USS Constitution 1797 by The Bitter End - 1/76.8 - 44 Gun Frigate - heavily modified kit

[Holger.Schwarz]

Hello, I’m really impressed by your craftsmanship and approach. The build log is really valuable and I’ll be following it with great interest. Best wishes and regards, Holger

 

[Der Alte Rentner]

We were fortunate enough to win a great wine award and one of the countries top wine writers came out for an interview...what were they interested in hearing about? Constitution....this photo made it onto their social media platform. Maybe it inspires someone to join the club!

Congratulations on the award. I've enjoyed one or two wines from South Africa over the years, admittedly, it's been a while, but I recall one Chenin Blanc as having been among the best I've sampled. May I ask the name of your vineyard? and what wines do you produce? Might we find a representation of these anywhere in the US?

 

[Der Alte Rentner]

Since posting the above, I've done some research, found the site for your farm, and got a few small details on your award.

The pictures of the farm make a compelling case to consider a visit. If ever I get over my dread of commercial air travel, I may yet make it over there to see Conny first hand, and perhaps sample the wine.

I've never heard of Pinotage, but evidently your Langdam FrostLine 2024 was the award winner. (2026 Absa Top 10 Pinotage).

I also learned that Pinotage is South Africa’s own red grape, developed in 1925 by Stellenbosch professor Abraham Perold, who crossed Pinot Noir with Cinsaut (then called Hermitage in the Cape — hence Pino-tage). Almost all of it is still grown in South Africa. As an aside, if memory serves, the Chenin Blanc I spoke of was a Stellenbosch.

I dug further to see if it would be possible to purchase any of your farm's wines here, but was told no.. Begging the question, is there anyway to acquire some directly from you?

My trusty A/I agent suggested I seek out other brand Pinotages here. If that's my only option, which of these would you suggest I try? Diemersdal The Journal, Beyerskloof Diesel, or Kanonkop?

Sorry, didn't mean to clutter your build log with the detour, but, you did open the door...



Once again, congrats - not just on your award, but on your build! Great picture, causing me to double down on my conviction that you should keep the finish as natural as possible. I'd hate to see all that beautiful detail covered by black paint.. Since SoS started a new page, I am copying the photo from your post to here.

 

[Marcus.K.]

Wash boards:

A feature I have not seen many examples of but which clearly appears on many sources related to constitution. We see them on the hull model of 1812:

And in the roux president painting:

With such scant evidence for most of this vessel I decided this was enough to justify the addition of a wash board.

I made this through trial and error and slowly carving and fitting a piece of wood until it seemed correct enough to accept(given this will be painted later). I then carved planking lines into it with a small file and created this result:

...

A tiny correction from the researcher, the "wonk" in this thread here

This detail below the lower cheek is called "Wash Cant" - at least that´s what we found in the beautiful AotS "US Frigate Essex" or Jean Boudroits "74 gun ship" (in its English translated version of course).

See here item #13 - the Wash Cant.

The "Wash board" or "Splash Board" is what Haiko shows some posts above:

We understood that in the earlier phase of the American Navy builds the head of the ship was much more open - and therefore the ships bow needed a better protection from green water or the sea shipped over the bow. .. Therefore this raised bulwark was installed and used.

By the way: if you compare the Doughty and Fox Plans of 1794 and 1795 to the later ship - as depicted in Cornè´s side view or in other depictions - and also in later years of course - you will notice that the sweep the Concept had caused a raised bulwark in the bow. The bulwarks did not follow the sweep of the gun deck - it bend more! The real ship instead seemed to have had from the beginning a sweep of the bulwark parallel following the decks sweep, causing the bow to be less protected - and needing more protection against greenwater than most likely Doughty and Fox intended. This may be the experience of the English influenced Doughty and Fox. If we look into Humphreys very early "Terrible" sketch - his very first concept drawing for the 44 gun frigates - we see he did not foreseen any wash board .. Maybe this was one of the points the two, Humphreys and Fox, got into trouble with each other. As a matter of fact: all later representations of Constitution seem to indicate that the bulwark planking in the real ship followed in parallel the gun decks curvature. A more simple and more economic way of building - but causing more greenwater - if not protected by an additional features - such as the wash board.

As the heads of ships forward of the bow in the following years got planked in more and more the sea wasn´t able to reach that often the bow - that this wash boards could then be opened even to allow a better entry into the head. In the 1812 Hull model we can see two entries beside the bow sprit which this older wash boards would not offer! Hull could afford to have them opened as the head was by then already planked in.

Here you can see: the Hull model does not have anymore that specific wash board. Instead the total bow is now enclosed until the height of the Main rail - while just left and right of that bollard timber - those massive timbers left and right of the bow sprit - there is the opening for the sailors to get access to the head by then.

It seems the early ship had this open bow, with no main rail from about were the timber heads were - to the bow sprit.. Later, with better closed head the access to the head could be organized more in the center - and the main rail could be closed all around the bow, as the entrance was now just under that main rail.

 

[GrantTyler]

A strange post today but I thought the forum may enjoy this little titbit.

We were fortunate enough to win a great wine award and one of the countries top wine writers came out for an interview...what were they interested in hearing about? Constitution....this photo made it onto their social media platform. Maybe it inspires someone to join the club!

View attachment 638678C

Congrats on the wine award. Very cool photo. Cheers Grant

 

[Dean62]

I applaud your enthusiasm and craftsmanship. Great job thus far on the ship. I look forward to seeing your future progress.

