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Tree rails

Modelstation said:
No, not tree nail, it says tree rails.

Thank you, Bob. I appreciate your input. I really couldn’t find any solid answers, only guesses online. In reading further, it seems it was a term that Karl Marquart was using in reference to the Constitution and her two sister ships, the USS President and the USS United States. It reads, “On the latest draught the foremost gun port or bridle port has been added to the gun deck, twelve bollard timbers are situated fore and aft under the rough tree rail and a second gammoning slot is cut into the gammoning knee.
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It may be that something has been lost in the translation if Marquart was originally writing in German, his first language. In any event, there is no entry whatsoever for "tree rail" in either my copy of the Oxford Dictionary of Ships and the Sea or de Kerchove's Maritime Dictionary. de Kerchove's (invaluable) French and German language multilingual indices show no entry for the French "barre d'arbre" or German "baumgleis." I don't think there's any more authoritative sources for terms than the OED's Dictionary of Ships and the Sea or de Kerchove's Maritime Dictionary.

As the Constitution Museum disavows any idea of what a "tree rail" is on the vessel in their care, I'm afraid Mr. Marquart took the answer to his grave. If you can find "twelve bolard timbers situated fore and aft," you'll find the "rough tree rail" right on top of them! :D
 
There's no "tree-rails" there's tree-nails aka tren'ls, trunnels, etc, which are basically pegs used to attach planing, decking, futtocks (frame parts) and a few other things.
 
JerryTodd said:
There's no "tree-rails" there's tree-nails aka tren'ls, trunnels, etc, which are basically pegs used to attach planing, decking, futtocks (frame parts) and a few other things.
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The book I am referring to is the Anatomy of the USS Constitution, he refers to tree rails, not tree nails. I know what tree nails are, but he wrote tree rails and the reference was to these rails, but I never heard of the reference of tree rails, that’s why I inquired. It’s not that big of a deal, I was just curious if anyone ever heard of such a thing.
 
Marquart right? There was a long discussion on Model Ship World before the crash about the errors of that book.
Maybe it was a reference to cross-trees and trestle-trees?
 
JerryTodd said:
Marquart right? There was a long discussion on Model Ship World before the crash about the errors of that book.
Maybe it was a reference to cross-trees and trestle-trees?
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"Karl Heinz Marquardt," mit der "D," to be exact. I believe you are correct that there was a substantial discussion of the errors in his Constitution book in the Anatomy of the Ship series in the MSW forum before its (allegedly accidental) complete deletion some time ago. Overlooking Marquardt's service in the Nazi Kriegsmarine, he was certainly deserving of respect as one of the more prolific participants in the modeling, maritime museum, and nautical history fields during the second half of the 20th and first fifth of the 21st Centuries. As far as I know, however, he was not a classically educated historian and so it is not surprising that he undertook on a number of occasions to design model kits of named ships lacking any historical record of their actual appearance. Perhaps the times were such that academic rigor was less then than what is now expected by conventional standards, but, without question, despite all his accolades, Marquardt has been subject to extensive and seemingly justified criticism regarding the accuracy of certain of his works. Unfortunately, the "management" of MSW has apparently made it their policy to "muzzle" such academic criticism, especially with respect to the poor record of accuracy exhibited by the products of some ship model kit manufacturers, even to the point of "banning" participation by prominent authorities on the grounds that such academic criticism is "abusive" to those uninformed modelers who may have built or are building such kits. In the present instance, Billings' Constitution is a prime example of the maxim, "You get what you pay for." and its ship model kit corollary, "... and with ship model kits, you run the risk of paying a lot more for what you don't get."

Here again, it is worth restating that "It's a jungle out there." and anyone contemplating purchasing a ship model kit would be well advised to complete their due diligence before spending their hard-earned cash and to recognize, as Albert Einstein said, that they should not believe everything they read in an online forum. :D

Historical accuracy based on independent research is what elevates a ship model above a mere bit of decor to a worthwhile contribution to the historical record.
 
I don't know the particulars of Marquardt's book's short-comings. I happened on it while trying to figure out why modelers keep putting crows-feet where they don't belong, including Marquardt. I'm wondering now what 20 syllable German word would tumble out as tree-rails.

I think a better source for Constitution is Olof A Eriksen's, Constitution - All Sails Up and Flying*, though that's about the ship at a very specific point in her history.
*I checked, there's no tree-rail in there either.
 
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