• Ships of Scale has incorportated an extra level of security when you log In. Please follow on-screen prompts to acknowledge that you are not a robot via a "Check Box" or a "Pictorial Check Box Puzzle". This is needed due to higher level of AI Activity Security.
  • SUBSCRIBE TO SHIPS IN SCALE TODAY!

    The beloved Ships in Scale Magazine is back and charting a new course for 2026!
    Discover new skills, new techniques, and new inspirations in every issue.

    NOTE THAT OUR NEXT ISSUE WILL BE July/August 2026
  • Win a Free Custom Engraved Brass Coin!!!
    As a way to introduce our brass coins to the community, we will raffle off a free coin during the month of August. Follow link ABOVE for instructions for entering.

USS OHIO 1820 ship of the line

DAWarden-(Jaager) said:
BBB,

Excellent job on replicating Ohio. But then, you did a similarly excellent job recreating the whole U.S. sailing navy.

You are probably not going to like me saying this.
I am willing to delete should you wish - but

I do not think that the individual copper sheathing plates would have been new penny bright even before they were tacked to the hull. High humidity, oxygen, carbonic acid rain and then when launched - sea water. Probably more verdigris than brown where air hit. Ohio did not sail enough for moving water to affect the plates' surface oxidation?

I was at first put off by the deck being sun bleached. Because of RN influence, I thought of what the admiral would say about no holy stoned decks. Then it dawned on me, Ohio was never used. It was a white elephant - too big and too expensive to use. No admiral, only a maintenance crew, no holy stoning. Sun bleached is probably correct.

About the black standing rigging - Drake's well was 1859. Was there enough asphalt seep on the east coast before then to take the place of Carolina or Georgia Pine tar?

As for running rigging: For how much of Ohio's life were the yards even crossed? I am thinking bare poles for most of it?

Your next step - the backstay foot ropes - ratlines - if I had to climb them barefoot I do not think that I would like for any tar coating the surface. A hot sticky mess in the Summer. No quick way off the burn - unlike a gravel and tar road when I was a kid.
Click to expand...
I could use this method to patina the copper. I let it do so naturally. The 4th picture is 5 years old.. The tar browns with age and foot rope tarring is thinner than usually used on the other standing rigging. Foot traffic also wears it away.

https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/USS_Ohio_(1820) Check out this site. She actually had something of a career.

fig. 4.JPG

fig. 7.JPG

fig.5.JPG

fig. 2.JPG
 
Thank you for the link. I feel better about Ohio. It was not a waste of tax money.

Your choices are well thought out. I think worth being posted.
The bottom looking more realistic.
This stuff blue or green may also work =
Modern Masters
Green Patina Aging Solution (PA901)
Green Patina Aging Solution is an acidic solution in water and when applied over Oxidizing Copper Paint will react with the real metal particles in the paint, thus speeding up the oxidization process creating a beautiful, authentic Green Patina finish.

I do not remember which ships were in your fleet.
Did you do these odd ducks?

Lawrence -brig 10 1843 - a wholeeeee lot of drag!
Hudson frigate 44 1825 - it would take a long search to find a frigate with less attractive lines.
Albany corvette 1843 - sleek lines but had no business carrying arty with any real weight.
 
Last edited:
Incredible amount of work from the initial posting of April 5, 2026 to July 8, 2026!
You are doing a fantastic job.
This is your ship model so finish it off the way you would like it to when is is done.
Whether the copper plating had a patina at the time of its launch is immaterial - its a model after all.
I'm certain that the Admiralty models didn't represent what the ship looked like at launch.
Keep up the good work.
 
How about a model of CSS Virginia built from the burnt out hull of USS Merrimack? While I don’t believe that the Confederates scuttled her (actually they blew her up) in the Gosport Harbor itself they did so nearby.

Roger
 
Y.T. said:
Am I correct saying that USA ships of that era were not having as much beatification features as European ships of same time? I see they were very practical and simplistic.
Click to expand...
European ships of the 19th century gradually grew to be less decorative as well. The cost of guilding became prohibitive on both sides of the Atlantic, and certain design characteristics such as the rounded stern were made for strength instead of beauty. Where guilding was common into the 19th century, it was becoming less so mid-way through the War of 1812. It was replaced by white paint against black hulls.

Your USS Ohio is magnificent! I wish that plastic and wood kit manufacturers would follow suit and make kits of these American ships built after 1815!
 
Roger Pellett said:
How about a model of CSS Virginia built from the burnt out hull of USS Merrimack? While I don’t believe that the Confederates scuttled her (actually they blew her up) in the Gosport Harbor itself they did so nearby.

Roger
Click to expand...
I have plans to build both the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia in the same scale as the USS Merrimack that I have already made. (1/72).
 
I just quickly went through the comments I made with each of my posts. Something I did not see, but thought I had mentioned is that about half way through this build a person connected with the State of Ohio contacted me and ask if I would be interested in selling her to be displayed in the Ohio State capitol building and/or in it's museum. I agreed. The quickness of this build can be attributed to that fact. I have been putting in about 6 hours a day, 5 days a week on her since then in order to finish her before October 1st. (I normally only work around 2 hours a day perhaps 5 days a week on my ships.) In early November after displaying her in the Arizona State Fair in Phoenix, I will be driving her to Ohio. I will circle up north through St. Paul, Minnesota to visit cousins there for a couple days, then travel west to Fargo, North Dakota to visit my brothers and sister who live there, then a week later return to Vail, Arizona (outside Tucson).
 
WilliamM said:
I wish that plastic and wood kit manufacturers would follow suit and make kits of these American ships
Click to expand...

Although it does not restrain the kit makers - polystyrene is perfectly awful at simulating wood - and since these warships tend to be large - a miniature range of scales is mostly a requirement (unless you go kamikaze at first and sober up when you notice that you are building a Baby Huey). The small diameter spars get well beyond what small polystyrene rods can sustain.

HIC has drawn 1:48 plans of just about every USN sailing navy vessel that matters.
These early Industrial Age products are poor subjects for POF display. They are uncomplicated enough that WL carved layers are straight forward to do. With just a bit of reading about methods and some practice the whole fleet is yours to build.
For this sort of vessel, scratch is probably easier than a kit. It just requires an adjustment of imagination and being able to see possibilities.


threebs said:
I have plans to build both the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia
Click to expand...
When I was a kid - Civil War obsessed - I was lucky enough to buy these booklets from the Museum shop.

U S IRONCLAD MONITOR
BESSE,S B
THE MARINER'S MUSEUM
NEWPORT NEWS, VA
1936

C S IRONCLAD VIRGINIA
BESSE,S B
THE MARINER'S MUSEUM
NEWPORT NEWS, VA
1937
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top