Revel 1:96 USS Constitution by 11320 Titanic

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11320 Titanic

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Jul 20, 2020
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Location
New England
I am building the Revell 1:96 USS Constitution from an unfinished kit. Reworking a hull that some else has started presents some difficulties, missing parts, painting that has been done so far, broken parts, a lot has to be reworked. I had ordered decking from HIS, never got it, so ordered one from Scale Decks which I used on my wrecked Connie before. After those decks were finished, my HIS order arrived so I will be using that on this build.
I have pictures on my phone, loaded them to my pc but did not save them to my pc, will try that again. Also have to figure out how to drag then to SOS.
It seems that most of the missing parts, including the rudder, can be salvaged from thr wreck.
 
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Excellent choice. I built that kit a total of 3 times in my plastic modeling era. I put thread ratlines instead of plastic, wooden dead eyes and cloth sails to the last one.
 
11320 Titanic said:
I am building the Revell 1:96 USS Constitution from an unfinished kit.
Click to expand...
Repaired the bulkhead, ready to paint. Still prepping hull.
I have sen numerous builds of the Revell Connie, a few under sail, most with no sails.
I have decided to build this one with sails furled.
Question...were the furled sails secured above the spar or below the spar? Were the spars angled while sails were furled?
(Reading my copy of "Jackstay"
The last time I tried furled sails, I used wet tissue rolled then dries and sprayed with dull clearcoat...they were ok, but was not happy with them.
 
Built mind in 1978; still sailing...well kind of for a static model. This was prior to a good cleaning and completing some misc. repairs.
A 'Star-30' in the background and my next R/C build a CR-914.

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I understand from my readings on the Connie, that her gun ports were only in place when running rough seas, otherwise they were stored below, so I am not going to use them, also that the tampions were painted the same color as the gun stripe, either white or yellow ocher, depending on what the captain"s tastes were, and whether they were trying to trick British ships into thinking they were British.
It seems that there was no standardization in the Navy back then, and the Captains had much more discretion regarding their ships.
In this vein, I am the captain of this build, and will take advantage of that discretion!
We were raised on a farm in Pennsylvania, had no electricity until 1953, and had a 12 foot skiff we used for fishing local creeks and ponds, and we thought a 12 foot skiff was a big ship! (geez!)
 
Photo 1 is the hull I was given, photo 2 is the gun deck, it was painted tan and the gun carriage stops had been removed, photo 3 is the gun carriage stops after being replaced and painted medium field green, photo 3 is the paint job that has to be cleaned up and repainted and photo 4 is the gun deck after I repainted it, and the spar deck coated with the medium field green.
Next is to add the shrouds to the hull, then install the gun deck. I will have to salvage the rudder from the 'WRECK" and glue it to this hull, I do not like the idea that some could play with the rudder so it will be permently glued to the hull.
I made a base out of soft pine, routed it and will be mounting the Connie on that instead of using the plastic (ugh) model base.
More work when using a hull that was already started.
 
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This is the broken bulkhead, my friend had taken a lot of pieces off the sprues, parts are missing or broken, and he painted one side white and one side gold on the bow sprit. I hope this build will be a good one.

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Some touch up work needed, was trying to figure out if semi gloss or black would be best, and how to keep the touch ups from showing up, my old friend said, You used to repaint your old cars and you blended the paint instead of redoing an entire panel, why don't you do the same here?" Duhhh! This is what you call "brain shut down!" Rudder is next.
 
Bought this piece of scrap pine from the scrap lumber barrel at Home Depot for 3.00, sprayed it with high gloss lacquer (second coat tomorrow), drilled mounting holes for brass pedestals. After it dries tomorrow, the hull will be mounted on it, it will make a better looking and much more stable base for the Connie, making it a lot simpler to work on.
Lacquer by Rust Oilum
 
Oh Oh!!!
My buddy cut the mounting pins off the hull on one side, but fortunately left them on on the other side, saving half of the repair work .Good grief!
Now I will have to drill for eye bolts so I can secure the guns to that half of the hull, hoping not to go through the side of the hull Time to put some tape on the bit to mark the depth. Fortunately, there will be no stress on the eye bolts so this should be okay.
If I had known how much work was involved on redoing a partially started hull, I think I would have saved up 150.00/200.00 and purchased a new kit from E Bay.
Any suggestions for this snafu? At least it's the gun deck instead of the spar deck

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getting a drill in there is difficult, not much room, I'm thinking of drilling some blocks
and gluing them in to attach the eye bolts too
Picture one is of test fit of HIS deck, two is the Connie mounted on her pine base. It seems to be coming along better than I had hoped...so far!

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