the pics and post them. If not you may have to download them to your computer and then upload them to the site.
 
I take all the photos with my Samsung phone, transfer them to a separate folder on my lap top, then it is easier to retrieve the photos when you attach photos to your building log, greetings-
 
HiS gun carriages in place on the spar deck, still have to glue the quoins to them. Doing the pin rails now, 8 cut out and painted, ready for holes to be drilled for the belay pins. Have more pics to transfer to file for Connie on the laptop, then download here. Will do that this afternoon.
I have some thin but inflexible wire nails to attach through the bulwarks to make sure the pin rails don't break free during rigging. The pin rails I have painted the same color as the spar deck bulwarks since they are over scale, and that should help blend them in without drawing attention to the out of scale.
While waiting for the paint to dry, will continue working on the Titanic.
 
I have given up on drilling holes in the pin rails with my pin drill. Time to use my mini drill press. The pin drill bits wander even after using a punch. Drill press results are much neater and more precise. And those itty bitty drill bits break less with the drill press.
 
My Connie was utterly destroyed when my 9 year old Grand daughter brought one of her friends down to show her the Connie, She picked it up and was turning it for her friend to show her the entire ship when she dropped it. Her little friend tried to catch it, stepped forward and stepped on it. The hull was broken, both gun deck and spar deck were broken, only about 2 inches of the keel is still in one piece. This was devastating. I have another Connie on hand, and started the hull but somehow my heart isn't in it any more.
I will do the next build when my spirits rise again.
In the meantime, I have ordered Shipyard's HMS Alert 1/72 scale card stock kit (never knew about paper ship models!) and will console myself with trying this new to me medium.
 
I restarted my Connie in March, and have the masts stepped in, ready for the standing rigging. The gun stripe is yellow, the lower masts are yellow with upper masts brown as some of their frigates were painted. I also found an article that said the some of the British captains painted the
ends of the yards white, to make them easier to see when sailing and working the yards at night It also said that the Brits had latitude when painting their ships and there was no set and fast rule.
So my lower masts are British yellow, the uppers are brown and the spar tips are white. (If you're goint to camo as a Britisher, you might as well go whole hog)
I broke the fore mast and bowsprit, but had spares from the wrecked model.
The spars are in the lower in port position and she will sport furled sails as if getting ready to go to sea.
It sure feels good to get out of the funk of having the other Connie wrecked, spirits are high again.
 
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