USS Constitution from Scientific Models

At the USNA museum workshop Marquart's Anatomy of the Constitution was, during my tenure (and I suppose still is), used as a generally reliable resource in restoring models of American fighting sail from the first half of the 19thc. roughly up to the Civil War and as such is considered invaluable by the curator of models and director of education for the museum. (As is the "Anatomy of a Ship" series in general.) While there will always (and should be) questions and challenges to the information provided by any given resource, Marquart's book is considered very reliable on the basics pertaining to the Constitution and her related vessels. As long as people have curiosity and breath in their bodies no word can rightly be considered the last word on any given subject.
While the nickname" Connie" may not be commonly or officially used by those most intimately connected to the Constitution, it is a nickname I have heard used with some regularity among people interested in modeling her who are not experts but speaking in endearing terms as fans.

IMHO, Pete
 
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Peter Gutterman said:
At the USNA museum workshop Marquart's Anatomy of the Constitution was, during my tenure (and I suppose still is), used as a generally reliable resource in restoring models of American fighting sail from the first half of the 19thc. roughly up to the Civil War and as such is considered invaluable by the curator of models and director of education for the museum. (As is the "Anatomy of a Ship" series in general.) While there will always (and should be) questions and challenges to the information provided any given resource, Marquart's book is considered very reliable on the basics pertaining to the Constitution and her related vessels. As long as people have curiosity and breath in their bodies no word can rightly be considered the last word on any given subject.
While the nickname" Connie" may not be commonly or officially used by those most intimately connected to the Constitution, it is a nickname I have heard used with some regularity among people interested in modeling her who are not experts but speaking in endearing terms as fans.

IMHO, Pete
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Thanks, Pete. You said it better than I could.
 
It's interesting that few if any of the experts of my acquaintance consider that book as reliable and valid. But this is not an academic or professional environment. We build our models for fun, and strict adherence to the reliability and validity of references is not required. As I said, I was trying to be helpful.

Bill
 
I don't have a book of rigging the Connie, but I do have the ship's logs. My mother bought me this book for my birthday when I was 26, because I had built the Revell USS Constitution years before. The book has a piece of the ships wood on the front cover, taken from original wood replaced on the ship during refit. It would be cool to buy a piece of wood from the USS Constitution from the 1973 refit off eBay and incorporate it into your model, Vic. Does anyone else in our forum have this book? I see it is also for sale on Amazon for $75.00: LINK

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DARIVS ARCHITECTVS said:
I don't have a book of rigging the Connie, but I do have the ship's logs. My mother bought me this book for my birthday when I was 26, because I had built the Revell USS Constitution years before. The book has a piece of the ships wood on the front cover, taken from original wood replaced on the ship during refit. It would be cool to buy a piece of wood from the USS Constitution from the 1973 refit off eBay and incorporate it into your model, Vic. Does anyone else in our forum have this book? I see it is also for sale on Amazon for $75.00: LINK

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I am most impressed!!!!

Bill
 
WilliamM said:
It's interesting that few if any of the experts of my acquaintance consider that book as reliable and valid. But this is not an academic or professional environment. We build our models for fun, and strict adherence to the reliability and validity of references is not required. As I said, I was trying to be helpful.

Bill
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I appreciate it, Bill.
 
Wait a minute . . . that which is listed as "lower deck" is actually the Main Deck. The Upper Deck is the Spar deck, which carried the Carronades. There was no upper Third Deck. One could consider that the elevated Captain's Quarters aft on the early USS United States might have been that which is shown on the drawings, but that was not a Quarter Deck.

The Spar Deck was a combination of the Quarter Deck and the Forecastle combined with two bridges connecting the two. The Main Deck located one level below the Spar Deck carried Constitution's 24 Lb main armament. The Spar Deck carried the Carronades. Constitution might have carried the Main Armament for a short while, but the Spar Deck was too weak to carry it for long. There was never a third level Quarter Deck. That position was located amidships on the Spar Deck.

Bill
 
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WilliamM said:
Wait a minute . . . that which is listed as "lower deck" is actually the Main Deck. The Upper Deck is the Spar deck, which carried the Carronades. There was no upper Third Deck. One could consider that the elevated Captain's Quarters aft might have been that which is shown on the drawings, but that was not a Quarter Deck.

The Spar Deck was a combination of the Quarter Deck and the Forecastle combined with two bridges connecting the two. The Main Deck located one level below the Spar Deck carried Constitution's 24 Lb main armament. The Spar Deck carried the Carronades. Constitution might have carried the Main Armament for a short while, but the Spar Deck was too weak to carry it for long. There was never a third level Quarter Deck. That position was located amidships on the Spar Deck.

Bill
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You know, that’s right! What’s that picture doing in a Constitution book? Maybe it’s a different ship just to show an example of something. I probably took that page out of context.
 
Vfordyce said:
You know, that’s right! What’s that picture doing in a Constitution book? Maybe it’s a different ship just to show an example of something. I probably took that page out of context.
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It you read the caption, the picture is used as a generic cross section of a three deck ship and not the Constitution. It also says that this example is of a ship larger that anything the Americans had in their navy.
 
Vfordyce said:
I didn’t read it. Just jumped on it without checking it out. My bad.
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Your not alone in this issue, I know I have made replies without reading full body of posting only to learn I was in error not the poster.

I think your a human like most of us and we shall never be perfect, can only try to be and also pay attention to the small print, as they used to say.
 
Kurt Konrath said:
Your not alone in this issue, I know I have made replies without reading full body of posting only to learn I was in error not the poster.

I think your a human like most of us and we shall never be perfect, can only try to be and also pay attention to the small print, as they used to say.
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Amen. Thumbsup
 
Kurt Konrath said:
Your not alone in this issue, I know I have made replies without reading full body of posting only to learn I was in error not the poster.

I think your a human like most of us and we shall never be perfect, can only try to be and also pay attention to the small print, as they used to say.
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I’m blaming my eyesight. ;)
 
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