Revell 1/96 Connie, transom and glue for gun deck carriages

when rigging the spar deck guns to the bulwarks, does the rope loop over or under the ball at the rear of the gun?
That depends...

On older ships, the cascabel did not have an iron ring on the top, and the rope is wrapped with one turn around the cascable. Most of the time the breeching rope was wrapped with the ends leaving the top of the cascable. To keep the line in place of the cascable, it a small piece of cord was used to sieze the nreeching rope position so it won't shift or come off. The following pictures come off the MSW forum from a thread on this same topic.
1729721807935.png

USS Constitution
1729722065455.png

Rarely, the breeching rope was wrapped with the ends leading from the bottom of the cascabel.
1729722868943.png

On many later ships, the breeching line had a cut splice where it passes over the cascabel.
1729722025475.png1729722299005.png

If a ring is provided, the breeching rope is rigged like on this carronade on USS Constitution.
1729722230600.png
 
Thanks, that was a big help! The HIS carriages look like the second picture. I should have asked sooner as I would have rigged them differently. As it is, I was rigging them according to the instruction sheet.
 
Last edited:
This was a tricky repair, the bow sprit was broken and there was no bow sprit in the kit I was given, I cut the broken sprit off at an angle (scarf joint) to give more gluing surface just behind the yard sail spar, and that is where I lashed the yard sail at an angle to try and hide the glued joint, then painted the whole thing after sanding the joint.
I am hoping when the rigging is done that no one will notice the errors in the lashing placement.
I had a similar problem repairing the ship's wheel, it was destroyed and there was no wheel in the new kit, it was painstakingly glued back together, and while not perfect, I am again hoping that once the Connie is finished, no one will notice these repairs.
Also waiting on Model Expo for belaying pins, I cut off the plastic pins, punch where I will drill for the ME pins, those are more robust and also look better and are easier to work than those flimsy plastic ones you get with the kit. The second pix is what was left on my ships wheel after Pepper was finished with it, I have repaired this too, a lot of time has been spent trying to repair parts that were wrecked that were no in the kit my buddy gave me. Part of the problem is that many of the sprues had parts removed or jostled loose and a lot of them were lost. The bow sprit is installed.
 
Last edited:
Sadly, the only belaying pins I can find in 5mm are brass, I was hoping for wooden pins, boxwood, walnut, or what ever, even oak, I think they look better than the brass, the racks that came with the Connie are just a mite too tight for 1/4" pins...BAH, HUMBUG!
 
We live a block away from Lake Wequaquet, The Cape Cod Canal is 14 miles away. We were raised on a farm in the southern part of Pennsylvania, between Philly and Pittsburgh, with the Conewago and Possum Creeks running through our farm. we had terrific trout fishing, and our version of a "big" boat was a small Johnny boat with a flat bottom. We raised steers, milk cows, chickens and hogs. We purchased the farm in 1947, got our electricity in 1953, the very first thing we did after getting electrical power was to buy a submersible pump at Sears, and installed a bathroom with running water, eliminating our old 2 hole outhouse. (We thought we died and went to heaven when we got that bathroom.) We got our first TV in 1953 too.
Your three boats were subs? Claustrophobia is setting in at that thought.
Dad was a 30 year Navy man, whose favorite saying to us 8 kids was, "a place for everything and everything in its place", a WWII vet. I was Army,and couldn't wait to complete my term of service, in hot water from start to finish! (Never saw eye to eye with those fellows!)
Married a wonderful Italian gal, and have had a weight problem ever since. (51 years now). Four boys and a spoiled rotten girl whose main objective in life seems to be to drive "Mom and Dad" crazy. 11 Grand children and great Grand children, who also seem to think that they not only drive Mom and Dad crazy, but also drive Grammy and Grampy crazy as well!
Nice to meet you.
 
Rigging the forecastle and quarterdeck railings now. I shaved a block of wax into small slivers then melted the wax on the stove with the rope in the wax, let it sit for w few minutes, took it out and rubbed it down.
I also found out that wifey does not appreciate it when you use one of her pans for wax melting! Being wed to a hot tempered Italian gal can get interesting at times!
 
First photo shows fragility, second pgoto is what I use for blocks, et, and am wondering if anyone knows whether thee come in a curved shap, third photo pin rails drilled out and in this case, 1/4 inch boxwood pins used to replace thoase flimsy kit pins, using three sizes, these are 1/4 inch, second and third are 3/16" size and 4mm.I like the look of the boxwod too.

20241102_162332.jpg

20241102_162356.jpg

20241102_162411.jpg
 
My son has informed me that he has a large mantle over his fireplace, and this would be a perfect spot for the USS Constitution, and that he has not any cats! This sounds like Dad does the work, son reaps the benefits.Redface
After this Connie is finished and the HMS Alert card stock is finished, I think I will try a wooden model, eyeing the Morgan whaler.
 
Was continuing the rigging of the spar deck guns to the bulwarks when the wife came in and made me clean up my hobby bench. Now I can't locate anything. The gals have to learn to leave the guys alone sometimes! Of course they have their secret weapon too..."Do you want dinner?" "What a mess!" "How can you work in this disaster?". Ahhh, the things married men have to put up with!
Then she goes out and says that her friends should see what I'm doing on my hobby bench, after totally disrupting the whole process.
 
Last edited:
OK, working on the spar deck guns, using the kit supplied rigging lines, it says small, medium and large, and to use medium to secure the gun carriages to the bulwarks. They all look the same to me, can't even tell the difference using a 4x magnifying glass. Are these lines in scale? Better to us Syrene?
Not too sure but the bow sprit seems longer than it should be too.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top