 

[The BItter End]

Hello, I’m really impressed by your craftsmanship and approach. The build log is really valuable and I’ll be following it with great interest. Best wishes and regards, Holger

Thank you so much for your kind words Holger, It has been a great joy for me and its really nice to be able to share it.

I look forward to the journey with you all!

 

[The BItter End]

Excellence! Thank you for sharing your fine craftsmanship!

Thank you Bill!

Its the greatest pleasure to do so and I hope to see more of you around

 

[The BItter End]

A little tangent.

I have found that it can be difficult to keep track of rigging thread sizes and not all "0.5mm" thread is infact 0.5mm. With the variety of rigging weight available and scale being so critical in our hobby I made a small device to help determine what the actual thread diameter is when making a selection.

This little device has a nicely shaped starting notch and marking lines showing the increments of size(or one can measure with a vernier. Simply wrap the trhead around the shaft 10 times and measure this width. divide the value by 10 and you have your thread thickness. If anyone has a 3d printer and would like the simple little stl please let me know and I will send it your way.

The Notches cant be seen in the printed version below, I have however made them deeper and wider in the updated stl.

 

[WilliamM]

[I am also curious about the quality of "the most accurate kit" - since what I see at the bow on the box´s pictures is for example not a Hercules figure head which should be there for the 1797 appearance ... So how much do you plan to modify the kit?]

I was thinking about this very thing just before you sent this message. I think "the most accurate kit" is a bit of marketing gymnastics. Its more or less a big box of planks with some vague suggestions about what to do with them. From everything I have seen this is going to translate to something quite close to a scratch build with a huge amount of modification.

If you take a glance at my Pegasus you will see that there was fairly little that wasn't somewhat modified and if i could rebuilt that kit i would have done far more.

I am going to do my best to do the kit some sort of justice but I can’t make any promises just yet. If you happen to have any suggestions or see me going the wrong way please let me know!

I think you may be right about the kit being an accurate representation for the 1927 layout, I do foresee this being a problem and an adventure to try and get as close as possible to how she originally looked.

My "research" so far has only been reading scraps of information here and there, browsing through the constitution museum database and drawings, scrolling through logs and even asking AI for some information. I have been working on Pegasus so I have not yet had a chance to really get into proper research.

I would be enormously grateful if you would point me in the right direction on any of this information as one can easily get led astray with bad sources.

I guess this I have finally begun work on my Constitution....in a way

I am very curious about the Hercules figurehead. Does anyone know of a drawing or painting of the figurehead? If so, please direct me to it. Thank you!

 

[JSGerson]

This is a reproduction at the USS Constitution Museum and a photo from 1858 restoration in Portsmouth Maine with the Jackson figurehead

Jon

 

[The BItter End]

I am very curious about the Hercules figurehead. Does anyone know of a drawing or painting of the figurehead? If so, please direct me to it. Thank you!

Good Evening Willam

Unfortunately there is no surviving detailed contemporary image of the Hercules figurehead. The best surviving depiction is the somewhat vague painting by Felice Corne from 1803




The beautiful carving shown by Mr. Gerson above is a modern reproduction based on the description given below.

“As the Constitution of the Empire is the result of the Union of the States, and Union begets Strength, it ought to be represented by an Herculean figure, standing on the firm rock of independence, resting one hand on the fasces which was bound by the Genius of America, and the other hand presenting a scroll of paper, supposed to be the Constitution of America, with proper appendages, the foundation of Legislation"

The figurehead was designed by William Rush and carved by one or more of the Skillin brothers(someone please clarify if you have more information) and based on the style of these carvers I think that the modern reporduction is too clean and not quite naieve enough for the style I would have expected at the time.
below are some more images of the figurehead reproduction as well as some of the skillin brothers surviving carvings:





I hope that helps in some way. I wish we had more information.


Kind Regards

Haiko

 

[WilliamM]

Good Evening Willam

Unfortunately there is no surviving detailed contemporary image of the Hercules figurehead. The best surviving depiction is the somewhat vague painting by Felice Corne from 1803

View attachment 645426


The beautiful carving shown by Mr. Gerson above is a modern reproduction based on the description given below.

“As the Constitution of the Empire is the result of the Union of the States, and Union begets Strength, it ought to be represented by an Herculean figure, standing on the firm rock of independence, resting one hand on the fasces which was bound by the Genius of America, and the other hand presenting a scroll of paper, supposed to be the Constitution of America, with proper appendages, the foundation of Legislation"

The figurehead was designed by William Rush and carved by one or more of the Skillin brothers(someone please clarify if you have more information) and based on the style of these carvers I think that the modern reporduction is too clean and not quite naieve enough for the style I would have expected at the time.
below are some more images of the figurehead reproduction as well as some of the skillin brothers surviving carvings:
View attachment 645427


View attachment 645431

I hope that helps in some way. I wish we had more information.


Kind Regards

Haiko

Haiko,

Thank you for your response! I appreciate it very much. Yes, I am familiar with the Corne painting. I helped with sharing ideas on Fine Scale Modeler years ago when a man posting as Force-9 converted the Revell 1/96 USS Constitution to her 1812 appearance as opposed to her 1924 look depicted in the kit. He used the Corne paintings as his main source but he also ordered the instruction book and instructions from Bluejacket. He also super-detailed the model. His was an outstanding conversion!

Your is also outstanding so far!